# Contemporary opera



## schigolch

This is a thread to debate about contemporary opera. The opera that is being composed in our own days.

Of course, the obvious question is: "what is the limit of _our own days_?".

For the sake of this thread, let's define contemporary opera as any opera written after 1980. This gives us more than thirty years, and is a reasonable time for a genre that tends to think in centuries.

Perhaps some TC members that are fans of Opera, are not very familiar with the latest new things in the genre. Or they are afraid only avant-garde Opera is being composed now. We will see that this is not the case, not by any means. There are new operas for (almost) everyone to enjoy, no matter what is our personal taste.










*Philippe Manoury*, (Tulle, 1952) is a French composer living in the US, with some important success in his career. He has been working with electronic music, as well as large orchestras.

In the field of Opera, his best known piece is _K_, premiered the year 2001, in Paris. This is relatively short opera, that was the recipient of several awards in France. It's based on Kafka's _Der Prozeß (The Trial)_, and it's quite interesting:











This year Manoury has premiered his fourth opera, _La Nuit de Gutenberg_, in Strasbourg.










It seems rather nice as far as the instrumental music goes, but the vocal treatment can be suspected, something like the usual _sprechgesang_ for the male singers, and the high coloratura roles for females.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl...ry-opera-national-du-rhin-bande-annonce_music


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk

Thomas Pasatieri - The Family Room

piano-reduction workshop version in Princeton New Jersey last summer. 

2 sopranos. I forget their names but they were really exceptional. one of them was actually in the premiere cast of Corigliano's Ghosts of Versailles, and the other one's daughter was the librettist. Pasatieri kept referring to them as "the greatest singing actresses of our time" and it seemed like hyperbole at first, but after the show I was in agreement. 

really phenomenal tonings and texturings, it was about these two women locked in a basement somewhere and what it was like for them psychologically trying to survive (the neglect and abuse of a husband or something). The Libretto went into some of the psychological introspectives, but the music is what really got you in the characters' heads. 

on the whole, IT WAS AWESOME. 
Mr. Pasatieri was there, and I met him afterwards. He said the orchestrated version is for 13 instruments or something like that. 

Pasatieri is also known for his "The Seagull" based on Chekov. also worth noting- he conducted Jon Brion's miraculous Magnolia music when he was working at a film-music studio.


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## schigolch

Pasatieri is one of the most prolific composers of our times. It's a little bit strange but he wrote seventeen operas between 1964 and 1986, and then nothing until the year 2007, when he premiered _Frau Margot_ and _The Hotel Casablanca_. In this youtube we can hear about it:






His major success was _The Seagull_, premiered at the Houston Grand Opera in 1974, based on Chekhov. We can hear this opera complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

Ok, so you are a lover of traditional melody, and bel canto singing. You think contemporary opera is not for you. It's a kind of avant-garde noise, with people mumbling instead of singing, except for a few (out of tune) shouted high notes.

Well, there are many new operas that will somehow fit your description, and will reinforce your beliefs.

But then, there are others that you can, perhaps, enjoy.

Take for instance Laurent Petitgirard:










This composer premiered a very nice opera some years ago, _Joseph Merrick, dit Elephant Man_. The storyline is the unfortunate biography of Joseph Merrick, afflicted by neurofibromatosis, and abused like a freak in the circus. It's not based on the David Lynch's movie, it comes right from doctor Treves' memories and other contemporary documents, being compiled by Petitgirard's writer, Eric Nonn.

I bet most of the people loving traditional singing will like this beautiful choir:






Petitgirard's second opera, _Guru_, seems to be created in the footsteps of the first. It was premiered the year 2010 in Budapest, and we get a recording by Naxos.

It's a story about a charismatic and manipulative character that rules over a sect with apocalyptic inclinations comprised of 50 followers living in seclusion on an island. One recent adept, Marie (a spoken role, to underline her basic sanity), opposes him, but finally all people go suicidial except for her.

We can see here some information on _Guru_:


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## hike

hi,great thread and i am glad to be here.

http://www.angelmedcenter.com/andropause-hormones-testosterone.html


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## schigolch

Some of the new operas are coming from Latin America.

Brazilian composer Jorge Antunes premiered the year 2006, in São Paulo, _Olga_. The piece is based on the life of Olga Gutmann, a German communist activist, that was the romantic interest of Brazilian leftist politician Luis Carlos Prestes. She was deported from Brazil to Germany, in 1936, while she was pregnant, and was murdered six years later, gassed in an extermination camp. After the war, she was made a model for revolutionary women, in the RDA.

We can watch the opera in youtube:


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## altiste

Now on youtube, At the Hawk's Well, from a 1992 production in Nelson, NZ.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde




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## LordBlackudder




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## superhorn

I recently borrowed the DVD of the world premiere performance in Munich of south Korean composer Unsuk Chin's opera Alice In Wonderland, based on the famous book by Lewis Carroll . The premiere was about five years ago, and the audience is very enthusiastic on the DVD.
By golly, it's great fun ! Chin, a woman composer, has written a basically atonal yet highly inventive score and her orchestration is chock full of vivid colors . The only big name singer in the cast is Dame Gwyneth Jones
as the queen of hearts, believe it or not,at the age of 70, an dher voice is amazingly strong .
Not only that,she shows great comic flair ,and her performance, like the rest of the cast, is a hoot ! 
The whole cast seems to have great fun, and Kent Nagano conducts with great panache .
The sets and costumes are dazzling, with marionettes and all kinds of brilliant special effects .
This is recommended for people who think they don't like contemporary opera !
This opera should be done at the Met and other U.S. opera houses .


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## schigolch

*Anders Nilsson* (Stockholm, 1954) is a Swedish composer that has written a couple of operas. One of them is _Zarah_, based on the life of the actress Zarah Leander, during her years in Germany and her stardom status in the Nazi period.

Though she is not very well know outside Germany or the Nordic countries, Leander was a big star back in the 1930s and 1940s. Her career was controversial because she was one of the main attractions of the UFA, the all-powerful German motion-picture production company, though Leander always said that for her it was just a job, and she never was a member of the Nazi party.

This is Zarah Leander singing in one of her movies:






The opera deals with the last years of Leander in Germany, until her return to Sweden in 1943. It was quite a success when it was premiered in Sweden, back in 2007. We can watch some scenes in youtube:


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## schigolch

I love Boris Vian's _L'Écume des jours _(The Foam of Days), a novel published in 1947, after the Second World War, that tried to capture the mood of the times, using the absurd as a kind of cornerstone.

The Russian composer *Edison Denisov*, a big fan himself of Vian and French literature, wrote an opera in 1981 based on this material, to his own libretto. It was premiered in 1986, at Paris, and since then it have been offered in Perm (sung in Russian), and Stuttgart (sung in German). It's a beautiful and complex opera, and with Denisov's usual passion to quote from others' music in his works.

We can hear a fragment of the French version: http://www.musiquecontemporaine.fr/record/oai:cdmc.asso.fr:aloes:0024593?language=fr

and the trailer of the German one:


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## schigolch

Some years ago, I watched *Graciane Finzi*'s _Le dernier Jour de Socrate_ at the Opéra Comique, in Paris, one of around ten operas she has written so far. More recently she has premiered _Et nous le monde_, with a libretto written between Jacques Descorde and the students of a 'lycée' placed in a troubled neighbourhood in the 'banlieues'. The students themselves recite the text while we heard Finzi's music and interventions from the Choir:

De ma fenêtre - http://www.goear.com/listen/f1ea83a/fasf-ga

In youtube, there are some fragments of _Là bas peut-être_:


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## Guest

Opera is one of those few genres that's only getting better.

Reimann, Birtwistle, and Saariaho are probably my favorite all-around contemporary opera composers, off the top of my head, but there are many great ones. 

Funny, I'm just recently discovering Philippe Manoury... Have any of his other operas besides the 60th Parallel been recorded? I'd be interested to hear just about anything based on Kafka; I haven't been able to hear Reimann's setting of The Castle, but Poul Ruders has a nice setting of The Trial (interspersed with bits of Kafka's life).

Beat Furrer and Salvatore Sciarrino also seem to be really strong names in opera right now.

I've heard bits and pieces of Chin's setting of Alice In Wonderland, but it needs a recording asap! And Brett Dean's Bliss! And...and...(too many to name)

Etc etc etc


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## SeptimalTritone

Nathan, you should check out Georg Haas' Bluthaus. Should be right up your alley!


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## schigolch

nathanb said:


> Opera is one of those few genres that's only getting better.
> 
> Reimann, Birtwistle, and Saariaho are probably my favorite all-around contemporary opera composers, off the top of my head, but there are many great ones.
> 
> Funny, I'm just recently discovering Philippe Manoury... Have any of his other operas besides the 60th Parallel been recorded? I'd be interested to hear just about anything based on Kafka; I haven't been able to hear Reimann's setting of The Castle, but Poul Ruders has a nice setting of The Trial (interspersed with bits of Kafka's life).
> 
> Beat Furrer and Salvatore Sciarrino also seem to be really strong names in opera right now.
> 
> I've heard bits and pieces of Chin's setting of Alice In Wonderland, but it needs a recording asap! And Brett Dean's Bliss! And...and...(too many to name)
> 
> Etc etc etc


There is not an official, commercial release of any other of Manoury's operas, to the best of my knowledge. However, "Alice in Wonderland" has been released on DVD:










About Kafka's operatic adaptations, of which there are a few, there is one by Sciarrino himself!. It's 'La porta della legge':






Perhaps the more famous operatic adaptation is Glass's 'In the Penal Colony':






Arguably, the more succesful so far is André Laporte 'Das Schloss':










Personally, my favorite musical adaptation from Kafka it's not an opera, but 'Kafka Fragments', by Gÿorgy Kurtág. In fact, Dawn Upshaw and Geoff Nuttall have performed 'Kafka Fragments' in a staging by Peter Sellars, but it's not a work originally planned for the stage:


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## Guest

By the way, I haven't listened to Bluthaus, but I do have his chamber opera Nacht, and it's quite clear that Haas' music works for the stage as well as it works for anything else.


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## Mahlerian

NathanB, Unsuk Chin is currently writing another opera, based on Through the Looking Glass, to be premiered in a few years.


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## schigolch

The character of Faustus had always been a favourite for opera composers. Starting in the 19th century pieces like _Faust_, _La Damnation de Faust_, _Mefistofele_..., to Pascal Dusapin's _Faustus, the Last Night_, with Busoni's _Doktor Faust_ in between.

One very nice work on the subject is the "Faust Cantata", by Schnittke, that was in origin just a part of an opera: _Historia von D. Johann Fausten_, that never materialized:






However, let's present in this post *Giacomo Manzoni*'s _Doktor Faustus_, based on episodes from Thomas Mann's novel, selected by the composer, and premiered at La Scala, in 1989. This is the beginning of the opera:

http://www.goear.com/listen/d63edd2/f-ff


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## schigolch

*Jonathan Dove* is a British composer, quite experienced in the field of Opera, as he has written several pieces. One of them is a favorite of mine, _Flight_, the story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who lived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, for several years, later also used by Steven Spielberg as the basis for one of his movies.

We can watch _Flight_ complete in youtube, from a Mezzo broadcast:






But arguably, Dove's more celebrated opera so far is _The Adventures of Pinocchio:

_









It's based on the novel by Carlo Collodi. As you can imagine the plot is the creation of the wooden puppet 'Pinocchio' and some of his adventures on the way to becoming a real boy. It's a very nice opera, and suitable also for children.


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## anmhe

Thanks for the last few recommendations. I've had a bit of bad luck with only finding dour and/or depressing modern operas lately.


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## Guest

schigolch said:


> The character of Faustus had always been a favourite for opera composers. Starting in the 19th century pieces like _Faust_, _La Damnation de Faust_, _Mefistofele_..., to Pascal Dusapin's _Faustus, the Last Night_, with Busoni's _Doktor Faust_ in between.
> 
> One very nice work on the subject is the "Faust Cantata", by Schnittke, that was in origin just a part of an opera: _Historia von D. Johann Fausten_, that never materialized:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> However, let's present in this post *Giacomo Manzoni*'s _Doktor Faustus_, based on episodes from Thomas Mann's novel, selected by the composer, and premiered at La Scala, in 1989. This is the beginning of the opera:
> 
> http://www.goear.com/listen/d63edd2/f-ff


What do you mean by this? I listened to a recording of the whole Schnittke opera last fall. You're just referring to it being unfinished or something, I take it?

Has anyone heard the operas of Johannes Kalitzke?


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## schigolch

Exactly. Schnittke himself despaired of being able to complete his opera, and the recording you mention (I guess it should be Gerd Albrecht's) is incompleted, too. To the best of my knowledge the piece has never been staged with all the music available included, either.

About Mr. Kalitzke, I own this cd with his opera "Die Besessenen":










since a couple of years, but I must confess I have given it only a perfunctory hearing, so I would need to listen to it again to have a useful opinion.


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## silentio

schigolch , would you recommend any contemporary Japanese opera? What a shame that Toru Takemitsu never composed any opera.


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## quack

silentio said:


> schigolch , would you recommend any contemporary Japanese opera? What a shame that Toru Takemitsu never composed any opera.


I only recently found out that Takemitsu composed songs.









As it says here, they aren't really what you'd expect:



> Takemitsu's songs, many of which were written for film scores, are hardly recognizable as the work of the composer of delicate but distinctly modernist orchestral and chamber music. These songs could easily be mistaken for popular music of the 1930s and 1940s: cabaret songs, melancholy French chansons, soulful ballads, Latin-tinged dances, and jazz standards.


http://www.allmusic.com/album/toru-takemitsu-songs-mw0001969452

They are very pretty though, doesn't offer a clue what a Takemitsu opera would be like though.


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## Albert7

Everyone knows Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer easily.






and then there's a relatively obscure one from today

Olga Neuwirth's opera Lost Highway based on the Lynch film:


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## Mahlerian

silentio said:


> schigolch , would you recommend any contemporary Japanese opera? What a shame that Toru Takemitsu never composed any opera.


Takemitsu was considering an opera near the end of his life before his unfortunate death of (bladder?) cancer.

Not long before, he wrote a piece for choir, orchestra, and soloist called "My Way of Life" that Peter Burt, in his book on Takemitsu's works, speculates may be an indication of what a Takemitsu-composed opera could have been like.

As for other Japanese operas, most of them really haven't traveled outside of their country of origin.

Yasushi Akutagawa's television opera "Hiroshima no Orfee" is somewhat interesting, though I imagine it would be hard to follow without knowing the language at all. The score is a bit filmscore-ish in parts, and it dates from Akutagawa's middle "avant-garde" period.


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## silentio

quack said:


> I only recently found out that Takemitsu composed songs.
> 
> View attachment 63953
> 
> 
> As it says here, they aren't really what you'd expect:
> 
> http://www.allmusic.com/album/toru-takemitsu-songs-mw0001969452
> 
> They are very pretty though, doesn't offer a clue what a Takemitsu opera would be like though.


Takemitsu made many arrangements for pop songs and folk songs too, of course for various purposes. But judging from his "serious" outputs, I would say that he is not only a very ideal candidate for composing opera, but also a potential pioneer of a new operatic language. His score for _"Kwaidan"_ (Ghosts), a combination of traditional Japanese music and the avant-garde soundscape, to me is much more daring and thrilling that most of the repetitive stuffs by Glass, and (the late) Ligeti and Penderecki. (Not to mention that he can just simply top up the Messiaenic flavors whenever he wants to).


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## silentio

Mahlerian said:


> Takemitsu was considering an opera near the end of his life before his unfortunate death of (bladder?) cancer.
> 
> Not long before, he wrote a piece for choir, orchestra, and soloist called "My Way of Life" that Peter Burt, in his book on Takemitsu's works, speculates may be an indication of what a Takemitsu-composed opera could have been like.
> 
> As for other Japanese operas, most of them really haven't traveled outside of their country of origin.
> 
> Yasushi Akutagawa's television opera "Hiroshima no Orfee" is somewhat interesting, though I imagine it would be hard to follow without knowing the language at all. The score is a bit filmscore-ish in parts, and it dates from Akutagawa's middle "avant-garde" period.


Thanks Mahlerian! This is a very interesting finding for me!

Based on my first impression, I agree that the score is like a combination of Berg and film music. Usually I would prefer a more genuine musical language like the _Kwaidan_ clip I posted just now


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## schigolch

silentio said:


> schigolch , would you recommend any contemporary Japanese opera? What a shame that Toru Takemitsu never composed any opera.


My favorite contemporary Japanese composer is Toshio Hosokawa. He recently premiered at La Monnaie, in Brussels, his third opera, _Matsukaze_, based on a Noh theater piece, written by Zeami Motokiyo in the 15th century:

http://www.goear.com/listen/39b9069/m-hosokawa

A couple of brief fragments from his second opera, _Hanjo_, inspired in Yukio Mishima:


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## Sloe

silentio said:


> schigolch , would you recommend any contemporary Japanese opera? What a shame that Toru Takemitsu never composed any opera.


If you are interested here is a youtube channel with several operas by Shigeaki Saegusa.
Shigeaki Saegusa have also composed much music for anime including the background music for Astro Boy.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs5NrBU3KDFTaLVbKDjbYpA

Chushingura from 1997 is an opera with nice music based on the story of the 47 Ronin.


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## Guest

I don't have any Japanese opera either... But I didn't know Hosokawa had any! I'll need to hear one.


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## schigolch

*Robert Ashley* was one of the most personal voices in the American opera of the last 40 years.

His music, with an important electronic flavour, sometimes quietly repetitive, sometimes even surprisingly melodic, included a fascinating exploration of the spoken voice, in contraposition to the standard operatic singing.










Perhaps the best introduction to his work is this _Atalanta_, first part of an intended trilogy that includes contemporary characters like painter Max Ernst, jazz pianist Bud Powell or Willard Reynolds, a relative of Ashley.






This documentary on Ashley, filmed by movie director Peter Greenaway, is available on youtube:


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## schigolch

There are several contemporary operas based on the colourful character of Rasputin.

Of course, the more famous is _Rasputin_, by the Finnish composer *Einojuhani Rautavaara*, premiered back in 2003. It received some harsh reviews, based on the supposedly weak libretto, and a lack of novelties in the score. However, I personally think this is an interesting piece, and quite strong in terms of vocal writing. There is a DVD published:










We can watch in youtube to Matti Salminen singing the role of Rasputin:






In 1988 *Jay Reise*'s _Rasputin_ was performed in the New York City Opera. We can enjoy also some fragments in youtube, from a staging in the Helikon Opera, Moscow:






And finally, we have _Nicholas and Alexandra_ by *Deborah Drattell*, with a libretto by Nicholas Von Hoffman, premiered at Los Angeles Opera, in 2003.

Drattell, following standard operatic logic, was thinking to cast Rasputin as a bass. However, Placido Domingo, then still a full-time tenor, wanted to sing the mad monk himself. Then, Tsar Nicholas was also switched from tenor to baritone, and sung by Rodney Gilfry.

There is no youtube, but we can listen to a fragment of the opera in the link below:

http://www.goear.com/listen/8003547/naa-naa


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## Guest

Robert Ashley is one I'm excited to continue to work with. I haven't done much yet with his operas, but I've grown to love "Automatic Writing". 

I also have a very soft spot for Rautavaara, so I'm sure I'll be trying that one eventually  So far from him, I've heard Aleksis Kivi, The House Of The Sun, and Kaivos...with Thomas and Vincent waiting.


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## schigolch

Rautavaara's _Vincent_ is a very nice opera to be sure:






However, Vincent Van Gogh had been a point of interest for other contemporary composers too. For instance, *Bernard Rands*, that explains here his own approach to the subject:






We have also _The letters of Van Gogh_, by *Grigori Find*:






But my favorite piece is one premiered in Amsterdam, back in 1990, to celebrate the centenary of Van Gogh's death: _Un malheureux vêtu de noir_ (A Wretched Man Dressed in Black), by *Jan van Vlijmen*. that we can find complete in youtube (the title comes from a long poem by Alfred de Musset, that Van Gogh himself was fond to quote now and then):


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## silentio

I just clicked on this one randomly yesterday on Spotify, and well, fervently followed it until the very end. Superb intense! schigolch , what do you think?

How come Reimann's _Lear_ didn't make a ripple like Ades' _The Tempest_? I must say that Lear is a much more daring work.


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## Guest

To me, Reimann feels like a contemporary Alban Berg. Germanic to the core, a sincere and severe sense of drama, and a relatively small set of works beyond the stage. His greatest strength is certainly reserved for the stage, but I really like some of his other music as well! Chamber works and art songs in particular.


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## schigolch

Well, I think it did. 

_Lear_ was written in the 1970s, and was hailed as a very important opera. Of course, I don't have this information available, but I daresay if we ran a survey between opera critics, most of them would prefer _Lear_ over _The Tempest_. I certainly do. There is going to be a major production in Paris next year.

Also, there are other contemporary operas based on "King Lear". One of them is by Aulis Sallinen, _Kuningas Lear_, here is the overture:






And Alexander Goehr's _Promised End_:


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## silentio

I just re-listened to it. I think people should stop lamenting for the lack of a good adaptation of Lear, or that neither Verdi or Britten pursued it in the end. This Lear is just right up there with Verdi's Otello!


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## Guest

I enjoy that Sallinen overture. As far as full operas from the composer, though, I have only heard his _Kullervo_. I quite enjoy it. There are a few compositions in which Sallinen can be a bit hit or miss (don't get me wrong, I love most of what I have of his). Thankfully, the one opera I heard by him is not among them!

I have not heard Goehr's promised end, although I have recently discovered a lot of the composer's works. Have you heard _Arianna_? Rather intriguing, although supposedly Goehr didn't consider it an important work as much as an opportunity to just have some fun. Tough to imagine someone saying that about their own opera...

Oh, and I listened to the first two episodes of _Atalanta_ yesterday. My first Ashley opera. What a bizarre yet delightful style!

TL;DR: Keep it up schigolch. This thread is awesome, like contemporary opera


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## schigolch

Yes, there is a nice recording of _Arianna_ available, though I'm not a great fan of this opera. The experiment was interesting, nonetheless.

I prefer for instance *Philippe Boesman*'s orchestration of _L'incoronazione_, staged under the name of "Poppea et Nerone" (not likely to convince HIP hardliners, however):






Boesmans, born in 1936, was the composer-in-residence at La Monnaie, in Brussels. There he had premiered other operas like _Attitude_ (1979), _La passion de Gilles_ (1983), based in the life of Gilles de Rais, a comrade of Joan of Arc, that was burned at the stake accused of being a heretic and a pedophile in 1440, _Wintermarchen_ (1999) or the more recent _Yvonne, Princesse de Bourgogne_.

But my favourite Boesmans's opera is _Julie_, premiered in 2005, an adaptation of Strindberg's play "Miss Julie". It's an intimate piece, a chamber opera in one act and of a rather short duration. There are only 18 musicians in the pit, but the sound palette is spectacular. This is a sensual music, richly coloured, very easy to understand and with a good, albeit a little monotonous at times, vocal writing. There is a DVD available:















Incidentally, there are other operatic adaptations of the play. Like William Alwyin's:






Or one by the American composer Ned Rorem:


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## Guest

I also think the word association thing you're doing is cute.


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## Sloe

Anna Karenina is an opera by the American composer David Carlson from 2007:


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## schigolch

*Judith Weir* (Cambridge, 1954) is a British composer and teacher, a former disciple of John Tavener. In her career, spanning now more than thirty years, opera had always been there.










My favorite among Weir's operas is _A Night at the Chinese Opera_, premiered in 1987 with a libretto by Weir herself. The action takes place in 13th century China. In Act 2 a performance of a real Chinese opera: "Chao's family orphan", is included on the plot. Chao, a civil engineer attending the performance, is trying to avenge his father that was falsely sentenced to death, only to be executed before reaching his goal.

Musically, the influence of Britten is paramount, as well as Stravinsky and sounds coming from folklore sources, mainly Scottish (Weir's parents were both from Scotland), of which Weir is particularly fond. The final result in this opera is really nice.






_Miss Fortune_ is the last opera written by Weir, premiered in 2011, and was received with mixed reviews.


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## mountmccabe

I am a fan of Judith Weir though I have not seen any of her operas. I would really like to find a way to see _Armida_.

The excerpts from _A Night of Chinese Opera_ were quite interesting; thanks for posting!


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## schigolch

My favorite piece from the opera is this beautiful "Aria with Rising Floodwaters": http://www.goear.com/listen/2e236cc/ari-weir


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## schigolch

*Richard Danielpour* is an American composer that premiered back in 2005 his opera _Margaret Garner_. The opera itself was received with mixed reviews, but the libretto was written by Toni Morrison herself, and the material was used before on her Pulitzer Prize winner, _Beloved_.






In youtube, there is available a documentary on the making of the opera:


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## schigolch

*Helmut Lachenmann *is a German composer, that has always been considered as one of the foremost avant-garde composers of our times. Lachenmann will be eighty years old soon, so he is no longer, however, the _enfant terrible_ he once was. In fact, he recently commented that in his younger days, he felt himself as to be alone in an island, but lately he considers to be in Ibiza, during the summer season. 

He only wrote one opera, but a quite interesting one, _Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern, _an impressive work, in which the listener is not having a single moment of respite. There is a CD published:










And we have the opportunity to watch the whole opera, in a concert version in Madrid, with a good orchestra (they spend a lot of time rehearsing) and good singers, with Lachenmann himself narrating, in the link below:

http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/los-conciertos-de-la-2/conciertos-2-cerillera-lachenmann/293054/


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## SilverSurfer

Thank you, schigolch, for your posts; there is a previous Kairos recording, BTW.


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## Kilgore Trout

nathanb said:


> Funny, I'm just recently discovering Philippe Manoury... Have any of his other operas besides the 60th Parallel been recorded?


I don't think so. I saw K. live when it was staged at the Opera de Paris, it was okay, nothing speial. Poul Ruders' opera is much better.



nathanb said:


> I've heard bits and pieces of Chin's setting of Alice In Wonderland, but it needs a recording asap!


A DVD does exist. The masterpiece Bliss needs a recording, or better, a DVD of the Hamburg production.


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## schigolch

SilverSurfer said:


> Thank you, schigolch, for your posts; there is a previous Kairos recording, BTW.












Indeed.

I prefer a little bit more the ECM, that presents the revised version, and with a more impacting electronics, in my view. The ECM it's available in youtube:






And a fragment of the opera staged:


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## silentio

schigolch said:


> *Helmut Lachenmann *is a German composer, that has always been considered as one of the foremost avant-garde composers of our times. Lachenmann will be eighty years old soon, so he is no longer, however, the _enfant terrible_ he once was. In fact, he recently commented that in his younger days, he felt himself as to be alone in an island, but lately he considers to be in Ibiza, during the summer season.
> 
> He only wrote one opera, but a quite interesting one, _Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern, _an impressive work, in which the listener is not having a single moment of respite. There is a CD published:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And we have the opportunity to watch the whole opera, in a concert version in Madrid, with a good orchestra (they spend a lot of time rehearsing) and good singers, with Lachenmann himself narrating, in the link below:
> 
> http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/los-conciertos-de-la-2/conciertos-2-cerillera-lachenmann/293054/


I am totally new to this composer. I just checked out his _Streichquartette_ on Spotify and was totally blown away. Thanks for another great discovery!


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## schigolch

I think *Kaija Saariaho*'s _L'amour de loin_ is known and loved for quite a few TC members, and I do share this feeling.










However, I'm not so sure about the rest of her operatic works: _Adriana Mater_, _La Passion de Simone_ and _Émilie_. (there is a very interesting documentary on the making of _Adriana Mater_ here: 



. And _La Passion de Simone_ can be heard complete in youtube: 



)

Though I like well the three of them, it's _Émilie_, premiered in Lyon a few years ago, that it's my favorite alongside _L'amour_. The libretto is again by Amin Maalouf, as usual, and the opera is based on the life of the Marquise Émilie du Châtelet, a mistress of Voltaire, and one of the first women to acquire a solid reputation as a scientist.

The great Finnish soprano Karita Mattila sang Émilie:


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## Guest

Saariaho being one of my favorite living composers (that's not too old and grey just yet...), I've been anticipating the release of a recording of either Emilie or Adriana Mater...

A bit of a tease, Ondine's latest album includes the _Emilie Suite_...

PS: Already mentioned here, I just bought Sciarrino's Macbeth


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## schigolch

*Hector Parra* is a young Spanish composer, that for most of his career had been working at IRCAM, in Paris.

As many other composers today, Parra tries to find new musical possibilities, by investigating the physical reality of sound. Arguably, his most daring composition so far is _Hypermusic Prologue_, a "projective opera in seven planes", that has been staged in Paris and Barcelona (at Liceu, I was attending one of the performances).










The plot is really weird. It's about the possible existence of extra dimensions in the Universe, and is based on some theories from Harvard's Physics professor, Lisa Randall, as explained in her book "Warped Passages".

The staging was directed by Paul Desveaux, with some funny computer tricks included and two vocal soloists: soprano Charlotte Ellett and baritone James Bobby.

It was really an interesting experience, and worth a hearing.

Here we can watch Lisa Randall explaining the opera from her point of view:






And also the opera itself, complete in youtube:


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## SilverSurfer

Hello, schigolch, I also attended one of the performances of that opera (at the "foyer" of Liceu, just in case some TC posters think that contemporary operas are usually staged at the main auditorium...), and like Parra's music.
In fact, I liked the music of that opera, but I found the libretto impossible to follow nor understand..., as the love story.
BTW, have you already seen "The público"?


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## schigolch

Well, I think the Foyer is ok for an opera like _Hypermusic Prologue. _Other contemporary operas like "Gaudí" were staged in the main hall.

About the libretto... I'm not sure there is really 'a story', much less 'a love story' inside. All this stuff was pretty conceptual; the couple of protagonists, almost an excuse, in my view. Have you listened to Lisa Randall, or have you read "Warped Passages"?. I do think the opera is quite sucessful in merging this world of Theoretical Physics with music,.. with opera.

I had a small issue, and couldn't attend the opening performance of "El Público" yesterday, I have bought new tickets for March.


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## SilverSurfer

I agree the Foyer was perfect, I only tried not to give the impression that Liceu is so contemporary...
I read about Randall's work just for the opera, and "an excuse" seems a good definition for the couple.
El Público has a good review today on... ABC


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## Skilmarilion

schigolch said:


> About Kafka's operatic adaptations, of which there are a few, there is one by Sciarrino himself!. It's 'La porta della legge':
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps the more famous operatic adaptation is Glass's 'In the Penal Colony':


Glass' latest opera is again based on a Kafka novel -- _The Trial_ (2014).

Like _In the Penal Colony_, it's a chamber opera (or 'pocket' opera as Glass calls them).



