European American Music Distributors Company is a member of the Schott Music Group

Christopher Cerrone's Invisible Cities in Premiere Production at LA's Union Station

Oct. 31, 2013

Christopher Cerrone's <em>Invisible Cities</em> in Premiere Production at LA's Union Station

Invisible Cities, an opera by Christopher Cerrone, has received rave reviews following its staged premiere on October 19 in Los Angeles. Produced by The Industry and the LA Dance Project with direction by Yuval Sharon, the fascinating production takes place in LA's historic Union Station, with the sound of the orchestra and singers sent to the audience by wireless headphones, which are provided by Sennheiser. 

During the production, two hundred audience members are provided headphones and encouraged to roam the train station, which in addition to the opera's eight singers and eleven instrumentalists, is also open to the commuting public. Based on Italo Calvino's novel of the same name, the opera explores Marco Polo's travels to lands of increasing virtual potential through conversation with Kublai Khan, a magical realist imagining of the limitless possibilities afforded by travel, both real and imaginary. Set in a regional center for inter-city travel, Invisible Cities blurs the line between personal and collective reality, taking over the audience's sense of hearing while leaving the rest of their body to explore a space both real and imaginary at the same time. 

Cerrone's music, with its inward focus, use of electronics, and deep sense of magical reality, is a perfect fit for this production, which embodies an aesthetic developed in earlier works like The Night Mare and How to Breathe Underwater. Mark Swed reports for the Los Angeles Times: 

[Invisible Cities is] a startlingly ambitious project… [Cerrone’s] instrumental writing has the quality of glittery, half-lighted surfaces enhanced by Postminimalist patterns. His vocal style is lyrical and owes a debt to John Adams. There are fanciful dramatic outbursts as well, but mostly the score sounds as if it floats, very agreeably, on an acoustical cushion slightly lighter than air… It could be, and should be, done anywhere.

For more information on Christopher Cerrone, please visit www.psnymusic.com. 

Christopher Cerrone
Invisible Cities (2009-2011)
an invisible opera in one act
libretto (Eng) by Christopher Cerrone based on the novel by Italo Calvino
for four solo voices (2S, T, BBar), chamber choir (SATB), chamber orchestra and electronics
fl(afl).cl(bcl)-hn(bell).tbn(bell)-perc-hp.2pno(I. prepared, II. bell, kybd)-vn(bell).va(bell).vc
65’-75’

News