The Corridor

This collaboration between the London Sinfonietta, Aldeburgh Festival and Southbank Centre is the premiere production of new music theatre double bill by Harrison Birtwistle inspired by two of the composers most enduring interests; the tragic story of Orpheus and Eurydice and the music of English master John Dowland.

The Corridor freeze-frames the devastating moment when Orpheus turns to look back at Eurydice as they leave the underworld, and he loses her forever. "I'm obsessed with the myth of Orpheus" says Birtwistle. "I see The Corridor as a single movement from the Orpheus story magnified, like a photographic blow-up. I've thought of it as virtuosic, close up chamber theatre, with the London Sinfonietta musicians in the action as well as the singers."

The passionate melancholy of Elizabethan master John Dowland's music is another of Birtwistle's obsessions. In Semper Dowland, semper dolens ('always Dowland, always doleful' was Dowland's own, punning description of himself), Birtwistle arranges Dowland's Seven Teares Figured in Seven Passionate Pavanes and intersperses them with new music and Dowland songs.

The project is brought to life by a creative team closely associated with Birtwistle's work: poet and librettist David Harsent, director Peter Gill, designer Alison Chitty, lighting designer Paul Pyant and, of course, the London Sinfonietta.

Both works are commissioned and produced by the Aldeburgh Festival and Southbank Centre, in association with the London Sinfonietta and Bregenz Festival. The world premiere will take place at the Aldeburgh Festival on 12 June 2009, followed by the London premiere at Southbank Centre (6 & 7 July) before performances at the Bregenz Festival.