> The Trial is Philip Glass's second 'pocket' opera based on the writings of Franz Kafka, and his first work created specifically for Music Theatre Wales, in celebration of the company's 25th birthday. Glass has a long relationship with the company, describing them as 'wonderful to work with… they seem to like these "odd" pieces of mine, and they do them very well. I think of my pocket operas as neutron bombs - small, but packing a terrific punch'.
> 
> Glass has won worldwide acclaim for his operas, which include Satyagraha and Einstein on the Beach. Music Theatre Wales gave a sell-out tour in 2010 of Glass's previous Kafka opera, In the Penal Colony, a work of blistering intensity and dark claustrophobia.


Hopefully a recording release won't be too far off.


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## schigolch

*Anthony Davis* is an American composer and pianist, born in 1951, that has written seven operas, the last one, _Lear on the 2nd Floor_, just a couple of years ago.

However, his most celebrated achievement so far is the first, _X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X_, that was written by Anthony Davis and his librettist, Thulani Davis, based on the power struggle between Malcolm X and his mentor, Elijah Muhammad, to control the Black Muslim movement in the early 1960s. It was premiered at the NYCO, back in 1986.










This is the overture:

http://www.goear.com/listen/dfbf1ea/x-davies


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## Guest

Skilmarilion said:


> Glass' latest opera is again based on a Kafka novel -- _The Trial_ (2014).
> 
> Like _In the Penal Colony_, it's a chamber opera (or 'pocket' opera as Glass calls them).
> 
> Hopefully a recording release won't be too far off.


It's Philip Glass. I'm sure you won't have to wait long 

Schigolch - what do you think of Jonathan Harvey and his unique _Wagner Dream_?


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## Skilmarilion

nathanb said:


> It's Philip Glass. I'm sure you won't have to wait long


Well he's made us wait a decent amount of time for a recording of the 10th symphony!


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## schigolch

nathanb said:


> Schigolch - what do you think of Jonathan Harvey and his unique _Wagner Dream_?


I think it's a very nice piece, a must for people interested in contemporary opera.

There are nine scenes for singers, speaking actors, chorus, orchestra and electronics. The plot is about a possible influence of Buddhism in _Parsifal_. Harvey and his librettist Carrière are presenting the agony of Richard Wagner, and the action goes from the moribund's room (speaking roles: Wagner, Cosima, Doctor Keppler,...) to his visions of an opera he planned about the pariah Prakriti and the nun Ananda (_Die Sieger_), but that he never actually wrote.

It's complete in youtube:






To a lesser extent, I'm also fond of his first opera, _Passion and Resurrection_:










However, I haven't heard his second, _Inquest of Love_.


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## schigolch

*Nicholas Maw* (1935 - 2009) was an English composer of music deceptively "traditional". Though he was considered a melodist, firmly rooted in tonality, he used those elements more as a starting point, that as an absolute reference. In some important works, like his symphony "Odyssey", there is certainly an attractive and varied musical language.

His first opera, _The Rising of the Moon_, was premiered in the 1970s, but his most popular piece is _Sophie's Choice_, based on the well known novel by William Styron, also adapted for the screen. After several years of hard work, it was offered at the Covent Garden, in 2002, with singers like Angelika Kirchschlager, Gordon Gietz and Rodney Gilfry, and it was staged also in cities like Vienna, Berlin or Washington.

The reviews were mostly favourable, for the opera itself, and for the good work of the singers and the stage director.

This is the beginning of the opera:

http://www.goear.com/listen/9aee1a2


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## Guest

Some other KAIROS operas I'm curious about along the lines of Parra's _Hypermusic Prologue_. Sanchez-Verdu's _Aura_? Is Poppe's _Interzone_ considered an opera? I've listened to little bits...in fact I'm not sure what I think of his music in general yet. There's a newer release from a fellow Ming Tsao - _Die Geisterinsel_?

Anywho, I agree with your points on Harvey. However, that opera and Bhakti and the string quartets are somehow all I've really listened to from the guy. I can't figure out why I haven't given him more attention. Wagner Dream, Bhakti, the 4th Quartet...all were brilliant.


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## Don Fatale

I'm going to see a new opera, Penthesilea. (Brussels, April 2nd). Anyone else planning to see this?

http://www.lamonnaie.be/en/opera/430/Penthesilea

_Pascal Dusapin's Penthesilea is his seventh opera ; he includes in his score a quote from Christa Wolf : 'Thus begins the modern era and it is not beautiful._ (Yikes!)


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## schigolch

I have had the opportunity of watching two operas by *Pascal Dusapin* live on stage. The first one was in Brusssels, in the early 1990s, _Medeamaterial_, based on an text by Heiner Müller. A chamber opera, for two sopranos, one contralto and Baroque orchestra. It was adapted later for a ballet.

Then, some ten years later in Paris, _ Perelà, "Uomo di fumo_", based on Aldo Palazzeschi, and a much more ambitious work. It's complete in youtube:






However, probably the more succesful of Dusapin's operas so far is _Faustus, the Last Night, _based on Marlowe. It was premiered in Paris, back in 2006, and there is a DVD available:


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## schigolch

I attended a few years ago the world premiere of _El viaje a Simorgh_, by the Spanish composer José María Sánchez-Verdú.






Though it was an interesting experience for me, it received mostly indifferent reviews. After that opera, Sánchez-Verdú premiered also _Aura_ in Madrid, and then _Atlas-Utopia_, for the Szalburg Biennale in 2013.

_Aura_ is available in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Olivier Messiaen* completed in 1983 his first and only opera, _Saint François d'Assise_. The plot is quite simple, and complex, at the same time. It's not a biography of Saint Francis, but rather an insight into the soul of a man, on the verge of reaching Saintliness.

Messiaen himself wrote the libretto, and the final result is really fantastic, though it's a long journey of more than four hours, and really it resembles more an Oratory than your average Romantic opera, due to the lack of conventional drama.

There is a DVD of the opera:










recorded on a recent production in Amsterdam. There are good renditions of Saint Francis and the Angel by Rodney Gilfry and Camilla Tilling, and a solid work by Pierre Audi on the staging. The musical direction is arguably not in the same class of the Ozawa's or Nagano's CD versions, but nobody's perfect.


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## Sloe

schigolch said:


> *Olivier Messiaen* completed in 1983 his first and only opera, _Saint François d'Assise_. The plot is quite simple, and complex, at the same time. It's not a biography of Saint Francis, but rather an insight into the soul of a man, on the verge of reaching Saintliness.]


And you can hear the whole opera on youtube:






Very beautiful music.


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## schigolch

The Mexican composer *Daniel Catán*, that died in 2011, was very interested in Opera.

His music was written more in resemblance to Puccini or Strauss, than to other music being created in the last 70 years. He was a gifted melodist, and was also always looking for interesting timbrical details, here and there.

In 1994 he composed _Rapaccini's daughter_, based on Hawthorne and Octavio Paz, and with a libretto by Juan Tovar.















Then came _Florencia en el Amazonas_, inspired in García Márquez's novels. It was premiered in 1996 at Houston Grand Opera, and was well received by the audience, though perhaps not so much by the critics. The vocal writing goes from an attractive arioso to arias sounding more like to the 19th century or early 20th, than to the 1990s.






Naturally, _Il Postino_ is now his best known opera. I had the opportunity to watch it recently in a staging at Madrid's Teatro Real:


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## Guest

It would be a shame to let this thread die. We need more contributors!

Just finished:









Not too much of a comparison, but if I had to draw any parallels here to describe Sanchez-Verdu's style, I might say a bit of Sciarrino. At the least, both composers use a lot of strange vocalizations and refrain from too much fortissimo nonsense.


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## Albert7

Sadly enough, the Met isn't doing a single new contemporary opera next season. And I wonder why.


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## Couac Addict

Albert7 said:


> Sadly enough, the Met isn't doing a single new contemporary opera next season. And I wonder why.


It is a shame. If you scroll down to the bottom of this annual report https://www.operadeparis.fr/sites/default/files/onp_rapport_activite_2013_en_cliquable.pdf,

you'll notice in the Attendance section, that Vec Makropolus (not contemporary but obscure enough to be new to many) only filled 55% of the theatre. The subsidy covers for the losses but can the Met afford to only have half of the theatre filled?


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## schigolch

Yes, of course _Věc Makropulos (The Makropulos Case) _is not contemporary at all, but rather it's almost 90 years old. Same as _Turandot_, for instance.

I remember a few years ago, there were several performances of _Věc Makropulos_ at Teatro Real, and it was a big success with the audience, and the critics alike. There is hope, and the MET is not the only opera house in the world.


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## schigolch

I think that in the US, as proven by the great number of local companies and learning centers, outside of the great cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston,.. there is a very healthy interest in opera.

Both in performing opera, and also in writing new operas. Contemporary operas.

Let's talk about one small example, of a young composer, Evan Mack, that premiered recently a piece at New York's Baryshnikov Arts Center, under the title of_ Angel of the Amazon_, based in the brutal killing of the 73-years old American nun Dorothy Stang, in the Brazilian Amazonian city of Boa Esperanza.

Sometimes, you don't need big means, just big dreams. With a piano, a marimba, two violins, two cellos and one guitar, you can write some 90 minutes of opera.


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## quack

Rodion Shchedrin is a composer I like a lot who has 6 operas composed since the 60s. Very much in the style of Shostakovich or Schnittke, rather less sharp edges than the latter. Not the most modern of contemporary composers but very approachable. He has two operas based on works by Nikolai Leskov (_Lady Macbeth of Mtensk_ is based on one of his stories too) _The Lefthander_ from 2013 and _The Enchanted Wanderer_ from 2002.














He also has an opera based on Nikolai Gogol's _Dead Souls_ (Gogol's short story _The Nose_ was also made into an opera by Shostakovich) and an opera based on Vladimir Nabokov's _Lolita_ Which I don't think has a full recording yet.


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## Belowpar

Thank you for this amazing thread I look forward to listening to the clips you have posted.

I do wonder how an "Opera Fan" feels about Stephen Sondheim? Two of his works that fall just before the 1980 deadline, Pacific Overture and Sweeney Todd seem destined to live on via Opera companies. I can see Follies, A Little Night Music and (if the music can be made less 70's) Company also attracting attention in the future.

However for me his most Operatic work was Passion 1994 , which I saw in the London production that was heavily revised, with a starry cast including Michael Ball and Maria Friedman. Working for Broadway singers perhaps limited his style or maybe he's just to schooled in that way to produce something truly operatic as Bernstein did with e.g. Glitter and be Gay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_(musical)

The Original New York production is on Youtube






(I will confess to thinking Passion was one of his least interesting works; both the idea and the music.)


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## Guest

schigolch said:


> I think that in the US, as proven by the great number of local companies and learning centers, outside of the great cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston,.. there is a very healthy interest in opera.
> 
> Both in performing opera, and also in writing new operas. Contemporary operas.
> 
> Let's talk about one small example, of a young composer, Evan Mack, that premiered recently a piece at New York's Baryshnikov Arts Center, under the title of_ Angel of the Amazon_, based in the brutal killing of the 73-years old American nun Dorothy Stang, in the Brazilian Amazonian city of Boa Esperanza.
> 
> Sometimes, you don't need big means, just big dreams. With a piano, a marimba, two violins, two cellos and one guitar, you can write some 90 minutes of opera.


Here is a little work that I love. Not quite 90 minutes, but for similarly tiny forces (two voices, string quartet, percussion, and electronics)









And here's a delightful little work I listened to last night. I'd call it an opera, though some might take issue with the lack of _singing_. (For narrator and ensemble)


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## mountmccabe

Albert7 said:


> Sadly enough, the Met isn't doing a single new contemporary opera next season. And I wonder why.


Pieces less than 35 years old performed during recent seasons from the Metropolitan Opera
2010-11 Adams - Nixon in China
2011-12 Glass - Satyagraha (1979)
2012-13 Adès - The Tempest
2013-14 Muhly - Two Boys 
2014-15 Adams - The Death of Klinghoffer
2015-16 None
2016-17 Saariaho - L'Amour de Loin
2017-18 Adès - The Exterminating Angel
2018-19 Golijov - Iphigenia in Aulis
2019-20 Muhly - Marnie

I don't see a big deal in having a single season without a contemporary opera. It's not a pattern.

DISCLAIMERS: Future seasons are (reportedly) scheduled. Yes, _Satyagraha_ does not meet the criteria for this thread. That season also had _The Enchanted Island_; take that how you will.


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## mountmccabe

Couac Addict said:


> It is a shame. If you scroll down to the bottom of this annual report https://www.operadeparis.fr/sites/default/files/onp_rapport_activite_2013_en_cliquable.pdf,
> 
> you'll notice in the Attendance section, that Vec Makropolus (not contemporary but obscure enough to be new to many) only filled 55% of the theatre. The subsidy covers for the losses but can the Met afford to only have half of the theatre filled?


What do Paris Opera attendance rates have to do with the Met?


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## mountmccabe

Also looking at that list of contemporary opera at the Met I have noticed a pattern on my part. I saw Nixon In China via the Live in HD. I saw the next three in the house. I would have seen the Klinghoffer HD had it not been cancelled. ANd I will absolutely see the four upcoming premieres, provided they get the Live in HD treatment and/or I make it to NYC while they are on.

So my thoughts on this are coming from someone very interested in the contemporary opera produced at the Met.


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## schigolch

quack said:


> Rodion Shchedrin is a composer I like a lot who has 6 operas composed since the 60s. Very much in the style of Shostakovich or Schnittke, rather less sharp edges than the latter. Not the most modern of contemporary composers but very approachable. He has two operas based on works by Nikolai Leskov (_Lady Macbeth of Mtensk_ is based on one of his stories too) _The Lefthander_ from 2013 and _The Enchanted Wanderer_ from 2002.


I do like some of his operas. Arguably the most succesful piece is "Dead Souls", but I have a soft spot for "Boyarina Morozova" a nice opera on the vicissitudes of the Russian aristocrat Feodosia Morozova, that was part of the raskólniki back in the 17th century, and died from starvation, while being held captive in a nunnery.

The main musical feature of this opera, is the almost total absence of instruments. The four soloists (Boyarina Morozova; her sister, Princess Urusova, the Protopope Avvakum and Tsar Alexander) are accompanied by a trumpet, percussion and, mostly, by the Chorus, that is taking over the usual role of the orchestra here.

A 'choral' opera:


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## Guest

*Claude Vivier* is a musical enigma of the last 50 years. Having died before the age of 35, he certainly makes us question "what if?" as we do with all those prodigies of the past. Also, he pretty much single-handedly puts Canada on the musical map, for me at least.

Although a student of Stockhausen, much of his music reminds me more of Boulez, especially after his travels in Asia, including a stint in Bali. However, his one opera, in my opinion, highlights the Stockhausen influence more than most of his work:

_Kopernikus: Rituel De La Mort_:


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## Albert7

mountmccabe said:


> Pieces less than 35 years old performed during recent seasons from the Metropolitan Opera
> 2010-11 Adams - Nixon in China
> 2011-12 Glass - Satyagraha (1979)
> 2012-13 Adès - The Tempest
> 2013-14 Muhly - Two Boys
> 2014-15 Adams - The Death of Klinghoffer
> 2015-16 None
> 2016-17 Saariaho - L'Amour de Loin
> 2017-18 Adès - The Exterminating Angel
> 2018-19 Golijov - Iphigenia in Aulis
> 2019-20 Muhly - Marnie
> 
> I don't see a big deal in having a single season without a contemporary opera. It's not a pattern.
> 
> DISCLAIMERS: Future seasons are (reportedly) scheduled. Yes, _Satyagraha_ does not meet the criteria for this thread. That season also had _The Enchanted Island_; take that how you will.


