''Down by the Greenwood Side'' is a "dramatic pastoral" composed by Harrison Birtwistle to a text by

Michael Nyman Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer, pianist, libretto, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film soundtrack, scores (many written during his length ...

. It was first performed on 8 May 1969 at the Festival Pavilion,

West Pier The West Pier is a ruined pier in Brighton, England. It was designed by Eugenius Birch and opened in 1866. It was the first pier to be Grade I listed in England and Wales but has become increasingly derelict since its closure to the publi ...

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

. The New York Philharmonic staged the opera as part of their New Horizons music festival in 1984 with conductor Larry Newland leading singers Susan Belling, Bruce Vernon Bradley, Richard Levine,

John Lankston John Lankston (1934, Bridgeport, Illinois - July 12, 2018, Bridgeport, Illinois) was an American tenor and actor who had a career in opera and musical theater from the 1950s through the 2000s. After making his Broadway debut in ''Redhead'' (1959), ...

and

James Billings James Billings 1932-2022 was an American operatic baritone, librettist, and opera director. He began his career in the late 1950s in Boston and later became a member of the New York City Opera where he performed regularly from the early 1970s thr ...

. The text comes from two sources: a popular ballad called "

The Cruel Mother "The Cruel Mother" (a.k.a. "The Greenwood Side" or "Greenwood Sidey") () is a murder ballad originating in England that has since become popular throughout the wider English-speaking world. According to Roud and Bishop :''Widely collected in Bri ...

", and passages from various mummers plays, the folk plays of the English countryside. The soprano, Mrs. Green, sings the ballad while the actors and mime perform the play. The two ingredients never meet; both are completely self-contained, involved only in themselves. But near the end, in the final tableau, there is a slight acknowledgement of each other's worlds when the presenter of the mummers' play, Father Christmas, completes the story Mrs. Green has been telling, and Mrs. Green momentarily enters the mummers’ acting area.Sir Harrison Birtwistle / Down by the Greenwood Side / A Dramatic Pastoral
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References

{{authority control Operas 1969 operas English-language operas Operas by Harrison Birtwistle