We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

HERESY - Act 2 (double album)

by Roger Doyle

/
  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    The complete 2 hour 8 minute opera as a double CD with 24 page booklet, on the Heresy label.

    Includes unlimited streaming of HERESY - Act 2 (double album) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    9 remaining

      €20 EUR or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Download includes 9 production shots, a show poster and track list details, with 24 page booklet.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €8 EUR  or more

     

1.
2.
Bruno is led into the room by the Valet, Bellarmine sitting in chair, Bellarmine – Our most renowned provocateur Bruno – Our most reverend lawyer Bellarmine - I am a man of God. You should be grateful for my hospitality, my palace must be a welcomed change from your meagre cell. Bruno – You’re a legal viper they bribed with a red hat, for after seven years they’ve proved too timid to convict me, too frightened to acquit me and too stupid to outwit me. This ordeal is an absurd comedy and pathetic travesty… Bellarmine – Ah, like the obscene one you wrote, Il Candelaio wasn’t it? Bruno – My play puts a mirror to the face of hypocrisy, now I’m acting in a far more grotesque farce. Bellarmine – You have contempt for everything. Bruno – Except the truth. Bellarmine – You believe the truth to be a fixed shining star like the sun; it’s a relative concept. Bruno – The truth is fixed, the sun is not. Bellarmine – We wish our stray sheep to be returned to the flock Giordano. Think of me as a gentle shepherd. I have reduced the thirteen charges against you to eight. Simply recant these and you may go free. Bruno is given the document and reads the eight charges Bellarmine – The Holy Father has entrusted your situation to the Office of the Inquisition of which I am the sole authority – I alone will be your judge, jury and if needs be your executioner. Bruno – You’re a lying pimp and Hell itself would choke on your putrid mendacity and vomit you into the void. Bellarmine – Get him out of here, Get him out! Bruno – And Hell would choke on your lies and spit you into the void. Bellarmine - Get him out! Get him out! Bruno - Into the void, Into the void… Bruno is dragged out singing
3.
Scenelink 5 01:53
4.
The Trial 04:53
5.
6.
SceneLink 6 03:01
7.
BRUNO awaits his execution in his cell, and is visited by CIRCE, daughter of the Sun, James JOYCE, an Irish writer, and SOPHIA, the wisdom and the light of God & the Universe BRUNO: From the beginning I was convinced of the vanity of the cry which summons us (joined by CIRCE) To close or lower the eyes that were given to us open and upward looking. Upward looking. Seeing, I do not pretend not to see, nor fear to profess it openly. As there is continual war between light and darkness, knowledge and ignorance, everywhere have I met with hatred, abuse, clamour, insult from the brute and stupid multitude. BRUNO: But guided by the hand of truth and the divine light, I have overcome it. May this dark and gloomy night of our errors pass away, From the dawn of a new day invites us. We must place ourselves In the intellectual heaven which is within us all. May the heavenly powers scatter before me all those who unjustly hate me. May the stars yield me seed for the field that the harvest of my labour may appear to the world useful and glorious, Glorious. CIRCE: May you beware when you land in her realm Before the entrance of the atrium. JAMES JOYCE: Stand forth, Nayman of Noland Nomad, mooner by lamplight. And Brun is bad French for jour d'anno and he was horribly burnt. Burning body to aiger air. Whether Browned or Nolansed I shall give an unconditional sine quam to the Nolanus theory. CIRCE: You shall proceed, and he shall not stand Before you as a hindrance. JAMES JOYCE: Whom we dreamt was a shaddo, Sure he’s lightseyes, the laddo! CIRCE/JOYCE: All things are in all. SOPHIA: The Nolan opens our eyes to see This Deity our Mother the Earth. As BRUNO awaits his execution in his cell, and is visited by himself as a BOY. The earth turns From cold to heat From darkness to light, There is in all things a change Nothing ever dies. The earth turns around the sun and the centuries fly. The universe is infinite Stars without number Cold like the moon Worlds without number Warm like the sun. Each with its own soul Each thing is within every other. All things are in all. All beginnings are in all ends. One infinite. Think of the sun in the crocus, One infinite. All in All. SOPHIA/CIRCE: Divinity reveals herself in all things. Everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings, and from the smallest beings, according to their capacity. Nothing is changed, It cannot said be said to die. CIRCE and SOPHIA Everything has Divinity within itself. How shall we honour the Nolan Henceforth I spread confident wings.
8.
How shall we honour the Nolan, who has found the way to ascend to the sky? Beyond there is a material universe. A material universe. With souls and life. He spreads confident wings to space and rises from our globe to others. Ah, ah.
9.
The burning scene. Bruno Henceforth I spread confident wings to space. I fear no barrier of crystal or of glass. I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite. [2 screams of agony]
10.

about

HERESY Act 1 can be heard here: rogerdoyle1.bandcamp.com/album/heresy-an-electronic-opera-act-1