Skipping one year without contemporary opera is bad IMHO... it's like saying hey I don't want to get you sherbet when you end up with ice cream instead. The point is that fans of contemporary opera have to wait 365 days to see that Saariaho opera... that's a rather long delay .


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## echo




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## schigolch

nathanb said:


> And here's a delightful little work I listened to last night. I'd call it an opera, though some might take issue with the lack of _singing_. (For narrator and ensemble)
> 
> View attachment 66003


Yes, this one stretched the conventional frontiers of opera, as a genre. It's just a monologue based on Christa Wolf's piece about Cassandra, the Trojan seer. So, we need an actress, and not a singer. The two interludes work a little bit as commentary, at the manner of Greek tragedy. There are French, English and German versions of this opera.

Fanny Ardant is Cassandre, in this youtube fragment:






The more ambitious of Jarrell's works for the stage is _Galilée_, based on Brecht, that was premiered at Geneva, back in 2006.


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## Couac Addict

mountmccabe said:


> What do Paris Opera attendance rates have to do with the Met?


Nothing, other than I had those figures available. It was only to demonstrate that new/obscure works may only draw half the audience. No surprises there but how easily can the Met absorb the losses?

Perhaps they had something more controversial than The Death of Klinghoffer lined up and decided that they could do without the agony


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## schigolch

nathanb said:


> *Claude Vivier* is a musical enigma of the last 50 years. Having died before the age of 35, he certainly makes us question "what if?" as we do with all those prodigies of the past. Also, he pretty much single-handedly puts Canada on the musical map, for me at least.
> 
> Although a student of Stockhausen, much of his music reminds me more of Boulez, especially after his travels in Asia, including a stint in Bali. However, his one opera, in my opinion, highlights the Stockhausen influence more than most of his work:
> 
> _Kopernikus: Rituel De La Mort_:
> 
> View attachment 66049


_Kopernikus_ is available on youtube:






I do like Vivier's music. Apart from this opera, and as mentioned above, Vivier studied the gamelan music in Bali, working with Balinese musicians, and he tried to write a piece that, starting from the very heart of Balinese music, would also incorporate the Western tradition. Was he succesful?. I think so. Let's hear this "Pulau Dewata", where somehow we can almost feel the presence of the unhappy and lonely child that was Vivier, in this sound universe created many miles away from his native Canada, by the shores of the Indian Ocean:


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## Albert7

echo said:


>


Not sure... but is this an operatic adaptation of The Who?


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## schigolch

*Anno Schreier* is a German composer that wrote his first opera, _Der Herr Gevatter_, while still very young, at just 25 years old. Some years later, he won the Zurich Opera Prize for young composers, and premiered there in 2011 _Die Stadt der Blinden_, with a libretto by Kerstin Maria Pöhler, based on the novel by the Portuguese writer, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, José Saramago: "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira"


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## Cavaradossi

Albert7 said:


> Skipping one year without contemporary opera is bad IMHO... it's like saying hey I don't want to get you sherbet when you end up with ice cream instead. The point is that fans of contemporary opera have to wait 365 days to see that Saariaho opera... that's a rather long delay .


It's not like the Met is the only game in town for contemporary opera fans. Far from it. In addition to the regular seasons of several smaller scale opera companies, I'm aware of at least two annual contemporary _festivals_ in New York City presenting a multitude of new works (COC's NewOp Festival and the Prototype Festival). If it's Saariaho you want, it's not a long wait: Gotham Chamber Opera's adaption of The Tempest Songbook opens in a few weeks.


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## Guest

Another work that might be difficult to classify is a theatrical work, classified on some sites as opera, by *Bernhard Lang*: _Das Theater Der Wiederholungen_ (or _The Theatre Of Repetitions_). While his work may not give me the same emotional response as all the wonderful spectral/etc stuff coming out, I found it nevertheless highly intriguing.









As a side note, here's my "Current Listening", which I'm posting mostly because people here seem to only mention _Bluthaus_...:









Certainly more approachable at 2/3rds the length, if nothing else...


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## schigolch

Arguably, Bernhard Lang's more succesful approaches to the genre so far are _Montezuma, Fallender Adler_, with a plot based on the clash between spaniards and aztecs, between Cortés and Montezuma, that also inspired Rihm's "Die Eroberung von Mexico": 




and, of course, _I Hate Mozart_:


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## Guest

I would love to hear any opera based on Montezuma. But yeah, I haven't delved far into Lang... I really just took him seriously at the start because he had not one, not two, but three discs on KAIROS. And those three are all I've heard. I have heard OF the _I Hate Mozart_... a tempting title to say the least  Almost as tempting as the title of Kagel's _Sankt-Bach-Passion_.


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## Albert7

Here is a wonderful link to good contemporary operas during the past decade.

http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/165159-top-10-operas-written-last-10-years/

I single out:

8. Karlheinz Stockhausen: Sonntag aus Licht (2003)
Clocking in at nearly twice as long, Stockhausen's ambitious Licht cycle trumps Wagner's own marathon collection of operas and was completed in 2003 with Sonntag aus Licht (Sunday From Light). The composer spent 26 years modeling each of his seven operas after the mythologies surrounding the weeklong creation myth. While much has been made of paring down and a newfound sense of operatic austerity in the form of minimalism and chamber works, this mesmerizing epic of epic epicness is essential: On its own, Sonntag is so extensive that its individual scenes came from various commissions and have been premiered piecemeal (the work just received its world premiere this past April).


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## Becca

Unless I missed something (always possible), I am surprised not to have seen mention of one of the more successful recent operas ... George Benjamin's _Written on Skin _which seems to be getting rave reviews. Alex Ross writing in _The New Yorker_ said: _"Written on Skin" feels like the work of a genius _unleashed.

And then, of course, there is Mark Anthony Turnage's _Anna Nicole_.


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## Albert7

Becca said:


> Unless I missed something (always possible), I am surprised not to have seen mention of one of the more successful recent operas ... George Benjamin's _Written on Skin _which seems to be getting rave reviews. Alex Ross writing in _The New Yorker_ said: _"Written on Skin" feels like the work of a genius _unleashed.
> 
> And then, of course, there is Mark Anthony Turnage's _Anna Nicole_.


I saw sections of Turnage's Anna Nicole with Westbroek and thought it was one of the most comic operas ever... It doesn't take itself seriously and the fact that it is sexually explicit in the arias is marvelous fun in fact.


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## Guest

Becca said:


> Unless I missed something (always possible), I am surprised not to have seen mention of one of the more successful recent operas ... George Benjamin's _Written on Skin _which seems to be getting rave reviews. Alex Ross writing in _The New Yorker_ said: _"Written on Skin" feels like the work of a genius _unleashed.
> 
> And then, of course, there is Mark Anthony Turnage's _Anna Nicole_.


I thought of George Benjamin multiple times...it just so happened that each and every time was a time when I was being my usual socially-retarded self that thinks about TC threads even when he's not home.

And of course, I had to try for as much obscurity as my small brain could muster... but I have yet to slip one past Maestro Schigolch's field of knowledge!


----------



## schigolch

nathanb said:


> I would love to hear any opera based on Montezuma


Well, there are many operas based on Montezuma's tragedy in the history of the genre, indeed. 

But speaking about contemporary opera, and even if it's a little bit outside of the 1980 threshold we have established on this thread, I would recommend Roger Sessions's _Montezuma_:






However, in spite of Lang's effort, or Lorenzo Ferrero's "La Conquista", I think the one contemporary piece on this subject that is of more interest to the average opera fan should be of course _Die Eroberung von Mexico_, by Wolfgang Rihm.















Mr. Rihm worked for several years in this opera, hoping to get everything ready for the 500th Anniversary of Colón's first voyage to America in 1492. The libretto, by Rihm himself, it's based on texts by Antonin Artaud, Octavio Paz and old Mexican folk songs. This is not, however, a standard Romantic drama, but rather a reflection on the meeting of two cultures, two civilizations, and how one of them dies, and gives birth to something new. And most of that reflection, it's in the music, not in the libretto.

Even if Mr. Rihm has commented sometimes that his inspiration for the opera was mainly vocal, and he pretended that singing is the center of the piece, my personal feeling is that the voices, along with most of the orchestra, are another element in the history that a wonderful, beautiful percussion is telling the audience. It's not until almost the end of the opera, that the voices of Montezuma and Cortes, and the choir, take into their own meaning, enunciating the death, and the resurrection, of Mexico.

I had the opportunity to attend recently a staging of this opera, by Mr. Pierre Audi, that was visually stunning, with some interesting dancing, and the silent role of Malinche, being portrayed as a character from Japanese Nō theater. It's difficult to stage such a non-linear, mental drama, with near to no conventional action, but Mr. Audi's was a very nice try. It seems that a DVD will be released soon.


----------



## schigolch

Towards the end of the 20th century, the American composer John Harbison received a commission from the MET, to write an opera based on Scott Fitzgerald's _The Great Gastby_. It was premiered in 1999, with Jerry Hadley, Dawn Upshaw, Susan Graham and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing.

Harbison's aim was to "create a piece different from the others, to find clear, fresh, large designs, to reinvent opera traditions"

Was he succesful?. Reviews were mostly negative, sadly.


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## schigolch

*Jonas Forssell* (Stockholm, 1956, he is the son of the writer Lars Forssell) was the resident composer of the Malmoe Opera back in 2008, when he premiered the operatic version of the drama (also adapted to the screen) "The Death and the Maiden", by the Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, that was also the librettist.










The plot is about a woman that, years after being tortured, meets by chance with someone that she believes is her torturer (she never saw his face), by his voice and by his obsession with a particular Schubert's String Quartet.

Forssell wanted both to represent this extreme situation and also wrote the score playing around a little bit with Schubert's music.

This is the beginning of the opera:

http://www.goear.com/listen/c33ea9c


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## schigolch

Perhaps some TC members also interested in movies will remember Fatih Akin's, _Head on_ (Gegen die Wand), premiered some years ago.

An operatic version was soon forthcoming. The German composer Ludger Vollmer wrote the piece, and the premiere was in Bremen, the year 2008. The opera won the European Tolerance Award in 2009, and there have been further performances in other German theaters, and in Istanbul:


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## schigolch

I watched Wolfgang Mitterer's opera _massacre_, about the Huguenots's killings in France and based on Christopher Marlowe (the opera is sung in English, except a few fragments in German), a few years ago, at Teatro del Canal, in Madrid.

_massacre_, premiered in 2003, is not the only approach of the Austrian composer to the genre, but it's still clearly the more ambitious.

From a musical point of view, the experience was fascinating, with some sound effects for instruments and voices, really fantastic. On the other hand, the drama was perhaps not fully there. Mr. Mitterer's considerable talent as a composer, was not so apparent in his work as librettist. Anyhow, a very interesting opera:


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## Guest

I would like to hear that Mitterer opera. I enjoy a few things by him, all unique pieces.

I recall searching for a clip of another stage work of his on youtube. Seemed like a satire/comedy/farce kinda thing to the extent that I don't remember the music 

I don't have much new to contribute at the moment. The last contemporary opera I listened to was Sciarrino's _Perseo E Andromeda_, which came as a bit of a shock when I realized it was mostly just taped wind sounds accompanying voices. However, oddly enough, it was incredibly effective despite the fact that I usually prefer Sciarrino not to get *too* minimal.


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## schigolch

_Perseo e Andromeda_ is available in youtube: 













The daughter of Luciano Pavarotti, Cristina, and the Spanish composer Alberto García Demestres, worked together in the chamber opera _Il sequestro_, presenting a rather strange tale about the kidnapping of three women, from Morocco, Spain and Serbia, in Italy, how they react, and how TV is broadcasting the story. It was staged in Modena, back in 2009:


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## schigolch

*Richard Ayres*, a British composer, premiered his opera _The Cricket Recovers_ in the year 2005. Based on a series of children tales by the Dutch writer Toon Tellegen, some reviewers commented this was a kind of Janáček's _The Cunning Little Vixen_ of the 21st century.

Let's hear a fragment of the opera, and see if we agree with such a comparison:


----------



## Guest

Now playing:

*Ming Tsao* - _Die Geisterinsel_

Supposedly the _Die Geisterinsel_ has been used in the past as a sort of German setting of _The Tempest_. Ming Tsao's setting was composed from 2009-2010 and released by KAIROS only a year or so ago.

Ming Tsao is a Chinese-American student of Brian Ferneyhough. He has another disc out on Mode records that includes a string quartet performed by the Arditti Quartet.


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## schigolch

The CD above can be found in youtube: 




On top of being an opera character under his 'alter ego' Jean-Sol Partre (as we mentioned in this same threat, commenting about Edison Denisov's opera _L′Écume des jours_), the work of the French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre had also been used as source material by some composers.

For instance, "Huis clos", the existentialist drama par excellence, is the origin of _No Exit_, an opera written by the Welsh composer Andy Vores, and premiered in Boston, back in 2008. In youtube we can find a performance from Florida Grand Opera, in 2013:


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## Guest

Tonight's listenings: BOTH musical settings of Heiner Muller's _Die Hamletmaschine_, back to back.

Already listened:









Currently listening:









I don't particularly know much about Muller's post-modern adaptation of the Shakespeare classic, but I feel that I get a sense of it simply from hearing common ideas between two radically different composers.


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## schigolch

Personally, I like a lot Müller's piece of theater, and I'm fond of Rihm's opera. Not so much enthralled about Aperghis's oratorio.

*Christopher Theofanidis* premiered in 2011, at San Francisco Opera, _Heart of a Soldier, _a piece based on the life of one of the 9/11 killings's victims, Rick Rescorla. This is the presentation of the opera:






This was the third opera from Theofanidis. His biggest impact so far was with _The Refuge_, about the inmigrants arriving to America, from all parts of the world, with seven stories related to Nigeria, Vietnam, Mexico, Pakistan, India, Russia and Guatemala. It was premiered back in 2007, in Houston, and released in CD:


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## Guest

Schigolch,

Thoughts on Friedrich Cerha's _Baal_?


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## schigolch

I love the work of Mr. Cerha in completing the unfinished _Lulu_ of Alban Berg.

_Baal_ can be watched complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

The American-Russian composer (among other things) *Lera Auerbach* premiered her opera _Gogol _in Vienna, in 2011. She was also the librettist, and she presented more a description of the state of mind of the character 'Gogol' (performed by two singers, one as the actual Gogol and the other doubling as the demon Bes, a kind of product of Gogol's subconscious), than a biography of the Russian writer.

Reviews were mixed, and the future of the opera remains uncertain, as usual in a new piece:


----------



## Guest

I'm pretty much out of other composers to mention, but not other operas


----------



## Guest

But of course, I've forgotten a great one!









It's _almost_ a shame that Heinz Holliger is _the_ world-class oboe virtuoso. All too often, we forget that he is a world-class composer as well.


----------



## schigolch

Indeed.

Hollinger has tackled just about any genre, a great composer. In vocal music, however, I kind of prefer his small work from the 1960s _Der magische Tänzer: _http://www.goear.com/listen/902eabb/hhdmt-aud to _Schneewittchen

_The German composer *York Höller* premiered his excellent opera _Der Meister und Margarita_ (based of course in Bulgakov, there have been also another operatic adaptations) in 1989 at the Paris Opéra. There was a CD released:










And we can listen in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Emmanuel Nunes* was one of the foremost composers of his generation. He only wrote one opera, _Das Märchen_, based on some tales by Goethe, that was premiered in Lisbon, back in 2008.

