SUBTLE CELEBRATION

JAMES MACMILLAN talks to RODERIC DUNNETT
about composing sacred and liturgical music

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Championing the downtrodden and oppressed became almost a Leitmotif in MacMillan's work. It reached its zenith, arguably, in his recent opera Inés de Castro,

Helen Field as Inés de Castro with Amy Riach (as a little girl)
in Scottish Opera's recent production of James MacMillan's opera
Inés de Castro. Photo: Bill Cooper

the story of a princess, little more than a child, doomed and crushed by the cynical political machinations of renaissance Spain and Portugal, which was staged and recently revived by Scottish Opera. The opera's overtly Expressionistic staging and garish treatment of the story came in for some questioning at the first performance : yet with such a tragic and bloody Romeo and Juliet story, what could be more apt?

Jon Garrison as Pedro in Scottish Opera's recent production
of James MacMillan's opera Inés de Castro. Photo: Bill Cooper

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