Michael Nyman: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

I'd read and enjoyed Oliver Sacks' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat before Michael Nyman did this 'chamber opera', so I was looking forward to it.

I'm not a big fan of opera at the best of times, but I've never liked this much (and I could be wrong, but I don't think Nyman has attempted anything like it since, so perhaps he didn't take to it himself). The libretto seems either to be a constraint on Nyman's natural tendencies as a composer, or it seems to cut across them. And it must be difficult to dramatise the interaction between a neurologist and a patient, but the incessant questioning, "What do you see?" "What do you think it is?" "Don't you recognise me?" "But what of the parietal regions…?", gets on my nerves. It's only when the words get really repetitive in Pawn to King 4 that they sync up with Nyman's trademark tropes.

Details and review from Michael Nyman's official site

MusicBrainz entry for this album