There are some moments just fascinating from a purely musical point of view, though the piece was judged by the critics to be rather too too long, and not very 'dramatic', with a vocal writing much more interesting for the chorus than for the soloists.

We can hear this work complete in youtube:


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## Guest

Schigolch, do you know of any stream where those other Manoury operas may be heard in full? There is a youtube user that has uploaded several unrecorded Manoury works, but these are primarily from his orchestral and chamber oeuvres.


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## schigolch

No, I don't.

_La Cuzzoni_, based on the life of the Baroque Opera's diva, with a libretto by Marc Rosich and music by the Spanish composer *Agustí Charles* was premiered the year 2007, at Darmstadt, and staged later in Madrid and Barcelona.

It's an interesting effort:






Later, in 2011, Charles also has premiered at Darmstadt his second opera, _Lord Byron_:


----------



## Morimur

"Bluthaus" by Haas needs to be recorded ASAP!


----------



## schigolch

*Fausto Romitelli* (Gorizia, 1963 - Milano, 2004) was one of the most interesting composers of the last decades. He was an admirer of Scelsi, Ligeti and French spectralism, and also a researcher in the physical reality of sound, looking for new timbres, and the use all the available acoustic space as a continuum. A deliverer of abstract and violent sounds.

_An Index of Metals_ was his last work, completed in 2003, and here his quest for a new musical language was (almost) fulfilled. In this "video opera for soprano, ensemble, multiple projections and electronics" there is no conventional libretto, a single vocalist, and her voice is even distorted. However, we can almost feel the metals of the index.  A fascinating new kind of opera.

There is a CD/DVD available:










And we can watch it in youtube:


----------



## Guest

Morimur said:


> "Bluthaus" by Haas needs to be recorded ASAP!


I intend to listen to "Thomas" soon, too.


----------



## SilverSurfer

schigolch said:


> *Fausto Romitelli* (Gorizia, 1963 - Milano, 2004) was one of the most interesting composers of the last decades. He was an admirer of Scelsi, Ligeti and French spectralism, and also a researcher in the physical reality of sound, looking for new timbres, and the use all the available acoustic space as a continuum. A deliverer of abstract and violent sounds.
> 
> _An Index of Metals_ was his last work, completed in 2003, and here his quest for a new musical language was (almost) fulfilled. In this "video opera for soprano, ensemble, multiple projections and electronics" there is no conventional libretto, a single vocalist, and her voice is even distorted. However, we can almost feel the metals of the index.  A fascinating new kind of opera.


Thank you schigolch (I would dare say he completed the opera on 2004, because he was writing it from his bed at the hospital just before his death), I expect your comments on Aperghis' Avis de tempête, dedicated to Romitelli.

:tiphat:


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## schigolch

It's in youtube: 




*

William Bolcom *is one of the American composers that are trying to expand the target audience of opera, as a genre, in the US.

He has written pieces in just about every genre: symphonies, chamber music, piano music, songs (mostly for her wife, the singer Joan Morris), soundtracks...

And of course, opera. For instance, _A View from the Bridge_, was premiere at the Chicago's Lyric Opera, back in 2001. Based on Arthur Miller's play, later also adapted to the screen, it's a story about working and living in the docks, that was a kind of answer from Miller to Kazan's "On the Waterfront", after the two former friends broke their ties after the interrogations by the Committee on Un-American Activities.

Bolcom's music is quite approachable; this is popular opera, in a sense.






It's not that Bolcom is not inventive. His next opera, _A Wedding_, also premiered in Chicago, and based on Robert Altman's movie, it's an intelligent blend of melody and drama to control how nineteen characters enter and leave the stage. It's traditional, but also kind of modern at the same time.


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## SilverSurfer

Thank you, schigolch, I already have (and love) the Cd by Ictus, I just wanted to know your much respected opinion; pity there's no video nor has been staged since its premiere...


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## schigolch

Not a big fan, really. 

*Peter Eötvös* is a Hungarian composer and conductor, born in 1944, and educated in Hungary and Germany. He has worked also many years in France. From very avant-garde positions, he evolved into a more eclectic approach to music, though he is somewhat more interested in the nature of sound, in timbre, in rhythm... than in melody.

He has written around a dozen operas, one of the latest being an adaptation of García Márquez's _Of Love and Other Demons_, premiered in Glynderbourne:






Also interesting is _Lady Sarashina_, premiered the year 2008 in Lyon, and based on a lovely diary of a Japanese aristocrat of the 11th century:






Though arguably his two most succesful works so far are:










_Three sisters_, based in Chekhov, and written in 1997. It was also premiered in Lyon, conducted by Kent Nagano. There are some fascinating intrumental moments. However, the libretto and the vocal writing perhaps were not so fortunate, and the decision to use countertenors for the roles of the sisters, was not well received by some critics.






And then the very interesting _Angels in America_, premiered the year 2003, based on the play by Tony Kushner. There is an impressive palette of sounds, and a good balance between singing and dialogue.


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## schigolch

The American composer Ricky Ian Gordon, (New York, 1956) was experienced in musicals, before jumping to Opera. Some years ago, I was attending one of those musicals, _My life with Albertine_, mainly because of my interest in Proust, but I really enjoyed the performance.

The year 2005 he premiered just another version of _Orpheus and Euridice_, in this case in the guise of a chamber opera with a soprano (Elizabeth Frutal, in the premiere) singing Euridice, a clarinetist as Orpheus and one piano.






A couple of years later, he premiered his first full lenght opera in Minnesota, _The Grapes of Wrath_. Gordon was shrewd enough to hire a professional writer as a librettist. Very accessible music, with a lot of Broadway and Americana... but recycled and transformed to offer an interesting hearing:















And more recently, he was commissioned by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis to write _Twenty-Seven_, an opera about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and their life at 27 Rue de Fleurus, in Paris.


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## Guest

I would just like to point out that my mind is always split in two on the loony that is *Meredith Monk*. One might use the equation "_x + y = 1_" to represent this phenomenon, with _x_ representing the fraction of my brain that responds to Monk with "Good music!" and _y_ being the fraction of my brain that says "Umm, you're annoying, Meredith". Clearly, the value of _x_ overpowered the value of _y_ this morning, because I'm posting this for the heck of it:


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## schigolch

*Louis Andriessen* (Utrech, 1939), is a Dutch composer, the son of the musician Hendrik Andriessen. In his long career, Andriessen had experimented with serialism, minimalism, melody 'deconstruction',...

As an opera composer, arguably his more succesful work is _De Materie_, premiered in 1988:






Other operas include:

_The Death of a Composer_ - 1994










With a libretto by the movie director Peter Greenaway, part of his outlandish series on the death of ten real and fictitious composers. In this case, the main character is Rosa, an Argentinian composer that want to write Hollywood soundtracks, but is murdered before he can even start with the first. This was also filmed for television.






_Writing to Vermeer_ - 1999










Again with a libretto by Mr. Greenaway; very nice cover.






In _La Commedia_, more recently premiered in Amsterdam, and based on Dante, Andriessen worked with Hal Hartley, instead of Mr. Greenaway, and also introduced some electronic music from Dutch composer Anke Brouwer. It's complete in youtube:


----------



## Guest

Current Listening:








_Even by the standards of Greek tragedy, the story of Philomela is particularly gruesome. Philomela, sister of Procne, was raped by her brother-in-law Tereus, who then cut out her tongue to prevent her revealing his crime. When Philomela eventually managed to tell her sister what had happened, the two took *revenge on Tereus by killing his son Itys and serving the flesh for him to eat, at which point the gods decided that enough was enough, and turned all three of them into birds. This is James Dillon's first *opera, staged in Porto three years ago, and this recording comes from a concert performance at the same time. Dillon casts the tragedy as a tightly *woven three-hander, in which different layers of narration and *narrative time, as well as what is *performed live and what is *pre-*recorded, combine to create a *complex web of connections between past and present. The ensemble writing is tough and sinewy, the vocal lines highly wrought; it's not a comfortable listen, but it is a fascinating one, and the *performance, with Anu Komsi as *Philomela and Susan Narucki as her *sister, is superbly vivid._

- Andrew Clements, _The Guardian_, Nov. 2009

*James Dillon*'s music is always an exciting listen for me. Despite its place amongst the "New Complexity" school (or perhaps, *because* of its place?), it always manages to be some of the most expressive contemporary music out there.

On another note, I found myself wondering yesterday about *Magnus Lindberg* and whether or not he will ever turn to theatre. As his music grows more and more friendly to the concert hall over the last couple of decades, I wonder why he has not worked much with vocal mediums. His music seems ripe for a colorful neo-romantic opera.


----------



## Blancrocher

Current listening:






The world premiere of "The Classical Style: An Opera (Of Sorts)"

Steven Stucky composed music to a libretto by the pianist Jeremy Denk. It's a comic, postmodern opera about the classic critical study by Charles Rosen.

Jeremy Denk explains the premise of the opera as "the nerdiest love triangle ever invented":






It's all a bit twee, but I like it.


----------



## arpeggio

Blancrocher said:


> Current listening:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The world premiere of "The Classical Style: An Opera (Of Sorts)"
> 
> Steven Stucky composed music to a libretto by the pianist Jeremy Denk. It's a comic, postmodern opera about the classic critical study by Charles Rosen.
> 
> Jeremy Denk explains the premise of the opera as "the nerdiest love triangle ever invented":
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's all a bit twee, but I like it.


I was at the premier at the Ojai Festival.

O my goodness you can see the back of my head. I am to the right of the announcer in front of the gentleman with the blue shirt. I am a grey haired gentleman with a white shirt.


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## schigolch

*Beat Furrer *(Switzerland, 1954), is a conductor and composer that have written a few operas.

_Fama_, premiered in 2005, is arguably the most accomplished, with very good reviews and already staged in several countries.

The libretto is a bit confusing. It's supposed to be taking place at the house of Fama, the Goddes of Rumor, while in other plane is also a version of Schnitzler's novella, "Fräulein Else".

In musical terms, the result is excellent, and not confusing at all. Furrer is a big supporter of Salvatore Sciarrino's music, and this opera is close to the best productions of the Sicilian master. It makes for a quite interesting hearing. It's complete in youtube:






_Wüstenbuch_ is from 2010:


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## Guest

I have the three Furrer operas that are recorded on KAIROS. His chamber settings can be occasionally difficult from their sheer sparseness, but his world of sound is often at its best in his operas.


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## schigolch

*Giorgio Battistelli* (Albano, 1953) is an Italian composer, a great veteran of writing music for living theater. He enjoys a solid reputation in Italy, Germany or France, but never has been a popular composer. Perhaps he will become one with the premiere of his next opera at La Scala the coming month of May, _CO2_, based on "An Inconvenient Truth", the book by the American politician Al Gore.

http://www.teatroallascala.org/en/season/opera-ballet/2014-2015/co2.html

Battistelli's music, though always in open search of new formal structures, it's not that hard on the average listener. Some of his past works: _Experimentum mundi_ (1981), _Teorema_ (1992), _The Cenci_ (1997),... were reasonably succesful.






My favorite piece from Mr. Battistelli so far is _Divorzio all'italiana_, premiered a few years ago in Nancy. It's based on Pietro Germi's movie. All the characters are sung by men, except Angela, written for a soprano. There are very good ensembles, and a nice vocal writing. On the minus side, maybe the opera relates more with a social meeting in Turin or Milano, than with a Sicilian farce:


----------



## SilverSurfer

Current re-listening to *Les Nègres* by Michael Lévinas, while waiting to hear his last opera Le petit prince:






It's pity there is not any complete video, because the double Cd gives little information about the libretto (Jean Genet's) and the singers, but the smashing Oberture that generates the rest of the music is brilliant, IMHO, with treatment of some voices by the IRCAM, I don't know if schigolch has heard it.


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## schigolch

I know the work, yes:










Though I find somewhat more interesting the end of the opera, than the beginning. 

_Le petit prince_ has received rather mixed reviews. According to Levinas: "J'ai voulu un Petit Prince qui ne soit pas un moraliste, mais plutôt un guide qui nous emmènerait en voyage à la quête du sens de l'existence". A challenging plan, indeed.


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## SilverSurfer

Thank you, schigolch, I have also read that it was "classified" for public of all ages, but the approach was not suitable for children...
France Musique had programmed its broadcast, but they are in a middle of a strike and many programms are cancelled every week.


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## schigolch

Much of the contemporary music (not only Opera) being written today, have perhaps more in common, in my mind, with the Baroque or the Renaissance, than with the Romantic or post-Romantic period.

This is what appears not 'modern' to quite a few composers creating new music, those Romantic overtones that many times are taken for granted by part of the audience.

Just think about the current interest in composers like Carlo Gesualdo. In the last 15 years or so, how many operas on the subject have been premiered: _Luci mie traditrici_, by Sciarrino, _The Prince of Venosa_, by Scott Glasgow, the _Gesualdos_ from Schnittke, Franz Hummerl or Marc-André Dalbavie...

Those operas are somewhat closer to the 16th or the 17th century, than to Verdi, or Wagner, or Strauss, or Puccini.

One example, Dalbavie's _Gesualdo_ presentation:


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## schigolch

_Narcissus & Echo_ is a chamber opera by *Jay Schwartz*, written for amplified voice (countertenor), viola, percussion, portable organ and electronics. This is a frontier piece, loosely based on Ovidio, that plays with music and silence, interspesed with some violent percussion fragments.

It's somewhat interesting, especially the electronic parts recreating Baroque or Renaissance melodies, but the abuse of the 'swarm of bees buzzing' effect is a little bit annoying, and at times you wish for a can of insecticide:


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## Guest

Sorry schigolch, it was just Rigoletto this morning


----------



## schigolch

Back in 2007, _Cyrano_ was premiered at the Michigan Opera Theater. It's an opera by *David DiChiera* and *Mark Flint*, based on Rostand's play. Recently, DiChiera, that had been working in the operatic world since the 1960s, received the Opera Honor Prize from the NEA, rewarding his dedication to Opera, especially as the founding general director of Michigan Opera Theatre.

Some musical examples:

Quintet from First Act: 




Reading of the Letter, Third Act: 




End of the opera: 




This is a very accessible piece, full of traditional melody, so perhaps it could be interesting for similarly traditional fans.


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## schigolch

There is an opera about almost anything on Heaven or Earth.

For sure, this also includes the world of sports. We have for instance *Martin Smolka*'s _Nagano_, written in celebration of the Czech Republic's national ice hockey team, that grabbed the gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1998:






And also an opera premiered at the Munich's Biennale, _Playing Away_, by British composer *Benedict Mason*, about professional football. Terry Bond, from the City FC, is one of the best players in the world, and he is going to play in the Champions League's final, facing a fearsome rival: FC Bayern Munich. But at the same time, he is emotionally torn between his wife, a famous pop star, and his lover. Everything comes together the day of the Final...


----------



## Guest

This afternoon, I listened to _Guðrún's 4th Song_, a chamber opera by *Haukur Tómasson* and the 2004 winner of the Nordic Council Music Prize. One can certainly hear the influence of Nordic folk in the material.









The Nordic Council has honored several other operas over ~50 years of awards. I've heard a few of these, including _Gilgamesh_ by *Per Nørgård* (1974 winner) and _The Singing Tree_ by *Erik Bergman* (1994 winner).

















