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Hillman Opera Presents Lee Hoiby's Summer and Smoke

Nov. 21, 2022

Hillman Opera Presents Lee Hoiby's <em>Summer and Smoke</em>

Hillman Opera presented Lee Hoiby's  Summer and Smoke at the State University of New York, Fredonia, on November 10-13. The production was directed by Dr. Jessica Hillman-McCord and conducted by Andrew Bisantz.

Lee Hoiby’s opera Summer and Smoke is based on the Tennessee Williams play of the same name and is set in a small Mississippi town where the young, sexually repressed Alma Winemuller is jilted by the wild and undisciplined town doctor, John Buchanan. While aware on one level of her alluring and charming nature, Alma is increasingly haunted by inner demons that brand her too fragile to cope with the harsh realities of the world around her. The play revisits a tragic theme often found in Williams’s work where his protagonists, often female, valiantly confront emotional crises only to be ultimately broken by their inability to cope with the conditions that surround them.


"High Heels" from Summer and Smoke/Lee Hoiby/Manhattan School of Music Opera Theatre.

2026 will mark the 100th anniversary of Lee Hoiby's birth. In addition to Summer and Smoke, we heartily encourage opera companies to peruse Lee Hoiby's other exquisite operatic works including: The Italian Lesson, A Month in the Country, Romeo and Juliet, The Scarf, and This is the Rill Speaking.

To learn more about Lee Hoiby, visit: schott-music.com.


Lee Hoiby
Summer and Smoke (1971)
an opera in two acts
libretto by Lanford Wilson after the play "Summer and Smoke" by Tennessee Williams
3 sopranos, 2 mezzo-sopranos, tenor, 3 baritones, 2 bass-baritones, several speaking roles and orchestra:
2(2.pic).1(ca).2(bcl).1-2.1.1.0-timp.1perc(glsp, xyl[opt.], tri, sus cym, tam-t, s.d, b.d, wdbl, tamb)-hp.cel/off stage piano-str(5.4.3.2.1 minimum) offstage [recording]: 2tpt-gtr.pno-2vn.db
130'

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