Commissioned by the Women's Playhouse Trust with funds from Greater London Arts, The Royal Victoria Hall Foundation, The Baring Foundation, The Rayne Foundation anf the Ascherberg Trust

Production directed by Jules Wright

  • 1(pic:afl).0.1(asax:bcl).1/2110/3perc/epf (sampler)/hp/2vn.2vc.db
  • 2 hr
  • Deborah Levy, after Federico Garcia Lorca
  • Arabic

Programme Note

SYNOPSIS

Many people will recall the essential narrative of Lorca's play. In a remote Spanish village some seventy years ago, two young people are to marry. The bridegroom is eligible, comparatively well-to-do; the bride, who lives alone wither her widowed father, accepts the marriage proposal as her way forward, to 'land, children, health'. But her passions are secretly taken up with Leonardo Felix, her former sweetheart, now her cousin's husband. Leonardo comes from a family which has feuded for years with that of the Groom. Every generation has seen senseless killings: the groom's mother lost her husband and eldest son, and at the opening of the opera she inveighs against further bloodshed. The killings continue: for on her wedding day itself, the bride runs away with Leonardo. The bridegroom pursues them and the two young men kill each other.

© Nicola LeFanu