Spring Season 2001

From Morning to Midnight

World Première

David Sawer
Text Sawer, after Kaiser

April 27

May 4 / 9 / 15 at 7.30pm

May 12 Early Start at 6.30pm

May 9 Sign language-interpreted performance

Clock Man by Charles Ray
Courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles

The world première of David Sawer’s From Morning to Midnight continues ENO tradition of commissioning and presenting new work.

Based on Georg Kaiser's powerful play, the opera charts a day in the life of a lowly cashier who makes a snap decision to rob the bank where he works. After abandoning home and family he flees with the money, but his life hurtles towards disaster, happiness is elusive, and by midnight he is destroyed.

David Sawer's powerful score has a nervous energy to it, which reflects the frenetic and nightmare world that the cashier inhabits. Director Richard Jones, whose production of Pelléas and Mélisande was memorable for its emotional and visual impact, works with the Tony Award-winning designer Stewart Laing to create this major new production.

Performances end at approximately 9.35pm

(May 12 at approximately 8.35pm)

Commissioned by English National Opera supported by The Britten-Pears Foundation