Sands of Time (opera)
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Sands of Time is a short opera composed by the Welsh composer Peter Reynolds to a libretto by Simon Rees. Its world premiere, at an outdoor shopping centre in Cardiff on 27 March 1993, was accompanied by a nine-piece band conducted by Carlo Rizzi, director of Welsh National Opera.[1] The performance, sung by soprano Rhian Owen and baritone Dominic Burns, was timed at 4 minutes 9 seconds,[2] and was certified by adjudicators from the Guinness Book of Records as the world's shortest opera, beating the previous record held by Darius Milhaud's Deliverance of Theseus (1928), which lasts just over 7 minutes.[1][3] A later performance for the BBC reduced the overall time to 3 minutes 34 seconds.[2] In 2019, Sands of Time was performed in a triple bill (with Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge and Jacques Offenbach's Le 66) at the Grimeborn Festival, Dalston, London.
The opera's two protagonists are Stan and Flo, a married couple who quarrel during breakfast. They are interrupted by a knock on the door from which they learn that they have won a large sum of money on the football pools and are reconciled.[3] The duration of the opera is that required to boil an egg, which is placed in the pan at the start and removed as the opera ends.[4]