Merlin

• Overture
• Act 1
• Act 2
• Act 3
• Act 4

In this opera Merlin is a 2,000 years old dysfunctional legendary magician and Nimue a poor young Welsh girl on the make. He has spent his life trying to do good for mankind, but everything has gone wrong. There follows a story of sexual awakening, intrigue, incest, failed magic and war based loosely on some of the many legends of Merlin from England, Wales and other parts of Europe. A tragic ending allows Nimue as the ‘Lady of the Lake’ to join Merlin in the ether. Counter-intuitively, the baritone, Merlin, got the girl!  

At the time Keith wrote this opera he was experimenting with the ‘Diminished Whole Tone Scale’. This diminished scale from the tonic to the flattened dominant, is often associated with Debussy and Ravel in classical music and commonly employed in jazz improvisation. Not all the music is in this mode. It also owes something to minimalist music and Keith’s personal experience playing jazz and working with African musicians. Keith believes that all art should be a balance between the emotional and the intellectual so he has sought euphony, something easy on the ear that enhances the drama of the piece.

A computergenerated sonic fragment: