Irish composer, Roger Doyle’s first opera is based on the life and works of Giordano Bruno. Mystic magus, heretic priest, hermetic philosopher, spy and playwright, Giordano Bruno was one of the renaissance’s most brilliant and controversial men. Burned at the stake in 1600 - after a nine-year trial by the Roman inquisition - Bruno envisioned a cosmos without a centre, infinite galaxies and inhabited planets. His writings prefigured quantum theory by 350 years and his play Il Candelaio influenced numerous works by Shakespeare and Moliere.

Giordano Bruno is the ideal subject for opera. A cultural superstar in his own time, his importance and relevance has continued to grow over the centuries. Heresy is written for five high voices including male soprano, Robert Crowe and 14-year-old wunderkind, Aimee Banks. Heresy begins with Bruno teaching his system of magic memory to Henry III of France and includes scenes with his literary inventions and feminine ideals, Circe and Sophia. Further scenes focus on episodes at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, his trial before the Inquisition - presided over by his nemesis, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine - an hallucinatory scene in his cell the night before he is burned at the stake where he is visited by himself as a young boy, Circe and Sophia and James Joyce (a lifelong admirer of Bruno’s), his death by fire and his apotheosis among the cosmos.

“Doyle’s electronic opera strongly implied that this work was no experiment, demonstrating the skilled and experienced hand of a composer who knows what he wants...at once hypnotic, fascinating and beautiful” - Das Opernglas

“There’s something satisfyingly haunting, hallucinogenic even, about it all, its baleful oddness lit up by moments of dark, brittle beauty.” - Opera

“Impressive singing from a versatile cast is supported by Doyle’s electronic score which is surprising affectingly tender and gentle.” - The Irish Times ****