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"Buoso's Ghost" in OperaDelaware 2018 Festival

As part of OperaDelaware's 2018 Festival, the company will pair the comic opera Gianni Schicchi by Puccini with Michael Ching's "sequel" Buoso's Ghost. The performances take place April 29 and May 5, 2018 at The Grand Opera House in Wilmington, DE.

Based on part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Gianni Schicchi (the final installment of Puccini’s Il Trittico) is the beloved comic opera about the conniving Donati family's attempts to change their deceased uncle's will for their own gain.

Buoso’s Ghost was first staged with the Pittsburgh Opera in 1996, and received the official premiere at Opera Memphis in 1997. The opera begins where Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi ends, and traces the sinister dealings of Buoso Donati’s family, who have allegedly poisoned Buoso. Throughout the opera, Schicchi exploits the family’s plot to outwit them time and time again. The Chicago Tribune remarked that “Composer and librettist Ching … borrows snatches of Puccini tunes and weaves them into his own conservative-eclectic idiom, tossing in bits of American pop … for merry measure. The vocal writing is expert, the orchestration light enough to allow the singers to project the text clearly. Buoso is charming and unpretentious ….”

Baritone Sean Anderson stars as Gianni Schicchi, with Sara Duchovnay as Lauretta and Kirk Dougherty as Rinuccio. Michael Ching conducts, and A. Scott Parry returns to direct.

Source: Gianni Schicchi & Buoso's Ghost | 2018 Festival | OperaDelaware — OperaDelaware

This entry was posted in Featured, Opera, Michael Ching, 8558, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, November 2017 Vocal and Opera News, May 2018 Composer News on November 10, 2017 by Contributor.
Cecily Ward performs Elena Ruehr: dances for solo violin

Acclaimed violinist Cecily Ward performed Elena Ruehr's Red (2007) on November 4, 2017. The concert took place at Massachusetts Insistent of Technology, where Ruehr teaches.

Cecily Ward

Ward has performed throughout the United States and Europe at venues including the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), Lied Center (Lawrence, KS), Ravinia Festival (Chicago, IL), the Lobkowitz Palace (Prague, Czech Republic), and Eroicasaal (Vienna, Austria). Praised for her “lithe finesse,” “charm,” and “rhapsodic violin,” she has collaborated with esteemed musicians including cellist Gary Hoffman, pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher, pianist Walter Ponce, and cellist Zuill Bailey. Her performances have been featured numerous times on NPR’s “Performance Today” and are broadcast on radio stations worldwide.

Ward was the founding first violinist of the Cypress String Quartet, a position she held for twenty years until the quartet disbanded in 2016. The Cypress recorded 16 critically acclaimed albums, and commissioned and premiered dozens of new works from some of the most interesting and exciting composers working today, including George Tsontakis, Kevin Puts, Jennifer Higdon, Elena Ruehr, and Philippe Hersant. Central to the Cypress Quartet’s work was passionate advocacy for the relevance of classical chamber music in contemporary society. They were also deeply committed to bringing chamber music to people of all ages, demonstrated by their innovative educational programs that reached over 150,000 students.

Ward taught violin and chamber music at San José State University from 2003-2009, and has been on the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy of Music Vivace Festival, Centrum Summer Chamber Music Festival, Las Vegas Music Festival, Sequoia Chamber Music Festival, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. She has given master-classes at conservatories and universities throughout the United States.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ward began studying violin and piano at the age of four. A graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy at 15, she was first violinist of the Academy String Quartet, and led the Academy and String Orchestras. Cecily then studied violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music with Donald Weilerstein earning Bachelor and Master degrees in Music Performance. An avid quartet player from an early age, she held fellowships to the Tanglewood Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Taos Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre for the Performing Arts, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Her mentors include Norbert Brainin, Zoltan Szekely, Bonnie Hampton, Sylvia Rosenberg, Robert McDonald and Isaac Stern.

