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
Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace and Mary. When Libert Hubert John Louis Boeynaems inherited the church as corporation sole, he idealized the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace to possibly become a beautiful Gothic cathedral similar to the more famous European churches of his homeland. He commissioned the renovation of the cathedral; its first phase was the construction of an elaborate porch at the cathedral facade. The first phase was completed in 1910. In 1917, Boeynaems stripped the wooden spire from the exterior in favor of a concrete bell tower with clock. The Gothic architecture did not match the Fort Street surroundings and became