The Immortal Hour: 'A Music Drama'

★★★★ Four Stars, Everything Theatre

Celebrating the exact centenary of its first performance at the inaugural Glastonbury Festival on 26 August 1914, Rutland Boughton’s record-breaking ‘music-drama’ The Immortal Hour, plays at the Finborough Theatre for a limited nine performance run of Sunday and Monday evening and Tuesday matinee performances.

As befits the Finborough Theatre’s location on one of London’s major ley lines, The Immortal Hour is a magical faery tale that draws heavily from Celtic folklore and mythology.

Eochaidh, King of Éire, is drawn by visions to seek the love of the immortal Faery Folk, but in doing so inadvertently summons Dalua, the Lord of Shadows. Dalua uses his dark powers to bewilder Eochaidh and send him down a path that few return from…with tragic consequences.

Combining Wagnerian approaches to musical themes with a folk-like approach to the music itself, reminiscent of its Celtic roots, The Immortal Hour explores fate, desire and mortality in two worlds, as the unrequited love between the mortal world and the immortal Faeries collide.

Following its premiere at the first Glastonbury Festival (which Boughton co-founded), The Immortal Hour was produced in London in 1922 where it enjoyed a record breaking run of over 600 performances. Last seen in London at Sadler’s Wells in 1953, it still holds the world-record for a continuous run of any serious opera written by an Englishman.

In a month that also marks the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, this production – which restores the piece to its theatrical roots – offers a unique opportunity to experience the musical culture of England as it was in the month that the nation went to war.