"Bentley’s libretto is based on Frank O’Connor’s translation of the celebrated 1780 Gaelic poem by Brian Merriman (1749-1805), a work surprisingly contemporary in its frank discussion of women’s sexual needs and how men fail to meet them. In Bentley’s adaptation Merriman himself becomes the opera’s central figure who falls asleep on a midsummer...
The Sword in the Schoolyard blends the contemporary schoolyard of a young student with his imaginings of King Arthur’s medieval England. His despair at the deployment of his beloved sister to a foreign war, forces him to wrestle with the meaning of leadership, violence, duty, loyalty and equality through the legend of the mythic king.