Ward lives in London, UK, with her husband Mark Willsher and their two Portuguese Water Dogs.

Source: Cecily Ward | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This entry was posted in Featured, Instrumental, Elena Ruehr, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, November 2017 Additional News on November 10, 2017 by Contributor.
"Glory Denied" by Tom Cipullo at Tri-Cities Opera

On November 10-12, 17, and 19, Tri-Cities Opera will stage Glory Denied by Tom Cipullo. The performance features the voices of Scott Purcell, Tascha Anderson, Frederick Schlick, and Stacey Geyer, and the TCO debut of conductor Joshua Horsch.

America’s longest held prisoner of war returns to a country he no longer recognizes and a family who barely recognizes him. Glory Denied tells of the plight of so many veterans who serve their country, but face incredible challenges when returning home. A man kept alive by hope and prayer during his captivity in the jungle of southeast Asia, and his personal struggles following his liberation and repatriation. It is a story of a nation divided and a country that changed significantly in the decade of his imprisonment.

Glory Denied will be available soon from E. C. Schirmer.

<iframe>Source: <a href="https://www.tricitiesopera.com/portfolio/glorydenied1718/">Tri Cities Opera | Glory Denied</a>  

This entry was posted in Featured, Opera, Tom Cipullo, 8609, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, November 2017 Vocal and Opera News, Glory Denied Performances, Q4 2017 Vocal and Opera News on November 9, 2017 by Contributor.
Houston Grand Opera performs "Glory Denied" by Tom Cipullo

On November 6 and 9, Houston Grand Opera presents Tom Cipullo's Glory Denied, as part of the Veterans Songbook Project. Opera attendees can donate a ticket to allow a Houston Veteran to attend the performance for free.

Based on the book by Tom Philpott, Glory Denied takes place during the Vietnam War and tells the true story of Colonel Floyd Joel Thompson, America’s longest-serving Prisoner of War from 1964-73. The opera details Thompson’s imprisonment in southeast Asia and his personal struggles following liberation.

Glory Denied will be available soon from E. C. Schirmer.

<iframe>Glory Denied is the story of an American family during the turbulent Vietnam War era. America’s longest-held prisoner of war returns home to a country he no longer recognizes. This intimate chamber opera chronicles Colonel Jim Thompson’s suffering in the jungles of southeast Asia through to the personal struggles that followed his liberation and repatriation.Source: <a href="http://www.houstongrandopera.org/community-programs/hgoco-event/glory-denied/">Glory Denied : Houston Grand Opera</a>     

This entry was posted in Featured, Opera, Tom Cipullo, 8609, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, November 2017 Vocal and Opera News, Glory Denied Performances, Q4 2017 Vocal and Opera News on November 6, 2017 by Contributor.
"...[entails] learning all the jobs of the gifted people who will spray Febreeze on your work if you fail." Celebrating National Opera Week with Daron Hagen

In honor of National Opera Week (Oct. 27 – Nov. 5), E. C. Schirmer explores the creative process behind writing and producing new opera. Join us as we commemorate the creativity, diligence, and hard work of the composers, librettists, and producers who bring those operas to life.

Daron Hagen (b. 1961) was recognized in 2014 by the American Academy of Arts and Letters with an Academy Award citing his "outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledging the composer who has arrived at his or her own voice." A Lifetime Member of the Corporation of Yaddo, a Trustee of the Douglas Moore Fund for American Opera, and Chair of Composition for the Wintergreen Festival Music Academy, he serves as a Distinguished Mentor for Composers Now, and has served as artistic director of the Seasons Music Festival, and as president of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation. Hagen made his debut as a stage director with Kentucky Opera and has directed productions at Symphony Space in New York City, the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and the McCarter Theater in Princeton (New York Stories, The Antient Concert, A Woman in Morocco). Hagen studied composition with Ned Rorem at the Curtis Institute and David Diamond at the Juilliard School, then worked extensively as a copyist and editor for numerous concert composers and Broadway shows, including Elliot Carter, Virgil Thomson, Gian Carlo Menotti, and Disney. He taught for a decade at Bard College, and served on the faculties of the Curtis Institute, the Chicago College of Performing Arts, New York University, and the Princeton Atelier, among others, before turning his attention solely to teaching privately and creating.

