What does it take to make an opera? Music, of course, at least one singing voice, some text to be sung. Then you need action, if not necessarily a plot. Beyond that, the possibilities stretch on and on.
Lasting about an hour, Henryk Górecki’s Third Symphony – which carries the subtitle “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” - has music, a voice and text; of action there is none. Górecki wrote it in 1976. In 1992, London Sinfonietta’s recording, with Dawn Upshaw the soloist, unexpectedly sold a million copies: unheard of for a modern symphony.
