Michael Berkeley: For You – review

Michael Berkeley has written movingly about his increasing struggle with deafness. Equally affectingly, as a composer he's scarcely been busier: he's written a new anthem for Liverpool Cathedral (words by Rowan Williams); he and the poet Craig Raine are working on an operatic version of Ian McEwan's Atonement ; and his two-act opera with McEwan, For You (2008), a thriller driven by sexual and artistic obsession, will have its European premiere in Rome next month. To coincide, Signum has released this original cast recording, with the skilful MTW ensemble honouring Berkeley's rich orchestral invention and Alan Opie, as the monstrous Charles, leading the six singers who relish every syllable of McEwan's dark, pithy text.