''The Ice Break'' is an English-language opera in three acts, with music and libretto to an original scenario by Sir

Michael Tippett Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as o ...

. The opera received its premiere at the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

on 7 July 1977, conducted by

Colin Davis Sir Colin Rex Davis (25 September 1927 – 14 April 2013) was an English conductor, known for his association with the London Symphony Orchestra, having first conducted it in 1959. His repertoire was broad, but among the composers with whom ...

, the dedicatee of the opera. One meaning of the opera's title is a reference to the actual physical breaking of ice on the frozen northern rivers, signaling the advent of spring. The composer has said that the subject of the opera is "whether or not we can be reborn from the stereotypes we live in."

John Warrack John Hamilton Warrack (born 9 February 1928) is an English music critic, writer on music, and oboist. Career Born in London, Warrack is the son of Scottish conductor and composer Guy Warrack and Jacynth Mary Ellerton. He was educated at Winches ...

has noted that the work "confronts questions of stereotype on a wider scale" compared to Tippett's earlier operas, and also in a contemporary setting. Tippett himself put this line on a preface page to a published score of the opera, the opening of

François Villon François Villon (; Modern French: ; ; – after 1463) is the best known French poet of the Late Middle Ages. He was involved in criminal behavior and had multiple encounters with law enforcement authorities. Villon wrote about some of these e ...

's ''

Ballade des pendus The ''Ballade des pendus'', literally "ballad of the hanged", also known as ''Epitaphe Villon'' or ''Frères humains'', is the best-known poem by François Villon. It is commonly acknowledged, although not clearly established, that Villon wrote ...

:'': :"Brother humans who live after us, do not harden your hearts against us."

Performance history

A German translation was given at the Kiel Opera House the year following its premiere. The

Opera Company of Boston The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts, that was active from the late 1950s through the 1980s. The company was founded by American conducting, conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Bo ...

staged the work in May 1979 for 3 performances, under the direction of

Sarah Caldwell Sarah Caldwell (March 6, 1924March 23, 2006) was an American opera conductor, impresario, and stage director. Early life Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas Fayetteville ( ) is the List of cit ...

, in the first professional production of a Tippett opera in the USA. Covent Garden revived the opera in the same year, but was not thereafter seen until a 1990 concert production at the Henry Wood Proms in the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...

in 1990. A recording was made with the 1990 cast. Birmingham Opera Company, in partnership with 45 arts and social organizations in Birmingham who provided the amateur actors to perform in the many crowd scenes in the opera, gave the second UK and third in total production of the opera, in five

promenade An esplanade or promenade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river or large body of water, where people may walk. The historical definition of ''esplanade'' was a large, open, level area outside fortification, fortress or city walls ...

-style performances of the opera in the B12 warehouse in the

Digbeth Digbeth is an area of central Birmingham, England. Following the remodelling of the Birmingham Inner Ring Road, Inner Ring Road, Digbeth is now considered a district within Birmingham City Centre. As part of the Big City Plan, Digbeth is under ...

area of central Birmingham, in April 2015.

Graham Vick Sir Graham Vick (30 December 1953 – 17 July 2021) was an English opera director known for his experimental and revisionist stagings of traditional and modern operas. He worked in many of the world's leading opera houses and was artistic di ...

directed the production, with the Birmingham Opera Company Chorus and the

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. It is the resident orchestra at Symphony Hall, Birmingham in Birmingham, which has been its principal performance venue since 1991. Its adminis ...

conducted by

Andrew Gourlay Andrew Gourlay (born 1982) is a British conductor. Born in Jamaica, Gourlay was subsequently raised in the Bahamas, the Philippines, Japan and the United Kingdom. He is of Russian ancestry.''Andrew Gourlay'' in ''Scherzo'' no.348, February 201 ...

Roles

Synopsis

Prior to the action of the opera, Nadia had emigrated with her baby son, Yuri, after her husband, Lev, had been sentenced to the prison camps of Russia.

Act 1

The opera opens in an airport lounge, where Lev, a Russian dissident, arrives to join his wife, Nadia, and his son, Yuri, in the West in exile after 20 years in prison. In the airport also are Yuri's girlfriend Gayle and Gayle's friend Hannah, who are also waiting the arrival of the black athlete, Olympion, a

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and social activist. A global cultural icon, widely known by the nickname "The Greatest", he is often regarded as the gr ...

-like character. Lev and Olympion separately arrive. Lev reunites with Nadia and Yuri, but Yuri feels distant from Lev, since he has never met his father as an adult. In the meantime, Gayle throws herself at Olympion, which angers Yuri and causes him to attack Olympion, who knocks him down. Back at home, Yuri expresses anger at his father.

Act 2

Among Olympion's fans, there are gang rivalries which crystallise into a conflict between blacks and whites. Gayle and Yuri wear masks and blend into the masked white chorus, while the same is true on the black side for Olympion and Hannah. The conflict explodes into a mob riot, and Olympion and Gayle die in the violence. Yuri is barely alive and is taken to hospital.

Act 3

Nadia, on the brink of death, asks Hannah to take care of Lev. In an interlude, the psychedelic messenger Astron has appeared, and a drugged-out crowd hails him as a saviour. Astron dismisses this and disappears. Back in the hospital, Yuri has undergone successful surgery, and is totally encased in a plaster cast. The cast is cut away, and Yuri stands. Yuri eventually embraces his father.

Recordings

* Virgin Classics 7 91448-2: David Wilson-Johnson (Lev), Heather Harper (Nadia), Sanford Sylvan (Yuri), Carolann Page (Gayle), Cynthia Clarey (Hannah), Thomas Randle (Olympion), Bonaventura Bottone (Luke), Donald Maxwell (Lieutenant), Christopher Robson, Sarah Walker; London Sinfonietta Chorus;

London Sinfonietta The London Sinfonietta is an English contemporary chamber music, chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble has headquarters at Kings Place and is Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. Since its inaugural concert ...

;

David Atherton David Atherton (born 3 January 1944) is an English conductor and founder of the London Sinfonietta. Background Atherton was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, into a musical family. He was educated at Blackpool Grammar School. His father, Rober ...

, conductorAntony Bye; "Closing briefs' (record reviews). ''The Musical Times'', p. 84 (1992).