Album: Michael Berkeley, Ian McEwan, Music Theatre Wales, For You (Signum Classics)

Michael Berkeley and Ian McEwan's new opera deals frankly with themes of age and ego, obsession and suspicion, as they impact upon the household of a satyric composer, Charles Frieth.

Cursing the "vigour wilting under the weight of years", he embarks on yet another fraught extramarital affair, misreading his wife's medical requirements as simply a ploy to cuckold him with the doctor. It's a tangled web worthy of Pinter, and Berkeley's palette switches smoothly between the first scene's knotted "lust for newness" to the vibes, harp, strings and horns which evoke the wife's frailty.

DOWNLOAD THIS Act 1 Scene 2, The Frieths' London House; Act 2 Scene 4, The Rehearsal Room