I should point out that the odd absence of monolithic works like _L'Amour De Loin_ are perhaps only due to the fact that, from the looks of the list, no person receives the award twice (Saariaho having won with _Lonh_, for instance).


----------



## schigolch

*André Previn* is an American conductor and composer, and also the winner of several Oscars for his movie soundtracks.

In 1998 he premiered in San Francisco, _A Streetcar Named Desire_, based on Tennessee Williams's play.

Renée Fleming sang Blanche, while Stella was Elizabeth Futral and Kowalski, Rodney Gilfry. Since then there have been other performances across the US, and also in London, Vienna, Dublin, Strasbourg, Turin,...

The piece will likely be attractive to fans of Mr Previn's music. In a similar style I would prefer works from Bolcom, Corigliano, Adamo,...











His second opera is another adaptation, _Brief Encounter_, based on David Lean's movie and a play by Noël Coward (that Coward himself adapted for the screen). It was premiered in 2009 at Houston Grand Opera, again with Elizabeth Futral, as Laura, and Nathan Gunn, as Alec:


----------



## Loge

The Royal Opera House's production of Ibiza Uncovered - the opera, looks interesting.


----------



## Guest

Michael Lévinas also wrote an opera after Kafka's Metamorphosis. Kafka to music is pretty cool, if you ask me. 

Truth be told I've never brought myself to listen to Previn's music. Perhaps I'm skeptical from the start since he mostly conducts conservative music.


----------



## schigolch

"The Legend of the White Snake" is a traditional Chinese tale, about a young man that falls in love with a woman, that is really a white snake, transformed into a human being by magic. This tale has been in circulation in the Chinese literature, stage and opera for centuries. This is an operatic (Chinese opera kind) example:






Composer Zhou Long, born in China but living and working in the US, premiered an opera (a Western kind one) based on this material in Boston, the year 2010: _Madame White Snake_. The opera won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Music:






The soprano Ying Huan sings an aria from _Madame White Snake_:


----------



## Morimur

SeptimalTritone said:


> Nathan, you should check out Georg Haas' Bluthaus. Should be right up your alley!


That's one hell of an opera. When the devil is the recording coming out?


----------



## Guest

Morimur said:


> That's one hell of an opera. When the devil is the recording coming out?


Considering how many Haas works I have on my iPod with no official recording, including string quartets nos. 3-8 and six concerti.... I reckon, sadly, it could possibly be a while


----------



## mountmccabe

Alexander said:


> I'm going to see a new opera, Penthesilea. (Brussels, April 2nd). Anyone else planning to see this?
> 
> http://www.lamonnaie.be/en/opera/430/Penthesilea
> 
> _Pascal Dusapin's Penthesilea is his seventh opera ; he includes in his score a quote from Christa Wolf : 'Thus begins the modern era and it is not beautiful._ (Yikes!)


Did you end up seeing this?

Video is currently available for streaming from La Monnaie through May 13. What little this New Yorker article talks about the opera has me intrigued.


----------



## schigolch

*Jörg Widmann* is a German composer and clarinenist.

In the chamber opera _K(l)eine Morgensternszene_ premiered in Frankfurt, in the year 2005, he started to experiment with the genre using an accompaniment of cymbal and percussion for a single soprano.

However his first large format opera was _Das Gesicht im Spiegel_, premiered at Munich's Staatsoper:






And his most ambitious project so far, is this _Babylon_, a commision of the Bavarian State Opera, premiered in 2012, though it was not very succesful at the time:


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## Guest

I didn't know Widmann had operas either! I enjoy a lot of his music...

Admittedly schigolch, as the layman between us, I'm running a little low on new composers to mention. We may need to transition to discussion...

I finished the "D" portion of the "listen to everything in my library" project last night, so as I move on to "E" today, I see that the near future contains several operas of Einojuhani Rautavaara (basically all of the ones released on CD on Ondine), Erik Bergman's opera that I mentioned recently, Elliott Carter's brief _What Next?_ and the theatrical work _Interzone_ by Enno Poppe.

I'm not sure if _What Next?_ or _Interzone_ were mentioned yet, I suppose...

Also, I'll admit it. I have a disproportionate Rautavaara fetish given my usual liking of more radical things. He's easily my favorite neo-romantic, I'd say, and I can't get enough of his lyrical Nordic style. Of his operas, I feel that _Kaivos_ is underrated.


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## schigolch

Really, the main objective of this thread is to share in TC just how many different composers, and in how many different styles, we can find writing contemporary opera. 

So, I plan to mention quite a few more composers and operas. I try not to be judgmental in this thread (though, surely, some composers and some pieces attract me much more than others), but of course discussion and debate are also welcome. 

Alain Turing is one fascinating figure among 20th century scientists.

He invented the mathematical entity called "Turing machine", an imaginary computer that was one of the basis of computer science. He was also behind the "Turing test", to determine if a machine was able of independent thinking. Turing's idea, of a typically English pragmatism, was to use a group of human beings that will interact with the machine during several hours, using an interface that will mask its physical identity. If, at the end of the process, the machine had been able to convince a majority of the members of the group that it was a human being, then it was really a thinking machine.

Using this concept, Scottish composer *Julian Wagstaff* wrote his opera _The Turing test_.

http://www.julianwagstaff.com/ttt/index.html

Also, _Turing Machine Opera_, by *Eeppi Ursin* and *Visa-Pekka Mertanen*, based on Turing's life, was premiered in Helsinki, the year 2008:


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## Guest

How about this one, chaps: *Szymanowski's* _King Roger_ 
Must say I'd pay a pretty penny for it if I were in London this month! Anyone here on TC intending to go? Maybe give us a review?
http://www.theguardian.com/music/to...owski-krol-roger-roh-dangerously-intoxicating


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## schigolch

Well, the point is that, according to the parameters of this thread (operas written after 1979), _King Roger_ is not a contemporary opera.

In fact, I think it would be difficult to consider _King Roger_ as contemporary under any reasonable parameters, as it was premiered in 1926, same as _Turandot_, for instance. This is almost 90 years ago.

Having said that, I do like this opera, and I think it would be a great opportunity to attend the London's performances. I have watched the opera staged twice, by David Pountney and Krzysztof Warlikowski. Mr. Kweicen is a true specialist of this opera, and he should do a pretty good job.


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## Eramirez156

TalkingHead said:


> How about this one, chaps: *Szymanowski's* _King Roger_
> Must say I'd pay a pretty penny for it if I were in London this month! Anyone here on TC intending to go? Maybe give us a review?
> http://www.theguardian.com/music/to...owski-krol-roger-roh-dangerously-intoxicating


I won't be in London, but Santa Fe Opera did it in 2012 also with Mariusz Kwiecien who gave a powerhouse performance, I would see it again in a "New York minute".


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## Guest

schigolch said:


> *Well, the point is that, according to the parameters of this thread (operas written after 1979), King Roger is not a contemporary opera*.
> 
> In fact, I think it would be difficult to consider _King Roger_ as contemporary under any reasonable parameters, as it was premiered in 1926, same as _Turandot_, for instance. This is almost 90 years ago.
> 
> Having said that, I do like this opera, and I think it would be a great opportunity to attend the London's performances. I have watched the opera staged twice, by David Pountney and Krzysztof Warlikowski. Mr. Kweicen is a true specialist of this opera, and he should do a pretty good job.


Oops, sorry about that.


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## Guest

Eramirez156 said:


> I won't be in London, but Santa Fe Opera did it in 2012 also with Mariusz Kwiecien who gave a powerhouse performance, I would see it again in a "New York minute".


Thanks for that, Eramirez. By the way, I just found out what "in a New York minute" means! It's pretty much what you would expect in Paris, I can tell you!!


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## Guest

Apologies in advance if this has already been mentioned, but at the 2013 Strasbourg _Musica_ festival I watched the cinema première of *George Benjamin's* _Written on Skin_. I'm a great fan of Benjamin's instrumental music, but I would need to experience _WoS_ a few more times before I could form an opinion.
http://xelias67.canalblog.com/archives/2013/09/23/28078544.html


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## schigolch

*Adriano Guarnieri* is an already veteran Italian composer, that had written several operas since the 1980s. We can find two recent ones complete in youtube.

_Pietra di Diaspro_ was premiered in 2007 for the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and Ravenna Festival. A kind of reflection on the Apocalypse based on writings by Paul Celan:






The video-opera _Tenebrae _(2010) is based on writings by Massimo Cacciari, Heidegger and Trakl:


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## schigolch

TalkingHead said:


> Apologies in advance if this has already been mentioned, but at the 2013 Strasbourg _Musica_ festival I watched the cinema première of *George Benjamin's* _Written on Skin_. I'm a great fan of Benjamin's instrumental music, but I would need to experience _WoS_ a few more times before I could form an opinion.
> http://xelias67.canalblog.com/archives/2013/09/23/28078544.html


Arguably, _Written on Skin_ is one of the more successful operas premiered in the 21st century, so far. Personally, I think it's a fascinating piece. It was a commission of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, that put some conditions related to the subject (it had to be related to subjects from the Provence). Fortunately, we can still watch the opera complete in youtube:






Benjamin has written another opera (and he is working on his third), _Into the Little Hill_, also working with with Martin Crimp. I attended one performance back in 2010. It's not in WoS territory, but an interesting hearing nonetheless:


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## schigolch

The Belgian composer *Kris Defoort* premiered _House of the Sleeping Beauties_ at La Monnaie, back in 2009.










The opera is based on Yasunari Kawabata's novella, set on a brothel where old men pay for sleeping, but just sleeping, with young and beautiful naked women who have been drugged, so they are asleep from before the encounter until after the departure of the client. The score includes a nice soprano part sung by the Canadian singer Barbara Hannigan, of WoS's fame.


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## Guest

Schigolch, do you have any opinions on the operas of Poul Ruders?


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## schigolch

I do, at least on the three that I know. 

_The Handmaid's Tale _was premiered in late 20th century, and it has been staged several times. It's based on Margaret Atwood's novel, a kind of dystopia about a theocratic society in the US of the 21st century (the novel was written in the 1980s, during the presidency of Mr. Reagan). In the opera, I think the action is moved to the 22nd century, and catholics, jews, homosexuals,.. are confined in concentration camps. A woman captured while trying to escapa, is condemned to be a "Handmaid", a vehicle for producing a child to be given to a married couple with no children.

The opera is a little bit too slow, and the effort to develop an oppressive astmosphere is creating a kind of background sound instead, while the vocal score is rather unfortunate. The orchestra is the main protagonist, but we are not really involved in the story that the instruments are telling. Curiously, there is another operatic adaptation of the novel, by the composer Chris Garrard (I haven't heard this piece).

_Kafka's Trial_, premiered in 2005, it was somewhat more interesting for me, though we can find some of the flaws present in "Handmaid", especially the weak vocal treatment. It could be that the final result has little in common with Kafka, but there are nice moments here and there.

Both these operas are available on CD, and the last one, _Selma Jezková, _is in DVD_. _It's from 2010, and it's based on a movie by the Dannish directorLars von Trier: "Dancer in the Dark". It's relatively short, and rather intense. Also, the musical language is more eclectic. All in all, it deserves to be watched, in my view.


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## schigolch

*Evangelia Rigaki* is a young Greek-British composer that had premiered several chamber operas in the UK during the last few years:

_The Wife's Lament_






_Exiles_






_Lullabaloo_


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## schigolch

_The Manson Family_ is a work in the frontier of the concept of "opera", that could also be classified as a "performance". It was a commission by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to the American composer *John Moran*, a disciple of Philip Glass.

_The Manson Family_ was premiered at the Lincoln Center back in 1990. The main protagonist (Charles Manson) needs to be sung by a rock star, instead of an opera singer.

Mr. Manson himself sent a letter from the prison to the New York Times, to complain about a bad review. 

We can watch it complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Johanna Doderer* is an Austrian composer, a former pupil of Beat Furrer, that had already written four operas. The last one is Der leuchtende Fluss (there is also an English version, under the title of "A Kind of Yellow"), premiered recently in Erfurt, where it received rather favorable reviews:






And also a CD was published:


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## schigolch

*Daron Aric Hagen* is an American composer from Milwaukee that had already written several operas. Among them, _Amelia_, premiered at Seattle Opera in the year 2010, the first commission of the Seattle Opera in more than 25 years..

The opera is about a girl that is waiting the birth of her firstborn, experiencing some problems during pregnancy, while remembering her own childhood besides her father, a pilot that was shoot down in the Vietnam War. It received rather favourable reviews:


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## SilverSurfer

Finally, *Le petit prince*by Levinas, next monday on FMusique:

http://www.francemusique.fr/emissio...it-prince-de-michael-levinas-04-06-2015-20-00


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## schigolch

In 2011, it was premiered in Vilnius the opera _Julius_, written by *Charles Halka* and based on the vicissitudes of his grandfather Julius, that had to flee Lithuania during the Second World War and, after living in several European countries, found at last a new home in the US. The opera is complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Brian Ferneyhough*'s music, considered part of the "New Complexity" avant-garde group, is written using several layers of significance, and usually requires some effort from the listener and, above all, from the performer. Ferneyhough has only written one opera so far, _Shadowtime_, completed in 2005.

It's based on the last moments of philosopher Walter Benjamin's life, and also the first moments of his death. There are seven scenes combining the real world, and events in the dying mind of Benjamin. The more dramatic part is Scene V, "Pools of Darkness", where historical characters (Hitler, Einstein, Karl Marx, Groucho Marx, ...) question Benjamin and themselves. Each of those characters is presented under a specific musical form: canon, passacaglia, fugue,.. extracted from the history of Western Music, from the Middle Ages to the Romantic period.

This is a non-compromising avant-garde piece. Difficult to hear, and unlikely to be a love at first sight. But can really be quite interesting, if one knows what it's about.

The opera is complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

The Italian composer *Luca Mosca* has written 10 operas so far. Arguably, his most succesful one was his ninth, _L'Italia del destino_. This was based on the TV broadcast of a "reality show", the kind of trash-TV that is being growing more and more popular everywhere.

But the last one, premiered in 2014, is _Il gioco del vento e della luna_, that we can listen complete in youtube:






We can watch also a youtube of _Signor Goldoni_, premiered at La Fenice, in Venice, the year 2007:


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## schigolch

A few years ago it was premiered in Lisbon the opera _Banksters_, written by *Nuno Côrte-Real*, with a libretto by Vasco Graça Moura.

It's a satire about the current situation of the Banking business. It includes some loving references to the genre, like the 'name of one of the protagonists: "Angelino Rigoletto", and some variations on 'La Donna è mobile':


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## schigolch

*Osvaldo Golijov* is an Argentinian composer, that works primarily in the US, and this was his first opera. _Ainadamar_ is supposed to be the Arabic for 'Fountain of Tears', and it represents a real fountain located near the place where Federico Garcia Lorca was killed at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

There are four major characters:

Federico Garcia Lorca was a Spanish poet and playwright, arguably the one gaining a wider international recognition, among members of the emblematic group called the Generation of '27 (that includes some other great Spanish writers, like the Nobel Prize Vicente Aleixandre, or my personal favourites Luis Cernuda and Pedro Salinas). The death of Lorca, killed by Spanish right-wing militiamen, was immediately part of his myth, and made him a symbol.

Margarita Xirgu was a great Spanish actress, a friend and collaborator of Lorca, ten years her junior. She was exiled in South America after the war, where she continued performing Lorca's plays, and especially "Mariana Pineda" that she premiered back in 1927.

Nuria was not a real person, in the fiction she is just a student of Xirgu, that will continue her teachings.

