Doctor Ox's Experiment (opera)

Doctor Ox's Experiment
Opera by Gavin Bryars
The London Coliseum, where the opera was first performed
Librettist	Blake Morrison
Based on	Dr. Ox's Experiment by Jules Verne
Premiere	15 June 1998 (1998-06-15) London Coliseum

Doctor Ox's Experiment is an opera in two acts by Gavin Bryars. It has an English-language libretto by Blake Morrison after the novella of the same name by Jules Verne. It was first performed on 15 June 1998 at the London Coliseum by English National Opera (ENO) who co-commissioned the opera with BBC Television.

In the experiment of the title, Doctor Ox introduces a gas into a sedate and conservative Flemish village with the result that everyone and everything becomes speeded up and chaotic. (Ox's and his assistant's names combine to make Oxygėne, the French name for Oxygen.)` The opera explores the conflict between Ox's advocacy of modernity and scientific and political change and Ygène's belief that liberation and the accompanying loss of the traditional rhythms of life might bring unhappiness.

The music is predominantly slow-moving and quiet. Bryars allocated distinct voice types to the different types of roles: town elders, young lovers and scientists. He also included some unusual instruments in his orchestra: an oboe d'amore and an amplified jazz bass in the love scene, an electronic keyboard and a flugelhorn instead of trumpets in the brass section. The reception was mixed with several critics complaining of boredom while others wrote of members of the audience being entranced by the music.

Bryars began to think about his next opera in 1984, when he was in France for the production of Medea, his first work in the genre. The three subjects he came up with were Flaubert's Bouvard et Pécuchet, De Quincey's The Last Days of Immanuel Kant and Verne's Dr. Ox's Experiment. Unknown to Bryars, this last had already been the subject of two other operas, the opéra-bouffe Le docteur Ox by Jacques Offenbach and il Dottor Oss by Annibale Bizzelli.