Formats
MNRCD111112 - 2xCDs
5060116570618
Details
An Opera in two acts composed by Michael Nyman with libretto by Michael Hastings. The generously packaged, slip-cased 2CD set contains a full colour 44-page booklet with complete libretto The tenth release on MN Records, and the second opera recording for the label, Love Counts is a love story between the unlikeliest of couples: Avril, a lecturer in mathematics at a major college who has divorced a man who physically abused her, and Patsy, a middle-weight fighter at the end of his career who cannot read or recognise numbers. Michael Nyman uses Riemenschneider's collection of 371 Bach chorale harmonisations to help Patsy find his voice – they are harmonically fragmented, sped up, slowed down, overlaid with themselves. Just as Dr P, the Alzheimer's suffering protagonist of Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, has 'his' Schumann, so, in Love Counts, Patsy, a parallel sufferer, has 'his' Bach. Award-winning writer Michael Hastings had previously worked with Nyman on the libretto for the opera Man and Boy: Dada, also available on MN Records. Love Counts was commissioned by the Badisches Staatstheater, Karlesruhe, Germany and first performed there on 12th March 2005, directed by Robert Tannenbaum. This is a recording of the Almeida Theatre (London) production of Love Counts where it was performed in July 2006 by the Michael Nyman Band, bass baritone Andrew Slater and soprano Helen Williams, designed by Peter McKintosh and directed by Lindsay Posner. The production received great critical-acclaim with four-star reviews from The Independent, The Times (London) and The Guardian.
Tracks
Act 1 (CD 1)
1. Excuse me. Excuse me.
2. This lah-di-dah dame
3. Wore these my first pro win
4. How much does this bill say?
5. This is a set
6. Patsy, my love
7. Let?s suppose for today
Act 2 (CD 2)
8. They say nothing is secret
9. Forty seven, sixty three
10. It?s for you. Why is it for you?
11. Now, in Hebrew mathematical art
12. You didn?t tell me you did this every morning
13. Instrumental 1
14. You look as though you have lost something
15. Give me my card back!
16. Hello, guv?nor, yes, it?s me
17. Instrumental 2
18. I?ve tried to tell you what I think
19. Instrumental 3
20. I?ve spoken to the guv?nor at the gym
21. There you are? and that tree