What is your all-time favorite opera?
Billy Budd by Benjamin Britten.

What was the first opera you ever saw live?
The Medium by Gian Carlo Menotti.

If you could choose one artist to perform one of your operas, who would it be?
Whomever I am making Opera with right now.

Who is your opera role model?
I cannot think of one.

If you could have dinner with any composer, opera or otherwise, who would it be?
Depends on who’s doing the cooking!

What’s something about composing opera that people don’t know?
Most of writing an opera occurs in a darkened theater rehearsing another Opera and solving problems creatively as a director or conductor; it entails sitting on a piano bench coaching singers, learning the traditions of the Theater, and reading history. Composing Opera entails years and years learning all the jobs of the gifted people who will spray Febreeze on your work if you fail, so that they don’t have to.

What is your greatest priority in creating new opera?
Connecting with the audience.

What are some of the differences between your first opera and your most recent one?
Every one of my nine operas tackles the musico-dramatic challenge in a distinctly different way. My first big Opera was Shining Brow in 1992: it was entirely acoustic and intended for a 2000-seat Theater. There are now five versions of that Opera available in different instrumentation’s, durations, etc. I’m working on one right now that has no fixed instrumentation or duration and thoroughly integrates electro-acoustic sounds with acoustic.

For more information about Daron Hagen and his catalogue, click here.

This entry was posted in Featured, Opera, Daron Hagen, 4689, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, Opera Week 2017 on November 4, 2017 by Contributor.
"...give the audience enough red-meat moments that they can’t look away..." Celebrating National Opera Week with Tom Cipullo

In honor of National Opera Week (Oct. 27 – Nov. 5), E. C. Schirmer explores the creative process behind writing and producing new opera. Join us as we commemorate the creativity, diligence, and hard work of the composers, librettists, and producers who bring those operas to life.

Hailed by the American Academy of Art & Letters for music of “inexhaustible imagination, wit, expressive range and originality,” composer Tom Cipullo is the winner of the 2016 Pellicciotti Opera Composition Prize from SUNY/Potsdam, a Guggenheim Fellowship (2012), the Arts & Letters Award from the American Academy (2013), and the Sylvia Goldstein Award from Copland House (2013). Cipullo’s music is recorded on the Naxos, Albany, CRI, PGM, MSR, GPR, Centaur, and Capstone labels. Cipullo’s first opera, Glory Denied, has enjoyed numerous productions, and the Fort Worth Opera recording on Albany Records was cited by Opera Newsas among the best of 2014. Reviewers have hailed the work as “terrifically powerful… superbly written” (Fanfare), praising its “luminous score (Washington Post),” and noting “the dramatic tension was relentless (Opera News).” Cipullo’s second opera, After Life (libretto by David Mason), has been called “a finely wrought exploration of the role of art in times of grave crisis ( Washington Post)” and “unfailingly inventive (Opera News ).” Recorded on the Naxos label, After Life is the winner of the 2017 the Domenick Argento Chamber Opera Composition prize from the National Opera Association.

What is your all-time favorite opera?
Cosi fan tutte

What was the first opera you ever saw live?
The Medium

Who is your opera role model?
Britten - the invention and the level of characterization

If you could have dinner with any composer, opera or otherwise, who would it be?
Rossini - He knew good food!

What is the biggest challenge in composing opera?
I think the biggest challenge is to create characters through the music they sing, especially if you're dealing with a large cast. The music can't be interchangeable from one character to the next, though there may be some overlap. But generally, is Character A's music something that only he would sing. Of course, this challenge becomes even more difficult if a character should happen to be deceptive or perhaps an altogether unreliable narrator!

