I am beyond delighted to share with you the full recording of my chamber opera, Airtime. The evening was given a 5-star review by Gramophone, in their Opera Now magazine: “Driver’s work with metrics is fascinating… The future of opera is bright.” Watch below:

SYNOPSIS

“Airtime” offers a magical realist take on Paris’s early-20th-century pneumatic clock network, following the life of the city’s most regular breather. All day, every day, Philippe N. du Lum’s remarkably consistent respiration regulates the network. His wife, Marie, fed up with his excruciatingly predictable lifestyle, leaves him, causing him to panic and hyperventilate. He meditates in order to slow things down again, before losing it once more. This respiratory irregularity is responsible for contractions and dilations of time, which have catastrophic consequences for everyday life across the city. Throughout the opera, we see these consequences play out at a Parisian radio station, where Pierre, Philippe’s brother, works as the chief executive. Anne, the radio presenter, must gather a handful of disgruntled guests for her evening talkshow at a moment’s notice: a baker, a tourist, an artist, and a watch salesman (some of whom are utterly dismayed by the chaos, while others stand to gain from it). Rapid temporal acceleration ultimately means that Pierre has insufficient time to arrange for a deputy to conduct the radio orchestra, forcing Philippe, with his exceedingly good sense of time, to stand in.

PRODUCTION

Director: Bill Bankes-Jones

Conductor: Michael Rosewell

Assistant Conductor: Paul McKenzie

Designer: Sarah Jane Booth

Lighting Designer: Colin Eversdijk

Title Animation: Rebecca Snoad

CAST

Philippe N. du Lum: James Emerson

Marie du Lum: Lily Mo Browne

Pierre du Lum: Peng Tian

Anne: Alexandra Francis

Baker: Charlotte Clapperton

Tourist: Gabriel Tufail Smith

Artist: Alexandra Dunaeva

Watch Salesman: Richard Decker

Produced by the Royal College of Music in association with Tête à Tête.