Mr Emmet Takes a Walk

Mr Emmet Takes a Walk is a chamber opera by the English composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by David Pountney. The work is self-described as a "dramatic sonata". It tells the story of the last seconds of the life of Mr Emmet before his suicide on a railway line. Thoughts, ideas, musical fragments and experiences flash through Mr Emmet's mind before his death which expand across the fifty minute duration of the work. Davies has cited... more

Mr Emmet Takes a Walk is a chamber opera by the English composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by David Pountney. The work is self-described as a "dramatic sonata". It tells the story of the last seconds of the life of Mr Emmet before his suicide on a railway line. Thoughts, ideas, musical fragments and experiences flash through Mr Emmet's mind before his death which expand across the fifty minute duration of the work. Davies has cited the works of four composers as motifs in the opera: J.S. Bach's "Prelude and Fugue No. 12 in F minor" (BWV 881) from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Andrea Gabrieli's Edipo Tiranno, "Come furia disperata" from Mozart's Don Giovanni (Donna Anna in act 1, scene 1), and the opening of Robert Schumann's Second Symphony. The work premiered in a co-production of Muziektheater Transparant and the Psappha ensemble at the St. Magnus Festival, Orkney on 16 June 2000. It was recorded in 2005 with the original cast. Davies has intimated that this... less