King Priam King Priam King Priam is an opera by Michael Tippett, to his own libretto. The story is based on Homer's "Iliad", except the birth and childhood of Paris, which are taken from the "Fabulae" of Hyginus. The premiere was on 29 May 1962, at Coventry. The opera was composed for an arts festival held in conjunction with the reconsecration of the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral, for which Benjamin Britten also wrote his "War Requiem", which was first performed in the Cathedral the day after the premiere of "King Priam". The first Covent Garden performance was on 5 June, conducted by John
Coventry Cathedral third is the new St Michael's Cathedral, built after the destruction of the former. The first cathedral in Coventry was St Mary's Priory and Cathedral, 1095 to 1102, when Robert de Limesey moved the bishop's see from Lichfield to Coventry, until 1539 when it fell victim to Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries. Prior to 1095, it had been a small Benedictine monastery (endowed by Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lady Godiva in 1043), Shortly after 1095 rebuilding began and by the middle of the 13th century it was a cathedral of 142 yards in length and included many large