Ruiz Alonso was the actual killer of Lorca, or at least the person commanding the group of militiamen that killed the poet.

In the opera we can see three moments in time: First, Xirgu and Nuria are remembering Lorca, and how Xirgu met him, to work in "Mariana Pineda". Second, the death of Lorca. Third, the death of Xirgu herself.

I watched the opera on stage, and certainly this was the best place for _Ainadamar_ (of course, it's the best place for *all* operas, but I think you get my meaning here).

The opera can be watched complete in youtube, from a performance in Bogotá:


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## schigolch

In 1869, Isidore Ducasse, better known by his pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont, completed his book "Les Chants de Maldoror". He was scarcely 23 years old, and he will die one year later, but this piece has been considered as a key contribution to French literature, and a predecessor of Surrealism.

The German composer Philipp Maintz premiered his opera _Maldoror_ at the Munich Biennale, back in 2010, but let's listen in this post to another opera, by the same name, by the composer from Uruguay *Leo Masilah* (incidentally, Ducasse was born in Montevideo, where his father was a diplomat, and her mother committed suicide soon after the writer was born). The opera is based on the first three Chants, and was completed in 1998. Five years later, it was staged at Teatro Colón, in Buenos Aires, from where we can watch the youtube below:


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## schigolch

Like Osvaldo Golijov, *Oscar Strasnoy* is an Argentinian composer that is making a career outside of his country (though in his case in Europe, rather than in the United States). He is very active in the field of opera, having already written a dozen works for the stage.

One of his first compositions was _Midea_, premiered in Spoleto, back in the year 2000:






_Cachafaz_ is based on the work of the Argentinian writer Copi. There have been performances in Rennes, Besançon, Saint-Etienne and Paris:






His last piece is _Requiem_, with a libretto in English and Latin, based on the novel "Requiem for a nun" by William Faulkner, and premiered at Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires, in 2014:


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## schigolch

The Italian composer Oscar Bianchi premiered his opera _Thanks to my eyes _in 2011, at the Festival of Aix-en-Provence.

It's based on the play "Grâce à mes yeux" by the French writer Joël Pommerat, that incidentally was also the stage director for the premiere of the opera. It has also been staged in the last four years in several European theaters.

The opera is complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

The Spanish composer *Joan Guinjoan* premiered at the Gran Teatre del Liceu his opera _Gaudí_ back in 2004, after more than ten years of waiting. The opera, sung in Catalan, is an homage to the famous architect, with a libretto by Josep Maria Carandell. Guinjoan was using a lot of traditional melody and singing for this piece, and he also included a ballet scene, at the beginning of Act 2:


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## schigolch

The Spanish (settled in the USA) composer *Leonardo Balada* wrote back in 1986 _Cristóbal Colón_, an opera about Columbus's discovery of America, that was premiered at the Liceu, in Barcelona:










The opera can be watched complete in youtube:






Balada came back with a sequel, "La muerte de Colón", a few years later:


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## schigolch

*Luca Francesconi* is a prestigious Italian composer and musicologist.

A few years ago Stradivarius released a CD of his first opera, _Ballata_, written for the radio in the 1990s, and later adapted to the stage. It was based on Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". It's an interesting piece, but for traditional fans, please be aware this is avant-garde opera.






He is also the composer of _Gesualdo Considered as a Murderer_:






But his most recent work for the operatic stage is _Quartett, _with an English libretto based on Heiner Müller, and commissioned by La Scala_:

_


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## SingingMoore

I love Dr. Atomic!!! The met production was superb


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## schigolch

*Edward Sadoyan* is an Armenian composer, that was trained in the Soviet Union (he studied with Aram Khachaturian in Moscow) and has written several operas, all of them premiered in Yerevan. We can hear some fragments of "Hello, out there!" (1982) based on William Saroyan, and "St. Grigor Lusarovich" (2002), based on Stepan Zakarian:


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## schigolch

Of course Hamlet has been adapted several times for the operatic stage, the best known being the one from Ambroise Thomas.

One of the latest tries is by the German composer* Christian Jost*, under the imaginative title of...yes, _Hamlet_:






However, the last opera written by Jost is based on the Chinese writer Eileen Chang. _Heart Sutra_ was premiered in 2013, commissioned by the Taiwan International Festival of Arts:


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## schigolch

The veteran English composer *Peter Maxwell Davies* wrote his first opera back in the 1960s, but his breakthrough was really _The Lighthouse_, premiered in 1979, about the mysterious dissapearance of three lighthouse keepers in the Hebrides Islands.






In 2011 he premiered his last opera, _Kommilitonen!._ It's based on three real life stories: the fight of James Meredith, the first black student accepted at the Mississippi University, some youngsters protesting against Nazism in Munich, during the 1940s, and some Chinese students being forced to denounce their fathers to the police during the Cultural Revolution:


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## schigolch

The Swiss composer *Klaus Huber *published his first works back in the 1950s. However, he completed his only opera, _Schwarzerde_, in 2001, based in texts by the poet Ossip Mandelstam. It was premiered at Basel. A cd was published:










And we can listen to an extract of the piece in youtube:


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## schigolch

In this thread we are sharing the fact that, contrary to popular belief, Opera as a genre is not really in a creative crisis but that, far from it, there are quite a few new pieces being written almost everywhere, and about almost any subject.

For instance, we can go to Tasmania, and found there the composer *Constantine Koukias* and his opera, premiered in the year 2003, _Tesla - Lightning in His Hand_, based on the biography of the engineer Nikola Tesla:


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## Guest

As you can see, schigolch, my minimal amount of experience has just about run dry. That said, I'm ashamed I didn't think of Mr. Maxwell Davies.

Couple others I'm thinking about that I don't think have been listed yet, but that I haven't played (they're in queue though!!) are a couple of operas by *Liza Lim* and *Tomas Marco*.


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## schigolch

It doesn't matter if they have been already listed, or not. You can comment about contemporary composers, and contemporary operas, at anytime, in this thread.


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## Sloe

schigolch said:


> But my favorite piece is one premiered in Amsterdam, back in 1990, to celebrate the centenary of Van Gogh's death: _Un malheureux vêtu de noir_ (A Wretched Man Dressed in Black), by *Jan van Vlijmen*. that we can find complete in youtube (the title comes from a long poem by Alfred de Musset, that Van Gogh himself was fond to quote now and then):


I see why you think it is your favorite Van Gogh opera. It have very beautiful music to listen to. My problem with most contemporary operas is that most of them are either really dull and boring to listen to or they have have to many ugly sounding noices. That is why it is nice to find exceptions.


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## schigolch

Probably some TC members will remember the Japanese composer *Minoru Miki*, as the author of the soundtrack of the famous movie "In the Realm of the Senses".

He was an expert in traditional Japanese instruments, as well as in percussion, especially the marimba, like in his well known piece, "Marimba Spiritual".

But he was also a longtime lover of Western Opera.

His first opera, _Shunkinsho_, was premiered back in 1975. But during the last decades, he wrote several more, usually based on Japan's history, like this _Shizuka and Yoshitsune_, from 1993:






or this one, already from the 21st century (2005), _Ai-En:

_


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## schigolch

*Antonio Bibalo* was born in Trieste, but from the 1950s he settled in Norway. During his career, he wrote several operas, as well as other instrumental music, on top of his career as a professional piano player.

We can watch complete in youtube one his last two operas. This is _Macbeth_, from 1990:


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## schigolch

Perhaps *S. P. Somtow* is the only person in the world that is at the same time composer, conductor, and an SciFi writer. He is of Thai origin, though his upbringing is entirely American.

Mr. Somtow has composed some operas (of course, writing his own librettos). In the year 2003 _Mae Naak_ was premiered in Bangkok, based on a popular ghost story:


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## arpeggio

Wow. I am actually glad that Somtow is doing well. Many years ago our orchestra premiered one his works. He is a really cool guy and a fantastic musician.


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## Sloe

arpeggio said:


> Wow. I am actually glad that Somtow is doing well. Many years ago our orchestra premiered one his works. He is a really cool guy and a fantastic musician.


Many of his operas can be seen completely on youtube. I will not link them since I personally don´t like them but others might like them.
The clips from Mai Naak are fine on the other hand and very beautiful.


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## schigolch

*Daniel Börtz* is a veteran Swedish composer that during his career had written several operas, including _Backanterna_ (1991) that was premiered at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm, with a stage direction by Ingmar Bergman, and _Marie-Antoinette_ (1998) about the romance between the Queen of France and the Swedish Count Axel von Fersen, that we can hear complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Loris Tjeknavorian* is an Iranian conductor and composer, of Armenian ancestry, that decided to wrote an opera based on the "Shahnameh" (The Book of Kings), a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi, towards the end of the X century.

The title is _Rostam and Sohrab_, on the fate of one great Persian hero, Rostam, that kills in the battlefield his own son, Sohrab, while they are fighting for different kindgoms.

Mr. Tjeknavorian worked for many years in this opera, starting in the 1960s, and he was able finally to conduct the premiere of the definitive version in St. Pölten (Austria) and Tehran, in the year 2000.

We can hear the opera complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Willem Jeths* is a Dutch composer that, after a career of more than twenty years with several recordings published, has never been able to get a big success outside his native Holland, so far.

In the year 2008 he premiered his opera _Hôtel de Pékin -_ _Dreams for a Dragon Queen_ in Amsterdam. The subject of the piece is the deathbed reminiscences of the Dowager Chinese Empress Cixi. The opera was also staged in China.


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## Sloe

schigolch said:


> *Daniel Börtz* is a veteran Swedish composer that during his career had written several operas, including _Backanterna_ (1991) that was premiered at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm, with a stage direction by Ingmar Bergman,


Ingmar Bergman also wrote the libretto to Backanterna.


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## Albert7

Anna Clyne's new opera As Sudden Shut.

http://www.boosey.com/cr/music/Anna-Clyne-As-Sudden-Shut/58431

No YT link yet for it however.

Review said:

"The Clyne received its world premiere. It's the beginning of a planned song cycle set to five poems by Emily Dickinson. "As Sudden Shut" had three female voices from the Chicago Symphony Chorus singing the short eight-line text. An ensemble of CSO musicians included percussion, harpsichord and harp in addition to winds and strings.

The poetry, Clyne said, was primary. But the harpsichord and extended passages of vibrato-less playing by winds and strings carried Dickinson away from her essential Americanness toward old English folk song. The result, lasting 11 minutes because of repetition, evoked the archaism of early John Tavener and Peter Maxwell Davies but seemed shorter on intellectual fiber. More importantly, the overt nature of Clyne's sound world - muffled-drum funereal to brightly tinkling - was soft-centered in relation to Dickinson's austerity."


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## schigolch

Back in 2009 the opera _Kuratov_, by the Russian composer *Serge Noskov*, was premiered.

Apparently it was the first opera ever with a libretto written in the Komi language. The Komi are living in the Northwest Ural range, and their language is spoken by some 500,000 people. Ivan Kuratov was a poet and linguist that was using the Komi language for his works in the 19th century.

The opera is complete in youtube:


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## Sloe

Vladislav Germanovich Agafonnikov born in 1936 is a Russian composer of several operas.

His last opera was Yi Sun Si about the Korean admiral who lived in the sixteenth century and fought against the Japanese and invented the turtle ships the opera can be seen completely youtube:


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## Sonata

I look forward to listening to X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, as well as Dead Man Walking, both of which I borrowed from the library. Malcolm X because I've been very interested in revolutionary and other major historical figures recently. Dead Man Walking; I watched the movie with Susan Sarandon and enjoyed it greatly so it'll be interesting to try out the opera verson.

They will have to wait though because I'm on a major bel canto spree as of late.


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## schigolch

*Gerardo Gandini* was an Argentinian pianist, composer and conductor, and also a teacher at the Buenos Aires Conservatory.

He was during a few years the composer-in-residence for Teatro Colón, and he wrote several operas.

One of these operas is _La ciudad ausente_, (The Absent City), written in 1995 with a libretto by the novelist (and also a teacher at Princeton) Ricardo Piglia, based on his own novel.

The opera is complete in youtube:


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## Guest

Listened to Parra's opera today. It was pretty much as described. An interesting but conceivably "forced" subject for a libretto, but top notch electroacoustic opera everywhere else.


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## schigolch

*Bo Holten* is a Danish conductor and composer that has been writing, among other things like soundtracks, including one for the first feature film directed by Lars von Trier, a handful of operas. Among them, a couple revisiting well known operatic stuff like Orpheus, or Gesualdo.

Let's hear a fragment from the last of them so far, _The Visit of the Royal Physician_, based on P.O. Enquist's novel, and premiered in 2009:


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## sadams

First preview of highlights from Alma Deutscher's new opera, _Cinderella_


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## Guest

*Maestro Schigolch, I think I've actually got a new one!*

_[And a few more, I'm sure, but I prefer not to post an opera without a full personal listen, regardless of it's status on my radar or in my collection]_

Anyway, tonight's opera was an absolute thriller and a definite keeper. *Cristóbal Halffter* is a Spanish composer, born in 1930, with works on not only the usual Spanish labels (Verso, Anemos) but also on Col Legno, Montaigne, and Stradivarius. He also has a couple of relatively well-known uncles that were composers, but Cristóbal is perhaps most notable as one of the first and finest to incorporate the post-war avant-garde into the Spanish classical lineage.

Tonight, I first experienced his setting of _Don Quijote_, and, despite my general illiteracies for expressing exactly what I love in these sorts of things, I feel secure in saying that it was one of the best opera discoveries I've made in a good bit.









Disclaimer: Along this train of thought, stay tuned for the upcoming day (perhaps even tomorrow?) when I first listen to *Tomás Marco's* _Segismundo (Soñar El Sueño)_ and hope for a similar review!


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## Albert7

Lachenmann's opera The Little Match Girl is worth it!


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## Guest

Albert7 said:


> Lachenmann's opera The Little Match Girl is worth it!


When Kairos AND ECM record a piece of music, people had best shut up and listen


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## Albert7

nathanb said:


> When Kairos AND ECM record a piece of music, people had best shut up and listen


Agreed and people should dig them. Mode records too.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I've been obsessed with Bliss by Brett Dean (libretto by Amanda Holden) for the past few days. It isn't exactly contemporary any more; it was first perfomed in 2010 but a full recoridng of the work was only released last month. It really is an astonishing work. It opens in that kind of way that grabs you by the shoulders and laughs maniacally in your ears and turns you immediately to the drama.......

Albert7!!!! It's on iTunes for about $30 if you are interested! This is by the same composer of that concerto for electric violin and string orchestra _Electric Preludes._

I just can't get enough of Brett Dean 

It's been rumoured that he's composing a second opera at the moment.....


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

nathanb said:


> When Kairos AND ECM record a piece of music, people had best shut up and listen


Has ECM released any Beat Furrer? Kairos is probably the most consistently good record label I've come across.


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## schigolch

nathanb said:


> Anyway, tonight's opera was an absolute thriller and a definite keeper. *Cristóbal Halffter* is a Spanish composer, born in 1930, with works on not only the usual Spanish labels (Verso, Anemos) but also on Col Legno, Montaigne, and Stradivarius. He also has a couple of relatively well-known uncles that were composers, but Cristóbal is perhaps most notable as one of the first and finest to incorporate the post-war avant-garde into the Spanish classical lineage.
> 
> Tonight, I first experienced his setting of _Don Quijote_, and, despite my general illiteracies for expressing exactly what I love in these sorts of things, I feel secure in saying that it was one of the best opera discoveries I've made in a good bit.


