So, gentle readers, what do you think this image relates to?
ETA: Callum Blackmore correctly identified this as being from We come to the River by Hans Werner Henze. It’s a scan of one page of the Royal Opera House programme for 20th July 1976 when I, as a somewhat bemused 18 year old, saw David Atherton conduct a cast of thousands in that rather remarkable work.
operaramblings 
It’s that contemporary work for four orchestras performing simultaneously… What was it, Hasse? Turnage? I saw a clip from the performance in a BBC series on twentieth-century music called Leaving Home, but I can’t remember who it was by.
How did you end up going?
It’s perhaps a bit older than that. Turnage would still have been in his teens. And it was opera.
Waittaminute… It’s not Britten’s War Requiem ,is it?
Not the War Requiem though not unrelated to war
Hmm… after a good bit of head-scratching I was going to say Nixon in China, but I think that’s a bit late for Turnage to have been a teenager.
It’s much more of an oddity than Nixon in China
Is it “De Temporum Fine Comoedia” by Orff. It is one of the few operas I can find that requires an Anklung and a Hyoshigi
A very interesting shot but wrong. It’s an English language piece.
Is it an opera or an oratorio type thing?
Since there’s some miking happening (good guess, Lucy!), I’d say Dr Atomic?
Oh right, it’s an opera (already forgot). So yes, is it Dr Atomic, or Klinghoffer?
I don’t think either Klinghoffer or Doctor Atomic feature multiple orchestras or on-stage(s) instruments
I’m reading Alex Ross’s Listen to This and am in the middle of the Bjork chapter. “[Jon Leifs’s] Hekla, which is named after Iceland’s largest active volcano, has been described as the loudest piece of music even written. It requires nineteenth percussionists, who play a fantastic battery of instruments, including anvils, stones, sirens, bells, ships’ chains, a sort of tree-hammer, shotguns, and cannons.”
So we got that one out of the way.
Therefore, it must be Owen Wingrave by Britten.
See below
The Soundtrack for Andrew Jacksons “The Hobbit”?
(:-j
Nice try!
Is it “We come to the River” by Hans Werner Henze??
Fanfare and a volley of rifle shots! Yes, it’s a scan of one page of the Royal Opera House programme for 20th July 1976 when I, as a somewhat bemused 18 year old, saw David Atherton conduct a cast of thousands in that rather remarkable work We Come to the River; music by Hans Werner Henze, libretto by Edward Bond.