What is your greatest priority in creating new opera?
There really is only one priority when composing an opera - drama, drama, drama! The composer is asking people to sit in a dark theater after a hard day at work and a big meal. You have to give the audience enough red-meat moments that they can't look away or lose interest for a moment. But of course every one of those dramatic moments must be earned. Nothing can be manipulated or false.

Have you ever written the libretto yourself? Would you do it again?
I have written the libretti for several of my works, and I very much enjoy doing do. After the first bouts of fear and insecurity, it's a very liberating practice. I can cut without feeling guilty, and I'm always on the lookout for moments that would make good ensembles. And I almost never argue with myself!

For more information about Tom Cipullo and his catalogue, click here.

This entry was posted in Featured, Opera, Tom Cipullo, 8557, 8609, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, Opera Week 2017 on November 3, 2017 by Contributor.
"Opera is the best way to tell a musical story..." Celebrating National Opera Week with Elena Ruehr

In honor of National Opera Week (Oct. 27 – Nov. 5), E. C. Schirmer explores the creative process behind writing and producing new opera. Join us as we commemorate the creativity, diligence, and hard work of the composers, librettists, and producers who bring those operas to life.

Elena Ruehr says of her music "the idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex." An award winning faculty member at MIT, she is also a Guggenheim Fellow and has been a fellow at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute and composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Dr. Ruehr was a student of William Bolcom at the University of Michigan, and Vincent Persichetti and Bernard Rands at The Juilliard School. Her work has been described as "sumptuously scored and full of soaring melodies" (The New York Times), and "unspeakably gorgeous" (Gramophone).

What is your all-time favorite opera?
The Magic Flute

What was the first opera you ever saw live?
The Magic Flute

If you could choose one artist to perform one of your operas, who would it be?
Renee Flemming

Who is your opera role model?
John Adams

If you could have dinner with any composer, opera or otherwise, who would it be?
John Adams

What’s something about composing opera that people don’t know?
It’s really fun to compose an opera and really frustrating to produce one!

What is the biggest challenge in composing opera?
The hardest part is getting a great libretto and finding a way to make the words into a true play.

What are three important things to keep in mind when producing an opera?
Budget, Budget, Budget.

What is your greatest priority in creating new opera?
Two things: writing beautiful lines for great singers and finding librettos that tell a story that seems crucial or exciting to me.

How did you come to create your first opera?
I had worked with a singer, Stephen Salters, and was approached by Opera Boston to write something for him. It lead to Toussaint Before the Spirits, still one of my best works.

What are some of the differences between your first opera and your most recent one?
I now have a slightly bigger orchestra and a much bigger cast.

Are you able to really enjoy a performance of your own opera, or are you mentally editing from you seat?
When I’m in my seat, I am watching the audience. I notice when they are paying attention and when they are drifting off. I file that away for the next one.

How closely do you work with a commissioning organization?
Always very closely.

Tell us about how opera inspires or energizes you.
I love telling stories and opera is the best way to tell a musical story. There is something so exciting about setting text to music, where every word can interpreted in so many ways. It’s like being a film director, but you actually time out the words the actors/singers speak and give them the emphasis you want them to have in the musical score.

Who’s another opera composer we should be watching?
Daron Hagen. Laura Schwendinger. Julian Wachner.

Who is your favorite opera company to watch? To work with?
Well I love the Met but I also really love Beth Morrison’s productions. And for local Boston productions I like Odyssey Opera and Guerrilla Opera.

What do you hope for the future of opera?
That it does not start using amplification, which destroys the sound of a voice in my opinion.

Have you ever written the libretto yourself? Would you do it again?
I once wrote one part of a scene, and I didn’t like how it turned out. I think professional writers are really important, if you can find someone good.

For more information about Elena Ruehr and her catalogue, click here.

