Libretto 0571514111 on sale, full score, vocal score, parts and discs/CDs for hire

Inquest of Love is concerned with the themes of understanding of suffering and the release from suffering. The central protagonists comprise a triangle of lovers – John; Ann who is betrothed to him; and Ann’s elder sister Elspeth. In Act I John and Ann’s wedding is interrupted by murder. This disruption of love by violence is viewed successively from the standpoint of each of the three main protagonists. Act II shows life after death, where the characters gradually discover the hidden reasons behind this tragic and violent event. The process of discovery acts as a healing force, uniting what was separated and isolated, and enabling love to triumph over death. Jonathan Harvey

… of the ENO opera commissions this is, I believe, the outstanding achievement so far, the one built to last… an arresting piece of modern music-drama. In its conjoining of old and new, traditional and innovation, it proves to be that rare achievement of the modern opera house, a new opera realised with equal amounts of artistic idealism and practicality. Financial Times (Max Loppert) 7 June 1993 … a stirring and beautiful adventure… He has written some of the most ardent love music since Messiaen's, and love music finds its place in the opera… There is also music of pain and despair. Bell sounds, chants, choruses, electronics, swelling harmonies, sharp-focus solo lines fill the theatre with deep, ever-changing ever-stirring music. The Observer (Andrew Porter) 13 June 1993 What Harvey's music adds, in its bold individuality and freshness of inspiration… is brilliantly imaginative use of electronics, surely the most successful yet in the opera. The mixture of orchestral and electronic sound produces effects of spell-binding beauty- the music of the spheres, indeed, unsurpassed even by Stockhausen… For the most part the extra-orchestral sounds are used to suggest disorder, dislocation, the descent into chaos, and to scarifying effect. Inquest is above all theatre music… and there are countless immediately strking passages. They include a dangerously Wagnerianly ecstatic love duet at the beginning; a deliciously loonie waltz (Ravel squared); howls of anguish from the brass to end the first act; Gluckian airiness in Elysium and sheer black terror in limbo, where verbal references to identifiable murder cases and war crimes add context and universality to what at first sight could seem a parochial scenario. The quadruple fortissimo affirmation of the finale, complete with the voices of Straussian unborn children, is a knock-out… at 54, he (Harvey) has emerged as a born opera composer. The Times (Rodney Milnes) 7 June 1993