Libretto by David Harsent (E)
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Abbreviations (PDF)
Boosey & Hawkes
“The Corridor deals with a single moment, when Orpheus, leading Eurydice out of the underworld, turns around to look at her, and so loses her forever. Birtwistle and Harsent explode the moment of that glance into a series of arias that crystallise the characters’ situations and the separateness of their emotional worlds."
The Guardian
"The music of Eurydice grows slower and slower like an unwinding clock as she retreats ever deeper into the “corridor” of Hell, further than ever from the lamenting Orpheus. As a half-speaking narrator, she puts questions to the players who answer in anguished, rhapsodic music, as lyrical as anything Birtwistle has attempted.”
The Observer
“…a movingly lyrical lament for loss of love.”
Sunday Times