This entry was posted in Featured, Opera, Elena Ruehr, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, Opera Week 2017 on November 2, 2017 by Contributor.
"...you need to leave room for other dimensions of sound." Celebrating National Opera Week with David Mason

In honor of National Opera Week (Oct. 27 – Nov. 5), E. C. Schirmer explores the creative process behind writing and producing new opera. Join us as we commemorate the creativity, diligence, and hard work of the composers, librettists, and producers who bring those operas to life.

David Mason is an award-winning poet and novelist. His poetry, prose, and translations have appeared in such periodicals as The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry, Agenda, The New Criterion, The Yale Review, The American Scholar, and others. He has also written the libretti for composer Lori Laitman’s opera of The Scarlet Letter, which premiered at Opera Colorado in 2016, and her oratorio, Vedem, which premiered in Seattle in 2012. He recently won the Thatcher Hoffman Smith Creativity in Motion Prize for the development of a new libretto based upon Ludlow. His one-act opera with composer Tom Cipullo, After Life, premiered in Seattle and San Francisco in 2015 and is available on CD from Naxos. It won the 2017 Dominick Argento Prize for Best Chamber Opera from the National Opera Association. A former Fulbright Fellow to Greece, Mason served as Poet Laureate of Colorado from 2010 to 2014, and teaches at Colorado College.

What is your all-time favorite opera?
Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (since I can’t really choose)

What was the first opera you ever saw live?
Das Rheingold (Seattle Opera, long ago)

If you could choose one artist to perform one of your operas, who would it be?
I’m grateful to so many singers I cannot choose.

Who is your opera role model?
W. H. Auden (as librettist)

If you could have dinner with any composer, opera or otherwise, who would it be?
Beethoven. I’m nearly deaf, so we could shout at each other.

Writing a libretto is a very different task than writing a play. What are the biggest differences and similarities?
The chief difference is between singing and speaking. In both art forms you want to create scenes that reveal character and intensify the drama—scenes in which something is truly at stake. Writing for the composer, however, you need to leave room for other dimensions of sound. You can be lyrical, but ought to try to be relatively spare as well, containing the impulse to go on long verbal riffs—though such things can be done well to comic effect. You also need to give the composer gifts and opportunities that a playwright won’t need to consider—perhaps a chance for a trio or a quartet or a lullaby or a mad song or simply a great aria. You need to think about choral opportunities that a playwright won’t generally have. A playwright ought, I believe, to think musically as well—about pacing and timing and pauses and the rest, but the librettist is even more collaborative in this process. And you need to be ready to revise if something you’ve done isn’t inspiring the composer. A playwright will want to attract a director’s vision and the ambitions of actors with strong roles, and librettists have to think in this way too. But the first job of the librettist is to please the composer and give him or her material that will inspire great music.

How does your libretto change once you begin working with the music?
This depends entirely on the composer. Lori Laitman is so used to working with words that she generally feels it is her own duty to make her music work with the text. Only rarely with Lori have I had to change a word or a verse to suit a musical opportunity. In the case of our oratorio, Vedem, we discovered that we had mispronounced the Czech title, and a melody had to be altered. For the professional premiere of The Scarlet Letter, conductor Ari Pelto felt that the ending I had written went on too long and muddied the emotional impact. It might have worked better on film than on a big stage. In any case, Lori went to work with Ari and they trimmed the ending back, and the result was even more powerful. With Tom Cipullo, working on After Life, he asked me whether a young male character, a Holocaust victim, could become a young female. I readily agreed to the easy change, and the result was an astonishing soprano role. We’re collaborating on a new piece in which I had a character called “Death,” and Tom admitted that he found it hard to imagine Death as a character, so I’m thinking hard about names, gender, etc., to give him maximum inspiration.

Does the music follow the words, or do the words follow the music?
Though quite a few people have set poems of mine to music, I’ve only written opera with two composers, and in these cases the libretti have come first. Both Lori Laitman and Tom Cipullo know that I am absolutely devoted to their work and will make any changes they require. They only have to ask. So far, the results have been amazing.

