life the vital importance of being Earnest." Reception The actor Stephen Fry commented that making an opera setting of Wilde's play was like "taking a machete to a soufflé". However, critical reception of the opera has been generally very positive. The Los Angeles Times wrote of the staged premiere "The world now has something rare: a new genuinely comic opera and maybe the most inventive Oscar Wilde opera since Richard Strauss's Salome more than a century ago". Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade noted the climax to the confrontation of Cicely and Gwendolyn when the latter proceeded to attack her tea-companion with acerbic remarks while 40 dinner plates were systematically demolished by a percussionist on the off-beats. This "ostinato" for fractured china made a fabulous din, and was a masterstroke on Barry's part. Other noteworthy moments were the merry jigs danced by Ernest ... and Lady Bracknell as they disputed the validity of his marriage proposal, and the serial duet sung by Algernon and Ernest about cucumber sandwiches. Matthew Rye commented on the 2016 London production Barry deliberately and constantly subverts our expectations, transcending the original and creating something completely new. He gets through acres of Wilde's text ... in almost patter style and to motoric regular rhythms that play against word stress and meaning; and then he sets the most mundane of phrases such as “They have been eating muffins” to extravagant melismas. The opera won the Royal Philharmonic Society award for large-scale composition in 2012. In 2019, writers of The Guardian ranked it the 11th greatest work of art music since 2000, with Andrew Clements writing that it "brilliantly captures the play’s absurdities while adding a layer of surrealism that is entirely Barry’s own." Recording A recording of the 2012 London concert performance of the opera was issued by NMC Records in 2014, and was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award. References Notes Sources {{cite news|last=Hewett|first=Ivan|date=20 April 2012|url=Gerald Barry talks about his new opera The Importance of Being Earnest Barry talks about his new opera The Importance of Being Earnest|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London|access-date= 1 April 2016}} Further reading Kilby, Paul (2015). "Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest", 21 January 2015, in Music & Literature'' website, accessed 2 April 2016. 2011 operas Operas Operas set in England English-language operas Operas based on plays Operas based on works by Oscar Wilde Operas by Gerald Barry