The Importance of Being Earnest
Operas and musicals

In 1963 Erik Chisholm composed an opera from the play, basing the libretto on Wilde's text. Gerald Barry created the 2011 opera The Importance of Being Earnest, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Barbican Centre in London. It premiered in Los Angeles in 2011. The role of Lady Bracknell is sung by a bass. The stage premiere was given by the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy in 2013. A 2012 concert performance was recorded live at the Barbican by the BBC and released commercially in 2014. In 2017 Odyssey Opera of Boston presented Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco 's opera The Importance of Being Earnest as part of a "Wilde Opera Nights" series, a season-long exploration of operatic works inspired by Wilde's writings and world.

In 1964 Gerd Natschinski composed a musical, Mein Freund Bunbury, based on the play. According to a study by Robert Tanitch, by 2002, there had been at least eight adaptations of the play as a musical, though "never with conspicuous success". The earliest such version was a 1927 American show entitled Oh Earnest. The journalist Mark Bostridge comments, "The libretto of a 1957 musical adaptation, Half in Earnest, deposited in the British Library, is scarcely more encouraging. The curtain rises on Algernon, strumming away at the piano, singing, 'I can play Chopsticks, Lane'. Other songs include 'A Bunburying I Must Go'". Since Bostridge wrote his article, at least one further musical version of the play has been staged: a show with a book by Douglas Livingstone and score by Adam McGuinness and Zia Moranne was staged in December 2011 at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith; the cast included Susie Blake, Gyles Brandreth and Edward Petherbridge.
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