Are you able to really enjoy a performance of your own opera, or are you mentally editing from you seat?
I really do enjoy watching performances of operas for which I have written the libretti, mainly because the performances come so many years after the writing that I can hardly remember I was the author. It really does feel as if I’m watching something new, wholly made by other people, and I love seeing what talented stage directors and musicians do with the work. Sometimes I catch a line I’d like to alter, but we’ve usually worked it through so much by curtain time that it’s all up to the musicians. I have been extremely lucky in the artists who have sung my words, and for a lowly poet the experience is pure intoxication.

For more information about David Mason and his catalogue, click here.

This entry was posted in Featured, Opera, David Mason, 8557, 8609, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, Opera Week 2017 on November 1, 2017 by Contributor.
"Make the opera attractive enough that somebody wants to do it again..." Celebrating National Opera Week with Michael Ching

In honor of National Opera Week (Oct. 27 – Nov. 5), E. C. Schirmer explores the creative process behind writing and producing new opera. Join us as we commemorate the creativity, diligence, and hard work of the composers, librettists, and producers who bring those operas to life.

E. C. Schirmer publishes Michael Ching's Buoso's Ghost which will play this season at SUNY Potsdam, the University of Central Florida, and OperaDelaware where the composer will also conduct the production. Michael's newest project is Anna Hunter, a one act opera about historic preservation in 1950s Savannah. It is part of the 2017 National Opera Week festivities at the Savannah Voice Festival. Speed Dating Tonight! was commissioned and premiered in 2013 by the Janiec Opera of the Brevard Music Center and will have its sixtieth production in 2018. It has been called the most popular opera of the 21st century. Michael has new projects as composer/librettist at Cedar Rapids Opera Theater and the Performing Arts High School at Rancho Mirage, California. Michael currently serves as Music Director of Amarillo Opera, Composer-in-Residence at Savannah Voice Festival, and Opera and Vocal Music Consultant for E. C. Schirmer and Galaxy Music. Email him.

What is your all-time favorite opera?
Carmen.

What was the first opera you ever saw live?
Trouble in Tahiti.

If you could choose one artist to perform one of your operas, who would it be?
Swedish Soprano, Anne Sofie von Otter.

Who is your opera role model?
Robert Ward, my teacher and composer of The Crucible.

If you could have dinner with any composer, opera or otherwise, who would it be?
Gershwin, and I’d bring along something to try to cure his brain tumor.

What’s something about composing opera that people don’t know?
It’s terribly fun!

What is the biggest challenge in composing opera?
Getting the story with an absolute minimum of recitative and dialogue. No one goes to the opera to hear recitative and dialogue. There are some composers that admire Debussy or Strauss and all the dialogue they have, but I personally find them dull. Call me a philistine.

What are three important things to keep in mind when producing an opera?
Replicability, Replicability, Replicability. Make the opera attractive enough that somebody wants to do it again after the premiere. Otherwise it’s way too much effort for one production!

What is your greatest priority in creating new opera?
Pleasing the producer and myself. Writing for the audience that I imagine will be attending the premiere.

How did you come to create your first opera?
I was studying with Robert Ward at Duke and he let me write an opera as a senior project, which they then produced the summer after I graduated.

What are some of the differences between your first opera and your most recent one?
My first opera sucked, my latest one’s really good. ;)

Are you able to really enjoy a performance of your own opera, or are you mentally editing from you seat?
I’m a really good audience member, and have learned to let go and enjoy the element of live theater and the choices made by the producers and performers. If you can’t let go, opera really might not be a good thing to write.

How closely do you work with a commissioning organization?
The closer, the better. The worst kinds of commissions are those that give you free reign. The best specify the subject matter, the size of the cast and orchestra, and even give suggestions about the musical approach.

