A major operatic rediscovery: Birmingham Opera Company’s New Year reviewed
This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time. One of the most thrilling aspects of the Tippett revival has been the discovery that his late masterpieces seem to have been fitted with a four-decade time-fuse. Works that prompted bafflement in the 1970s and 1980s, and then sat there for years looking like
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/AF_286_New_Year_Samantha-Crawford-as-Regan-and-Lucia-Lucas-as-Merlin_BOC.jpg?w=440)