Review: 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat' an opera about identity

Michael Nyman's compelling score, much of which is an inventive deconstruction and reconstruction of a Schumann song, is on display in a Long Beach Opera production.

Of the many pieces performed at the overstuffed Ojai Music Festival recently, one song continued to run through my head the following week: a shockingly hard-hitting pop-rock-Minimalist treatment of Schumann's "Ich Grolle Nicht." Saturday night, there it was again, this time courtesy of Long Beach Opera. The song happens to be the centerpiece of Michael Nyman's neurology opera, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," which is ending the company's 2012 season.

foi application