I received word yesterday that I am a finalist in the National Opera Association's biennial Chamber Opera Competition (2012-2014). My one-act opera Oblivion, along with two other composers' works, will be excerpted at NOA's Annual Convention in Portland next January. The winner will be produced in its entirety at the 2014 Convention.
Part of my doctoral dissertation, Oblivion was my treat to myself. It contains a lot of peculiarities that my creative and composerly self indulged in, but that may not appear particularly programming-friendly. The unfamiliar story, based on a two-page H.P. Lovecraft story with essentially no plot, interlaced with half a dozen poems by other authors, is not the stuff of your typical libretto. And the pit itself is quite small and unconventional: flute, guitar, cello, and three Himalayan singing bowls. Despite or perhaps because of these quirks, the work was selected. This is due in large part, I'm sure, to the excellent recording I got out of the premiere at the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC.
Many thanks to director Sasha Brätt, stage manager Alison Goldberg, singer/actors Rachel Barham, Melissa Kornacki, Christine Laird (Gahagan), James Rogers, and Alexander Wolniak, instrumentalists Jessica Bateman, Jesse Crites, and Daniel Shomper, and everyone else who helped make the premiere possible!
More announcements coming soon about upcoming performances for the 2012-2013 season.
Showing posts with label opera in English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opera in English. Show all posts
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Friday, February 18, 2011
Opera World Gains Yet Another Anna
Thursday, February 17, 2011. Commit this date to your memory. The (in)famous Anna Nicole Smith is now the subject of an opera.
Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage (composer, Greek and The Silver Tassie) and librettist Richard Thomas (composer, Jerry Spring: The Opera) were commissioned by the Royal Opera House to create this work.
Turnage's earlier opera Greek is an aggressive, muscular, decidedly modernist/complex telling of the Oedipus myth. Impressive, fascinating, dizzying. I can't wait to hear - but perhaps only one time - what he's done with Anna Nicole.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
WNO 2011-2012 Season
Wait no longer, American opera fans. Here it is - the Washington National Opera 2011-2012 season:
* Tosca (1900)
* Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)
* Così Fan Tutte (1790)
* Nabucco (1842)
* Werther (1887; premiered 1892)
There's something peculiar yet familiar here. Just like their 2010-2011 season, there's nothing by an American composer. And nothing in English. And nothing written less than 100 years ago.
What exactly makes them Washington National Opera?
I can sympathize. We're (supposedly, slowly,) emerging from a recession. Opera is expensive, particularly when it's not pre-packaged. Conventional audiences, reliable yet dwindling, want their familiar Mozart, Puccini, and Verdi. But there is another audience, only partially overlapping, that will pay to see Adams, Heggie, and Weir. Or heck, at least some Britten and Menotti!
Previous decades in our capital saw works by Ginastera, Hindemith, Weill, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg. Our last American premiere was in 1999 (Sly, by Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, b.1876). Our last world premiere was in 1993 (Dominick Argento's The Dream of Valentino) - 18 years ago!
Maybe I've just become spoiled by the excitement of recent seasons, since 2006 or so, but I am truly disappointed in WNO's last two offerings. Conservative budgets do not have to mean conservative programing choices. Other voices agree.
Be sure to catch Anne Midgette's comments on the season. Her brief summary also links to the L.A. Opera season; at least Plácido is bringing them some Britten, and the less-common Bánk Bán by Ferenc Erkel. (Ferenc who??)
The upcoming WNO/Kennedy Center affiliation (PDF) looks promising. Both president Michael Kaiser and Domingo seem supportive of this change. Will it revive a measure of the past year's "surprising" programing? Find out, dear reader, in February 2012!
("If we all do safe, boring work, we will lose our audiences and our donors. It is the big surprising projects that build visibility and, therefore, income." ~Kaiser, #5)
* Tosca (1900)
* Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)
* Così Fan Tutte (1790)
* Nabucco (1842)
* Werther (1887; premiered 1892)
There's something peculiar yet familiar here. Just like their 2010-2011 season, there's nothing by an American composer. And nothing in English. And nothing written less than 100 years ago.
What exactly makes them Washington National Opera?
I can sympathize. We're (supposedly, slowly,) emerging from a recession. Opera is expensive, particularly when it's not pre-packaged. Conventional audiences, reliable yet dwindling, want their familiar Mozart, Puccini, and Verdi. But there is another audience, only partially overlapping, that will pay to see Adams, Heggie, and Weir. Or heck, at least some Britten and Menotti!
Previous decades in our capital saw works by Ginastera, Hindemith, Weill, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg. Our last American premiere was in 1999 (Sly, by Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, b.1876). Our last world premiere was in 1993 (Dominick Argento's The Dream of Valentino) - 18 years ago!
Maybe I've just become spoiled by the excitement of recent seasons, since 2006 or so, but I am truly disappointed in WNO's last two offerings. Conservative budgets do not have to mean conservative programing choices. Other voices agree.
Be sure to catch Anne Midgette's comments on the season. Her brief summary also links to the L.A. Opera season; at least Plácido is bringing them some Britten, and the less-common Bánk Bán by Ferenc Erkel. (Ferenc who??)
The upcoming WNO/Kennedy Center affiliation (PDF) looks promising. Both president Michael Kaiser and Domingo seem supportive of this change. Will it revive a measure of the past year's "surprising" programing? Find out, dear reader, in February 2012!
("If we all do safe, boring work, we will lose our audiences and our donors. It is the big surprising projects that build visibility and, therefore, income." ~Kaiser, #5)
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