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Peter Eötvös' Angels in America Shines in
Opera Unlimited American Premiere

Jul. 01, 2006

Peter EtvsPeter Eötvös’ opera Angels in America, based on the play by Tony Kushner and with a libretto by Mari Mezei, completed a stellar run of four June performances at Opera Unlimited in Boston. Originally a stage work of daunting proportions, the operatic manifestation of Angels in America has won its creators praise for the distillation and enhancement of the work’s text and thematic material. Bernard Holland comments in the New York Times:

Mr. Eotvos's music augments traditional strings, winds and brass with saxophones, guitars, electronic keyboards, exotic percussion, ringing telephones and sirens. The vocal lines can ease into speech and usually operate against drifting clouds of sound. Mr. Eotvos's success with prosody outstrips that of most American opera composers in his ability to fit music to the flow of American English. He has written truly theatrical music that advances texts rather than calling attention to itself.

Such clarity in the musical setting of text should come as no surprise when one takes Eötvös compositional process into account. In a question-and-answer session following the final performance in the American premiere run, Eötvös, a Hungarian by birth, revealed that his compositional process bases itself around the text. Instead of drawing from influences of particular compositional styles, Eötvös said he listens to the aural intricacies of the language in which the work is written and crafts music to highlight and complement the rhythms, textures and timbres of the spoken language itself. Thus, Eötvös explained, composing in an “American” style for an American opera relies less on musical precedents set by composers like Copland, Gershwin, Ives or Bernstein and more on the flow of words from an American tongue; this process, he added, remains the same regardless of the language or nation of his text.

Angels in America was commissioned by Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and premiered there in November 2004. The Paris production was filmed for PBS’ Great Performances and will air later this year. Among Eötvös’ upcoming projects is a commission from Glyndebourne scheduled for premiere in 2008.

For further information on Peter Eötvös and his works please visit www.schott-music.com. To learn more about Opera Unlimited and Opera Boston, please visit www.operaboston.org .

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