Temptations! The new Opera based on my sonnets

This First Sunday in Lent is the day the church reflects on the three Temptations of Christ in the Wilderness. These three Temptations, to material goods, to irresponsible power and to Spiritual pride are Universal and Christ faces them all for and with us, so that our disobedience can be redeemed and made perfect in his obedience. I will be reposting each of my sonnets on these three temptations on the coming days, but in this post I want to share with you an amazing Chamber Opera, based on those same three temptations which was written by Rhiannon Randle one of the music Students here at Cambridge, in my own college and performed, with a cast of brilliant young Cambridge musicians and singers, at the end of January. Rhiannon has, in my opinion, gone right to the heart of what I was trying to do in the sonnets and then re-worked and re-imagined it through the medium of her own art, with the result that when I saw the opera the whole thing became fresh, new, and challenging for me again. I hope it has the same effect on you. Below, with her permission I am posting a link to the complete libretto, a sound cloud link to a recording of the opera, and a youtube link to the St. John’s college performance, which was professionally filmed. Do enjoy it.

The Full Libretto is here: Temptations – final libretto

Here is the sound cloud recording: Temptations

And here is the film: