Saturday, November 10, 2012 | 7:30pm
Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory
Michael Tippett The Midsummer Marriage (1955)
Sara Heaton, soprano
Julius Ahn, tenor
David Kravitz, baritone
Deborah Selig, soprano
Matthew DiBattista, tenor
Joyce Castle, mezzo-soprano
Lynn Torgove, mezzo-soprano
Robert Honeysucker, baritone

Gil Rose, conductor

PLEASE NOTE: This concert has a total run time of 150 minutes.

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project presents the concert performance of Michael Tippett’s opera The Midsummer Marriage. Modeled after Mozart's The Magic Flute, The Midsummer Marriage follows two couples on the verge of marriage while touching upon both the mythical and earthly worlds.

Program notes (opens in new window)

Tickets are no longer available for online purchase. Please contact the Jordan Hall Box Office at 617.585.1260 to place your order.

News and Press

[Concert Review] Michael Tippett's Midsummer madness

The first American production of any of Michael Tippett's five operas was Sarah Caldwell's The Ice Break for the Opera Company of Boston in 1979. In 1991, BU students did The Knot Garden. This year, Opera Boston scheduled the first Boston production of The Midsummer Marriage, Tippett's first opera (completed in 1952, after six years of work). But Opera Boston folded.

The Boston Phoenix Full review
[Concert Review] Midsummer Marriage: Strange & Wonderful

Saturday night Jordan Hall was, perhaps, half full for three hours of memorable music as Gil Rose conducted Boston Modern Orchestra Project in a concert performance of Michael Tippett’s 1955 opera, The Midsummer Marriage.

The Boston Musical Intelligencer Full review
[Concert Review] A Phoenix Rises from the Ashes of Opera Boston

Boston opera buffs were dealt a hard blow last December when Opera Boston, a company known for innovative productions of less familiar repertory, announced it was shutting down amid a financial and managerial crisis. But the company’s ambitious plans were not entirely sent to the scrap heap of operatic history: Sir Michael Tippett’s opera, The Midsummer Marriage – planned as the centerpiece of the company’s 2012 season – was reconceived as a concert production Saturday at Jordan Hall by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP).

WQXR Full review
[Concert Review] BMOP proceeds with Tippett's 'Midsummer Marriage'

Before a note was played, Saturday night’s Boston Modern Orchestra Project performance of Michael Tippett’s first mature opera, “The Midsummer Marriage,” generated more good will and broader public curiosity than the average season-opener. That’s because the now-defunct Opera Boston had this rarely spotted Tippett opera on its agenda long before the company abruptly folded last December.

The Boston Globe Full review
[Concert Review] BMOP gives worthy advocacy to Tippett's unwieldy "Midsummer Marriage'

One door closes, another opens. With the demise of the ambitious company Opera Boston last year, director Gil Rose lost a chance to explore some of the gems in the outermost reaches of the stage repertory.

Fear not. Rose simply brought one such rarity, Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage—slated last season for Opera Boston but left unperformed—to his other adventurous ensemble, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. BMOP performed a semi-staged version of the mid-20th century opera Saturday evening at Jordan Hall.

Boston Classical Review Full review