NYMAN: Love Counts - An Opera in Two Acts (2 CDs)

An Opera in two acts composed by Michael Nyman with libretto by Michael Hastings.

The generously packaged, slip-cased 2-CD set contains a full colour 44-page booklet with the complete libretto. The tenth release on MN Records, and the second opera recording for the label, Love Counts is a love story between the unlikeliest of couples: Avril, a lecturer in mathematics at a major college who has divorced a man who physically abused her, and Patsy, a middle-weight fighter at the end of his career who cannot read or recognise numbers. Michael Nyman uses Riemenschneider's collection of 371 Bach chorale harmonisations to help Patsy find his voice they are harmonically fragmented, sped up, slowed down, overlaid with themselves. Just as Dr P, the Alzheimer's suffering protagonist of Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, has 'his' Schumann, so, in Love Counts, Patsy, a parallel sufferer, has 'his' Bach. Award-winning writer Michael Hastings had previously worked with Nyman on the libretto for the opera Man and Boy: Dada, also available on MN Records.

Love Counts was commissioned by the Badisches Staatstheater, Karlesruhe, Germany and first performed there on 12 March 2005, directed by Robert Tannenbaum.

This is a recording of the critically-acclaimed Almeida Theatre production of Love Counts where it was performed in July 2006, designed by Peter McKintosh and directed by Lindsay Posner.

Personnel: Helen Williams (soprano), Andrew Slater (bass-baritone), The Michael Nyman Band, Paul McGrath (conductor)

Excuse Me, Excuse Me
This Lah-Di-Dah Dame
Wore These My First Pro Win
How Much Does This Bill Say?
This Is A Set
Patsy, My Love
Let's Suppose For Today
They Say Nothing Is Secret
Forty Seven, Sixty Three
It's For You. Why Is It For You?
Now, In Hebrew Mathmatical Art
You Didn't Tell Me You Did This Every Morning
Instrumental 1
You Love As Though You Have Lost Something
Give Me My Card Back!
Hello, Guv'nor, Yes, It's Me
Intrumental 2
I've Tried To Tell You What I Think
Instrumental 3
I've Spoken To The Guv'nor At The Gym
There You Are...and That Tree