Reviews | About Push! | The Music | The Words | Tête à Tête | Score & Libretto | Contact
 Take a deep breath, grab the gas and air and
yell out uncontrollably on a roller coaster journey which combines the comic and
the tragic; the epic and the deeply personal; the surreal and the everyday, in
an intense and vivid portrait of one of the most extreme, and yet the most
natural events that a human being can go through – the process of giving birth.
 PUSH! was written by composer David Bruce
and librettist Anna Reynolds in a production by innovative opera company Tête à Tête. It was nurtured by Aldeburgh
Productions as part of the Genesis Opera Project . Out of a field of 200
international applications, three were finally commissioned by the Genesis
Foundation in the spring of 2004 and only two , PUSH! being one, will actually
be produced for touring  PUSH! continues
the Tête à Tête tradition of building a great evening’s entertainment out of a
series of sketch-like scenes. The opera is structured as a series of
birth experiences, each centring on the mother’s journey, and coming directly
out of her perceptions of the world. Inter-cutting the high drama of these
scenes, we follow the gentle, nascent romance between Caretaker and Cleaner as
they go about their work on the labour ward. When, in the final scene we follow
Cleaner’s own process of giving birth, Push! becomes more than just a series of
stories – it becomes a celebration of the pure power and life force bound up in
every labouring mother.
Composed by David Bruce Libretto by Anna Reynolds Director Bill Bankes-Jones Design Tim Meacock Conductor Tim Murray |