| Sumario: | In May 1986, Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus premiered at the English National Opera. Despite being lauded in the New York Times as 'unquestionably the greatest achievement by a British composer in our time', it would not be staged again for another 33 years. When it finally was, again at the ENO in 2019, Daniel Kramer's production was suffused with queer signification. Deemed too kinky, too violent, too camp, and obscene, it was critically panned. This article presents the two productions of Orpheus in tandem with the seemingly unrelated anti-gay legislative events of 1980s Britain to demystify both Kramer's supposedly radical departure from the 'original' production, and the motivations behind a revealingly reactionary episode in the British opera commentariat's recent activities. As well as asking what political baggage works written during the 1980s might carry in their reception histories, it investigates the wider critical and musical history of the Orpheus myth and its queer significations. This article seeks to provoke a more progressive reading of Kramer's production. By situating Orpheus within the fray of queer British history, it advocates for more politically self-conscious approaches to contemporary opera criticism today.
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