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2011 OPERA America Conference Invades Boston

May. 04, 2011

Opera directors, composers, performers, administrators and opera lovers of every ilk descend upon Boston this month for the annual OPERA America Conference, hosted by the venerable Opera Boston and Boston Lyric Opera. As always, your friends from Schott/EAM will be joining the festivities and manning a booth in the conference exhibit hall. Do stop by to say hello and peruse our selection of scores, videos and promotional materials on operas from the Schott/EAM family.

In addition, at this year’s Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase on May 10, Douglas J. Cuomo’s Arjuna’s Dilemma will be featured.  Director and set designer Gian Marco Lo Forte, costume designer Angela Wendt, lighting designer Rocco D'Santiand choreographer Philip Montanawill present their vision for Arjuna's Dilemma, which imagines Arjuna as a character in the culturally diverse landscape of New York City and features dance, puppetry, projections and art. To see an early proposal for the set and masks, check out OPERA America's website: www.operaamerica.org.

As a taste of what we have in store at the conference, here is a sampling of just a few our operas that have premiered in the past year alone:

Bernard Rands
Vincent
opera in two acts
libretto (En) by JD McClatchy
World Premiere: April 8, 2011, Indiana University Opera Theatre, conducted by Arthur Fagen, directed by Vincent Liotta

[Rands] delivers a musical portrait of the infinitely talented, utterly neglected, and far too short-lived Van Gogh as luminous as Vincent himself and as illuminating about the nature of art as anything on music or theater stages today.
- Benjamin Barber, The Huffington Post

Gerald Barry
The Importance of Being Earnest
opera in two acts
libretto (En) by the composer after the play by Oscar Wilde
World Premiere: April 7, 2011, Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Thomas Adès

The opera is hysterically funny. The score is highly sophisticated and indescribably zany. Although unstaged, the concert performance proved marvelous theater.
- Mark Swed, The Los Angeles Times

Aribert Reimann
Medea
opera in four acts
libretto (Ger) by the composer after text by Franz Grillparzer
World Premiere: February 28, 2010, Vienna State Opera, conducted by Michael Boder, directed by Marco Arturo Marelli

… a magnificent work of music theater… the composer Aribert Reimann is a master of his trade. If any evidence had been necessary that it is still possible to write attractive operas for a large audience whose tastes are largely conservative, the maestro from Berlin has provided it.
– The Austrian Kurier

Tobias Picker
Fantastic Mr. Fox
opera in three acts
libretto (En) by Donald Sturrock, after the Roald Dahl novel

Two New Versions:

chamber ensemble version for seven players
World Premiere: July 26, 2010, Opera Holland Park, UK, conducted by Tim Murray, directed by Stephen Barlow

chamber orchestra version
World Premiere: February 18, 2011, Croydon, UK, English Touring Opera, conducted by Timothy Carey, directed by Tim Yealland (English Touring Opera's run of performances continues through May 25)

A spirited young cast led by Grant Doyle and Olivia Ray as Mr. and Mrs. Fox held its young audience captive. Four Botticellian wood sprites, who could also sing divinely, led the promenade performance from tree to tree. It was ex­pertly done and deserves a life beyond west London. OHP has high hopes that, with festivals such as Latitude show­ing interest, it will.
- Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian

Morton Subotnick
Jacob’s Room
chamber opera in one act
libretto by the composer inspired by Phaedrus by Plato, Eleni by Nicholas Gage, The Pit and the Trap by Moshe Kohn, The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival by Alicia Partnoy, The Holocaust Kingdom by Alexander Donat and Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
World Premiere: August 5, 2010, Bregenz Festival, conducted by Ari Benjamin Meyers, directed by Mirella Weingarten

The work was surprising, convincing not only in its virtuosity, but also its function as a means of expression of suppressed pain and traumatic memories.
– Suedkurier (Germany)

Wolfgang Rihm
Proserpina
monodrama for soprano and chamber orchestra
text (Ger) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
World Premiere: May 2, 2009, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart, conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer, directed by Hans Neuenfels
US Premiere: May 30, 2010, Spoleto Festival, USA, conducted by John Kennedy, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll

The work is a tour de force for soprano, positively awash in lyricism: for at least half of its 45-minute length, limpid, flowing Straussian melody.
- James R. Oestreich, The New York Times

In addition to the most recent works, be sure to browse our table for materials on key operas that are still resonating through the opera community both here and abroad, such as:

Rufus Wainwright
Prima Donna (2009)
opera in two acts
libretto (En) by Rufus Wainwright and Bernadette Colomine

Prima Donna is a love song to opera, soaked in the perennial operatic themes of loss, betrayal, delusion and nostalgia, and saturated in the musical styles of opera’s golden age.
- Richard Morisson, The Times, UK

Tobias Picker
Emmeline (1995, arr. 2009)
chamber opera in two acts
libretto (En) by J.D. McClatchy

Tobias Picker's Emmeline premiered in its new chamber version at Dicapo Opera Theatre in 2009. Following the opera's performance at the Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma, CA, in June of 2010, Richard Riccardi wrote in classicalsonoma.org:

The Cinnabar Theater has once again raised the musical and theatrical bar... Mr. Picker's score is balanced dramatically and musically… and clearly reflects the opposing dissonance and rare harmony of Emmeline's life, and occasionally combining the two in a fashion completely true to the action and story. A testament to Mr. Picker's score is that it is lush and romantic when necessary, even in this condensed orchestration, yet pointed and intricate when the story calls for that support.

Kamran Ince
Judgement of Midas
opera in one act
libretto (En) by Miriam Seidel

A concert reading of scenes from The Judgment of Midas was produced by American Opera Projects at Lincoln Center and South Oxford Space, Brooklyn, in January 2011.  The opera awaits its world premiere next season, dates to be announced.

Hans Werner Henze
Elegy for Young Lovers (1959/61, rev. 1987)
opera in three acts
libretto (Ger) by Chester Kallman and Wystan Hugh Auden

Next season Henze's Elegy For Young Lovers is part of an innovative cooperative venture among Kimmel Center Presents, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, and the Curtis Opera Theatre. Elegy for Young Lovers takes place at Curtis on March 14, 16, and 18, 2012.

Nicholas Maw
Sophie's Choice (2002)
opera in four acts
libretto (En) by Nicholas Maw based on the novel by William Styron

Nicholas Maw's 21st-century masterpiece is now available on the acclaimed DVD from Opus Arte directed by Trevor Nunn. You may purchase it here.

Sophie’s Choice is masterful and simply one of the most compelling operas I have seen. It already has the air of an oft - performed work, not a newly-commissioned piece. Maw ’s sense of dramatic pacing is felt at every moment and he outstrips every other composer working today. His dialogue is easily understood yet remains profound.
- Paul Driver, The Sunday Times

Stewart Wallace
The Bonesetter's Daughter (2008)
opera in two acts
libretto (En) by Amy Tan based her novel The Bonesetter's Daughter

Premiered in 2008 by San Francisco Opera, The Bonesetter's Daughter visits households across America on May 8 as PBS airs the new documentary film, Journey of the Bonesetter's Daughter, a behind the scenes look at the making of the opera. Check your local listings.

More information can be found at:
www.schott-music.com
www.universaledition.com
www.fabermusic.com
www.baerenreiter.com
www.glockenverlag.com

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