The colloquium and opera were both FAR OUT! proceedings of the colloquium will hopefully be published in due course, and the opera...well, we shall see. It was truly marvellous but is not without hiccups-some of the songs don't really work and its too long at just over 3 hours. As Leon Berger (singer and director) said at the discussion on the opera the following day at the colloquium, a work like this would normally be revised by the author(s) after the (1964) premiere, but for various reasons (CSL's death and copyright issues amongst them) this couldn't happen. It really it is a bit like an almost-finished work coming out of a time capsule.
See the web site of the Oxford C S Lewis soceity and the Perelandra project (which is their project) for details as they emerge in due course.
I just sent this brief review at
http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/review_submit.php'''I was at the Sheldonian concert and thought it was wonderful. I am biased as I have been a fan of the book for 30 years, but this really was an enjoyable evening with excellent performances all round. Leon Berger was particularly outstanding as Weston/the Un-man. The youngster who sang the voice of an eldil towards the end was also outstanding, but there were no duff performances from chorus, principals or orchestra.
As discussed, this was really a delayed premiere of an opera which was afflicted with incredible bad luck at the original opening, and probably does need some tinkering with the libretto and reduction by about 40 minutes as it really is rather long. This revision should have happened after the initial premiere, but due to C S Lewis's death and the copyright issues this didn't happen.
I can't wait for the recording to become available. I believe there will be a market for this opera once tidied up and shortened-I am a long term C S Lewis fan, Perelandra is my favourite of his books, but I only discovered this opera had ever existed a few months ago. Other CSL fans-and there are a lot of us- will be interested when they find out. This should be on at the BBC proms.'''
all the best