(...continued from Heresy - Act 1 page)
After the overture, Act 2 continues with a scene in the residence of Cardinal Inquisitor Belarmine (sung by Robert Crowe) who attempts to make Bruno recant the 8 charges of Heresy laid against him – unsuccessfully; followed by his trial in Rome before the inquisition, and a scene in his cell where he refuses to recant.
Next is a 22 minute continuous piece of music, called The Cell – Hallucinations, going through many different styles incorporating episodes in his cell the night before he is executed where he is visited by a diversity of characters from his life: himself as a young boy, his literary creations, and from the future including James Joyce - scenes that time travel to the present day. The scene ends with him alone.
Following this is a visitation from the Goddess Circe (sung by Caitriona O’Leary) who sings: ’How shall we honour the Nolan, who has found the way to ascend to the sky’, just before he is taken to his death. Giordano Bruno (born in the town of Nola, and often referred to as The Nolan) was dragged from his cell, muzzled, taken to the Campo dei Fiori, stripped naked and burned at the stake.
The opera ends with Bruno’s soul in outer space.
Watch the trailer here: vimeo.com/250368750.

I should explain that this recording is taken from 2 casts, from 2 different productions. In the first, in an ‘in development’ 40 minute version from 2013 (called The Death By Fire Of Giordano Bruno), performed at the Kilkenny Arts and Dublin Theatre Festivals, the role of Giordano Bruno was taken by Julian Podger, and Morgan Crowley took the roles of King Henry III, James Joyce and the Cardinal at Bruno’s Trial. I have kept Morgan’s performance of these 3 smaller roles from the earlier recordings, as well as his singing of the extended lead role of Giordano Bruno here.
In 2013 the part of Bruno as a young boy was taken by boy soprano Alex Smith, and I have retained his singing here in act 1 tk.2, and act 2 tks.4 (both briefly), and 7 (at 11’30)…and by software transformation of his voice in act 1 tracks 3, 7, 12, and act 2 track 1.
Also, the roles of a courtier, a priest and the Goddess Sophia in the 2013 production was sung by counter tenor Iestyn Morris, who appears here in act 1 track 2 (at 3’04, 6’30)), act 2 tracks 4 (at 0’22 onwards), and 7 (at 9’41, 14’48 and 18’04). I also invited guest tenor Ahmad Alkaran to sing wordlessly in act 2 track 7 at 17’42.

For this recording I have added 2 tracks that were in preparation but not used in the 2016 production. In the months after the premiere I extensively revised them: Magic Memory now appears as an Entr’acte at the end of act 1 (Bruno became famous for his prodigious memory and the system he developed around it); and Belarmine Coda at the very end, incorporating fragments of the recorded sung parts of Robert Crowe's Belarmine Scene.

The premiere of HERESY took place at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, on October 28th 2016, made possible with an Arts Council Opera Production Award, and it was broadcast on RTÉ Lyric fm radio on September 3rd 2017.

Roger Doyle. Autumn 2017.

Soprano: Daire Halpin (the Goddess Sophia, Queen Elizabeth I).
Male soprano: Robert Crowe (Sir Francis Walsingham, Cardinal Belarmine).
Girl soprano: Aimee Banks (young Bruno).
Boy soprano: Alex Smith (Court Page, young Bruno).
Mezzo soprano: Caitriona O'Leary (courtier in Throne Room, Priest in The Trial, The Goddess Circe).
Tenor: Morgan Crowley (Giordano Bruno, King Henry III, James Joyce, Cardinal in The Trial).
Counter tenor: Iestyn Morris (courtier in Throne Room, the Goddess Sophia).
Guest tenor: Ahmad Alkaran.

credits

released October 3, 2017

On this recording:
Morgan Crowley - tenor on tracks 2,4,5,7,9;
Ahmad Alkaran - guest tenor at the end of track 7;
Caitriona O'Leary - mezzo soprano (tracks 4,7,8);
Iestyn Morris - counter tenor on tracks 4,7;
Robert Crowe - male soprano (tracks 2,10);
Alex Smith - boy soprano (tracks 1,4,7).
John McCormack - tenor on tracks 6,7 (used by permission).
Lyrics are supplied for tracks 2,7,8,9.
Cover image is of Morgan Crowley as Bruno and Aimee Banks as the young Bruno - taken by Ros Kavanagh.
Design: Ciarán Byrne. Recorded at Rabbit And Costelloe's.
Total time: 68'53.

Keyboards, programming and all music composed, recorded and produced by Roger Doyle ℗ and © PRS/MCPS 2013-16.
rogerdoyle.com/discography/

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Roger Doyle Ireland

Roger Doyle – composer, keyboardist and producer of own music, in concert and in the studio. Likes to work on large projects and to collaborate with others. Works with a multiplicity of musical languages and evolving technologies.

contact / help

Contact Roger Doyle

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Roger Doyle, you may also like: