IRMA: An Opera. Op. 12. 1969

IRMA: Performance History

The opera was first produced at the Bordeaux Festival in 1970 as a concert work. It was first staged by the Ceolfrith Arts Association at the University of Newcastle in 1972. An ambitious second production in 1973 was the result of a performance project for the postgraduate students of the music department at York University, where realisations of IRMA and the mediaeval Play of Daniel (which poses many similar problems of interpretation) made up an imaginative double-bill under the direction of Richard Orton.

Except for one recorded version and the odd performance by a student group the opera became a sleeper until its first London performance in 1983 when it formed part of Adrian Jack's enterprising MusicICA series at the ICA: on that occasion it was presented as a double bill with itself, in two contrasting versions; one a spare chamber performance by Jean Yves Bosseur and the French group Intervalles (in which I sang the part of the Narrator) and the other an augmented revival of the original York version, lavish and erotic, in which Elise Lorraine created the role Irma. Thus two performers from wildly divergent productions come together in [the 1988 AMM recording of IRMA for Matchless Recordings].

IRMA is now part of the repertory of Intervalles and of AMM and has thus been performed all over Europe. AMM gave a London performance at the Serpentine Gallery in 1986. Phil Mouldycliff who assisted in the production of the CD recording (and who opened the batting at my 50th birthday cricket match) has also developed a performance which stresses the visual and scenic elements: this version was first staged at the Corner House in Manchester with Maurice Watson as narrator and with ingenious costume designs based on various paintings of mine, by the students of Blackburn College of Art, who performed the work.

Work and Texts (1992),  p. 277-278.

See also: IRMA: Score and Libretto

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