Tell us about how opera inspires or energizes you.
I live and breathe it as a composer, librettist, conductor, and former administrator and coach. I’m very glad to be alive during a period of time where there’s a bit of demand for new work. I love taking something that you wouldn’t imagine would make a song and turn it into one. For example, my new opera, Anna Hunter, has a song about a “revolving fund” which is a financial lending instrument for historic preservation.

Who’s another opera composer we should be watching?
Bonnie Montgomery, an Americana singer-songwriter who has a background in opera, including an opera about Bill Clinton. I’m not saying that everyone should write shows like Porgy and Bess or West Side Story, but the field would be better off if there were more shows that used them as models.

Who is your favorite opera company to watch? To work with?
I’ve been delighted working with Sherrill Milnes and Maria Zouves at Savannah Voice Festival. It is singer-centered and they want music that is fun to sing and characterize. And their working model is opera-as-Greek-family, so there’s a lot of food and fun mixed into shooting the breeze about opera.

What do you hope for the future of opera?
I hope opera can be more central to our culture, like it was in Verdi’s time in Italy. Contrary to most composers, I think the answer is to be loved, not respected.

For more information about Michael Ching and his catalogue, click here.

This entry was posted in Featured, Opera, Michael Ching, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, Opera Week 2017, May 2018 Composer News on October 31, 2017 by Contributor.
"...the music, libretto, themes, and ideas relate to the world we live in today so powerfully." A conversation with Francesca Zambello - The Crucible

In honor of National Opera Week (Oct. 27 – Nov. 5), E. C. Schirmer explores the creative process behind writing and producing new opera. Join us as we commemorate the creativity, diligence, and work of the composers, librettists, and producers who bring those operas to life.

An internationally recognized director of opera and theater, Francesca Zambello's American debut took place at the Houston Grand Opera with a production of Fidelio in 1984. She debuted in Europe at Teatro la Fenice in Venice with Beatrice di Tenda in 1987 and has since staged new productions at major theaters and opera houses in Europe and the USA. Collaborating with outstanding artists and designers and promoting emerging talent, she takes a special interest in new music theater works, innovative productions, and in producing theater and opera for wider audiences. Ms. Zambello has been the General Director of The Glimmerglass Festival since 2010, and the Artistic Director of The Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center since 2012. She also served as the Artistic Advisor to the San Francisco Opera and as the Artistic Director of the Skylight Theater.

The Glimmerglass Festival programmed Robert Ward's Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, The Crucible, in its 2016 summer program. Ms. Zambello detailed the experience of directing that performance:

"But to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group." Lillian Hellman’s letter to HUAC [United States House Un-American Activities Committee] speaks to us so powerfully today as it did then more than 60 years ago.

As I thought about everything in that period of American history I was drawn to present and direct The Crucible at The Glimmerglass Festival as the music, libretto, themes and ideas relate to the world we live in today so powerfully. Although not a recent work, we at Glimmerglass have been resolved to feature great American repertory from the second half of the 20^th century which has been so pivotal in inspiring today’s composers. We were blessed with a phenomenal cast led by Jamie Barton, Brian Mulligan, and Jay Hunter Morris under the baton of Nicole Paiement, an advocate for 20^th century American music.

As we dug into the score all of the cast was riveted by the piece, the melodies and the searing text, especially the unforgettable trial scene where every bit of fake news becomes the truth. It was a perfect piece for a young cast as they connected so powerfully to all the characters. Along with our designers, I decided to be totally true to the period as it is so shocking, then and now. I hope our effective revival will re-popularize it.

Great reading by the way is Stacy Schiff’s book: The Witches, 1692

https://glimmerglass.smugmug.com/Press/2016-The-Crucible-Press-Images/

For more information about The Crucible, click here.

This entry was posted in Featured, Opera, Conrad Susa, 7.0028, Classical and tagged E. C. Schirmer/Galaxy, Opera Week 2017 on October 30, 2017 by Contributor.