Well, actually I was attending the world premiere of _Don Quijote_, at Teatro Real, back in the year 2000!.The performance was conducted by Halffter's son, Pedro, now in charge at the Maestranza, the opera house in Seville, and there was also a nice staging by Herbert Wernicke.

It was not based only on Cervantes's (that is also a character in the opera) novel, the librettist (Andrés Amorós) and Halffter himself decided to incorporate poetry from great Spanish poets like Jorge Manrique, Pedro Salinas, San Juan de la Cruz,... and quotations from Renaissance Spanish music.

It was not a big success with the audience, really... except the Renaissance passages . "Hoy comamos y bebamos" from Juan del Encina was enthusiastically received. The critics were mostly damning the piece with faint praise.

_Lázaro,_ written a few years after _Don Quijote_, was premiered at Kiel, there is a DVD available, and received marginally better reviews.


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## schigolch

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I've been obsessed with Bliss by Brett Dean (libretto by Amanda Holden) for the past few days. It isn't exactly contemporary any more; it was first perfomed in 2010 but a full recoridng of the work was only released last month. It really is an astonishing work. It opens in that kind of way that grabs you by the shoulders and laughs maniacally in your ears and turns you immediately to the drama.......
> 
> Albert7!!!! It's on iTunes for about $30 if you are interested! This is by the same composer of that concerto for electric violin and string orchestra _Electric Preludes._
> 
> I just can't get enough of Brett Dean
> 
> It's been rumoured that he's composing a second opera at the moment.....


Well, it is contemporary for the purpose of this thread. We are naming "contemporary" anything written after 1980, a totally meaningless date in musical terms, it's just a convention.

We can watch "Bliss" complete in Vimeo. Quite an interesting piece, indeed:


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

schigolch said:


> Well, it is contemporary for the purpose of this thread. We are naming "contemporary" anything written after 1980, a totally meaningless date in musical terms, it's just a convention.
> 
> We can watch "Bliss" complete in Vimeo. Quite an interesting piece, indeed:


WHAT???? IT IS COMPLETE ON VIMEO???? HOW DID I NOT KNOW THAT?????


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## Guest

Bliss has been recorded?! That thing has been stressing me out forever. COAG wouldn't shut up about it for years, and yet I could never hear it.

RE: Halffter/Marco

I've been aware of Lazaro but I tend to buy MP3's these days to get the most music for my money. Perhaps I should start breaking that rule for the occasional DVD. In fact, the only opera DVDs I actually own at the moment are Boulez's Ring Cycle recordings 

But I wonder what you thought of it, regardless of the general audience? The music itself was powerful and immense, to these ears. 

Listened to Marco's opera mentioned above, last night. It's just apples and oranges between that and Halffter. But a very pleasant surprise, actually. I've generally been appreciating other Spanish music a little more than some of Marco's relatively conservative symphonic output, but this one couldn't be more different. A lot of focus on Spanish spoken word and liberal use of synthesizers, which is always a pleasant surprise. I probably still enjoyed the Halffter slightly more on first listen, but that's more because I'm a sucker for a Germanic aesthetic in a large orchestral setting, which the non-Renaissance parts certainly seem to employ. Give me a strong brass chorale and I'm usually willing to ignore everything else.


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## Guest

RE: Dean

Ah, it's not on amazon yet, but I see it on iTunes! [I prefer not to use iTunes but once in a blue moon, they have something special - I had to use it for a Rolf Wallin disc last month that hadn't registered with Amazon yet]

Totally buying it this afternoon the second I deposit my paycheck. I'm perhaps not as avid a listener as COAG, but I'd say I'm a big fan of Brett Dean nevertheless. He doesn't seem to subscribe to any school of thought with his compositions, which can go from a state of pure chaos to pure introspection. And "Game Over" with its final message, very culturally relevant today, really floored me last time.

@ COAG: It's this Opera Australia recording I'm looking at here, right?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Yes it's Opera Australia. Never the most fantastic opera company, but they can do the required broad Australian accents!


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## schigolch

nathanb said:


> RE: Halffter/Marco
> 
> I've been aware of Lazaro but I tend to buy MP3's these days to get the most music for my money. Perhaps I should start breaking that rule for the occasional DVD. In fact, the only opera DVDs I actually own at the moment are Boulez's Ring Cycle recordings
> 
> But I wonder what you thought of it, regardless of the general audience? The music itself was powerful and immense, to these ears.
> 
> Listened to Marco's opera mentioned above, last night. It's just apples and oranges between that and Halffter. But a very pleasant surprise, actually. I've generally been appreciating other Spanish music a little more than some of Marco's relatively conservative symphonic output, but this one couldn't be more different. A lot of focus on Spanish spoken word and liberal use of synthesizers, which is always a pleasant surprise. I probably still enjoyed the Halffter slightly more on first listen, but that's more because I'm a sucker for a Germanic aesthetic in a large orchestral setting, which the non-Renaissance parts certainly seem to employ. Give me a strong brass chorale and I'm usually willing to ignore everything else.


I'm somewhat closer to the 'damning with faint praise' than to your 'powerful and immense' reaction. To be blunt, I think that as an opera, _Don Quijote_ is not working. There is no real drama, and it's also not very challenging in a purely intellectual area. There was not any fault with the stage director, I think. Mr. Wernicke did his best, it was just the material. The vocal lines seemed to be divorced from the orchestra, and not really interesting on their own. On the other hand, there are indeed some exciting musical ideas, but would have been better invested on a tone poem, in my view.

Any TC member interested can take a look at the opera in youtube:






About Marco's _Segismundo_ it's indeed apples and oranges compared to _Don Quijote_. Certainly, I'm personally much closer to this aesthetic, than to Mr. Halffter's. (As I'm, incidentally, much closer to Calderón, than to Cervantes. Tomas Marco introduced in the libretto also some passages from Plato, other philosophers and the Spanish poet Alberto Lista). This is a very simple piece, with just a countertenor, actors, clarinet, cello, percussion (a nice one, indeed), synthesizers and electronics. But the effect can be mesmerizing at first hearing. Not so much, in subsequent hearings, true.


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## schigolch

_"A world of ancient gods rises up in all its power and glory, and some of its many characters are united in and speak through the main protagonist. He is both an independent modern individual and a representative of something eternally human."_

This is how the Danish composer *Anders Nordentoft* introduces his opera _On this Planet_ (2002) for singing (non operatic) voice and sinfonietta. Again, this is a piece on the border between opera and performance (and rather on the performance's side, indeed):


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## Guest

schigolch said:


> I'm somewhat closer to the 'damning with faint praise' than to your 'powerful and immense' reaction. To be blunt, I think that as an opera, _Don Quijote_ is not working. There is no real drama, and it's also not very challenging in a purely intellectual area. There was not any fault with the stage director, I think. Mr. Wernicke did his best, it was just the material. The vocal lines seemed to be divorced from the orchestra, and not really interesting on their own. On the other hand, there are indeed some exciting musical ideas, but would have been better invested on a tone poem, in my view.


Well, at least I can always use the excuse that I was just a listener and not a viewer


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## Albert7

nathanb said:


> Well, at least I can always use the excuse that I was just a listener and not a viewer


Bliss looks exceptional. Definitely adding this to my list.






After I hear it I plan to depict this opera to my SLC classical music society and see whether I get fired as the manager of the group.


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## schigolch

*Elodie Lauten* was a French composer, that lived in the US for many years, and was considered as a pioneer of postminimalism. She wrote several operas:

_The Death of Don Juan_ was originally written in 1985, and revised in 2005:






_OrfReo_, for soprano, mezzo, countertenor, baritone, and Baroque orchestra, with a libretto by Michael Andre, written in 2004:






In 2009 Lauten wrote _The Two-Cents Opera_, and when challenged that this was not indeed an opera, she answered: "The Two-Cents Opera does not even intend to be an opera other than by name, it is a multimedia musical. Technically speaking however, I had been taught that a piece where everything is sung is an opera. Go figure".


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## schigolch

For many years, we have been hearing the rumor that Pierre Boulez was preparing an opera for La Scala, based on _En attendant Godot_.

It's very, very unlikely of course that Boulez will ever write this opera, but at least we can hear the version written by the American composer *Mark Alburger* for his San Francisco Cabaret Opera:


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## schigolch

_The Ghosts of Versailles_ is an opera in two acts, with music by *John Corigliano* to an English libretto by William M. Hoffman, an so far the only incursion into the genre of Mr. Corigliano.

It was premiered at the MET, in 1991, after more than seven years of work by the composer. It was a qualified success, and later it was also staged in Chicago. A reduced version for chamber orchestra, to make the opera more accessible to smaller Opera Houses, was also provided by Mr. Corigliano.

Very recently, there was an staging at Los Angeles Opera.


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## schigolch

_Pecan Summer_ is the first opera written by an indigenous Australian, *Deborah Cheetham*, that is also a singer. The plot starts at The Dreaming, the sacred era in which the world was formed, and then jumps to several moments in the 20th and 21st centuries, like the Cummeragunja walk-off, a famous protest by Aboriginal Australians people in 1939.


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## schigolch

_Beatrice Chancy_ is an opera by the Canadian composer *James Rolfe*, premiered in 1999. The plot is based in Shelley's play on the family Cenci, but the story is moved from Italia to Nova Scotia, and from the 16th century, to the 19th. Probably, Rolfe was afraid a regista will do that in any case sooner or later, and he decided to pre-empt him.

Beatrice is the daughter from the relationship between the brutal Francis Chancy and his black slave, Mafa. Francis rapes Beatrice in a convent, and then the two women and the slave Moses conspire to murder Francis. The soprano Measha Brueggergosman sang Beatrice at the premiere:


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## schigolch

Apart from his musical enterprises as composer and conductor, *Peter Ruzicka* has been involved with Opera also at management level, having been in charge of the Artistic Directorship of the Salzburg Festival, and the Munich Biennale.

As a composer, he has written only two operas: _Celan_ (1999) and _Hölderlin_ (2007).


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## schigolch

_Os mortos viajam de metro_, is an opera by the young Portuguese composer Hugo Ribeiro, premiered at Teatro Municipal São Luiz, in Lisbon, in the year 2010. It's a short piece, in a prologue and one act, that won the first prize in a competition for young Portuguese talents. It takes place in a metro station, where a young woman thinking on suicide is talking to five dead female writers.


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## schigolch

The veteran American composer and conductor *Louis Karchin* was able to stage his chamber opera _Romulus_ back in 2007, at the Guggenheim Museum. He had been working on the piece since the 1990s, and there is also a CD issued by Naxos as part of their American Opera Classics series. The opera is complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

_Les sacrifiées_ was the second opera written by French composer *Thierry Pécou*, back in the year 2007.

The plot is about the fate of three Algerian women that are suffering abuse at the hands of French soldiers in the 1960s, of Algerian peasants in the 1980s, and of Islamic insurgents in the 21st century.


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## schigolch

_A Dog's Heart_ is an opera by the Russian composer *Alexander Mikhailovich Raskatov* premiered at De Nederlandse Opera, in Amsterdam, in the year 2010.

The libretto, by Cesare Mazzonis, is based on Mikhail Bulgakov's tale about a dog being implanted the testicles of a man, and the consequences of this.


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## schigolch

*Claudio Ambrosini* is an Italian composer, conductor and teacher, as well as the manager and founder of the "Centro Internazionale per la Ricerca Strumentale".

Back in 2002, he wrote the opera _Big Bang Circus_ _(Piccola storia dell'Universo)_, with a libretto by the well known writer and critic Sandro Cappelletto.

We can listen to the complete opera in youtube:


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## schigolch

The American composer *Jake Heggie* has written so far a handful of operas, of which the most popular is the first, _Dead Man Walking_, that we can hear complete in youtube:






And there are a couple of recordings available. The opera has been performed several times across the USA, but not so much in Europe. The musical language is rather old-fashioned, and has been described as closer to a Broadway musical than to your average 21st century opera.

_Moby Dick_, written in 2010, was also a success:






And the prolific Mr. Heggie will premier his new opera, _Great Scott_, in the coming month of October, at the Dallas Opera, with a cast including Joyce DiDonato, Ailyn Pérez, Frederica von Stade, Nathan Gunn and Anthony Roth Costanzo.


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## Enformedepoire

This is a fantastic thread with many, many operas I've never heard of. I've read through a few pages but I'm a bit overwhelmed at the plethora of great things to check out, so I apologize if I'm repeating anything that's already been said - I'll devour the rest of this soon.

I'd like to drag out Birtwistle's 'ol Mask of Orpheus. Hailed at its 1986 premiere as one of the most important artistic events of the decade, then promptly all but forgotten. It still does complex things with theatre that you don't see at the opera house too often, unless you're seeing something like Die Soldaten, or (in certain scenes) one of the Licht operas (though in the latter case I find the ideas much more compelling than the results).

I tend to prefer "avant-grade," atonal opera, but Kirke Mechem is one of the few tonal, even neo-romantic composers (certainly the best of them in my opinion) who can still write purely triadic, tonal music and have it sound fresh, original, even powerful. I've seen Tartuffe and The Rivals performed live and heard portions of John Brown. I can only imagine what wonders he works with Pride and Prejudice, but I haven't heard it yet. Personally, I think it's harder than ever to write truly tonal music and do it well without just being lazy or unimaginative (and I'm not talking Adams, etc, the minimalists and post-minimalists are often good, though often not good, like anything else), so Mr. Mechem gets my hearty congratulations, for what they're worth. 

And for the love of god, when is Boulez going to compose En Attendant Godot? Please, whatever powers that be, please let this happen.


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## schigolch

I'm a big fan of "The Mask of Orpheus" myself.

My favorite treatment of the Orpheus's legend in the 20th century. It was presented not as a linear drama, but rather we see the same events from different points of view, playing with time, and each main character split in three: Human (singer), Myth (off-stage voice and puppets) and Hero (mimes).

There are also six interludes with electronic music, a brilliant percussion, no strings in the orchestra ("They are not in the nature of the piece. The Rhythmic, percussive elements predominate. What would the strings bring to it?. They are too lyrical, too romantic, and I don't want Orpheus to be Romantic. I could try and escape this romantic association of the strings, but how do you get away from the way the instruments speak?. In the end, I decided not to try". )...


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## schigolch

*Huang Ruo* is an American composer, born in China, that should have premiered his first opera, _Dr. Sun Yat-Sen_, in Beijing, back in 2011, using western instruments, but the performance was cancelled by the Chinese government.

In fact, the same opera, but with a traditional Chinese instrumentation, instead of the standard Western orchestra planned for Beijing, was premiered in Hong-Kong.

Later, in 2014, The Santa Fe Opera staged the piece, sung in Mandarin, and with both western and Chinese instruments:


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## schigolch

_L'enterrement de Mozart_ is a chamber opera, written in 2008 by the French composer *Bruno Mantovani*. It's a piece written on the actual death and burial of Mozart, that dismiss the neglect and the direst poverty stuff, pretending it was just a common doom for most Viennese citizens of the period, after the order issued by the Emperor Joseph to avoid the risk of plague, due to the small size of the town's graveyards.






Mantovani premiered a few years later his opera_ Akhmatova_, inspired in the life and times of the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, at Paris's Bastille Opera.


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## Selby

What a great thread!

Already mentioned, worth repeating: 
An *Index of Metals, by Fausto Romitelli* is a masterpiece. 
One of the finest contemporary compositions, period.





Question:
Is this YT clip of *Jay Schwartz's Narcissus & Echo* available for purchase anywhere? 
I couldn't track it down. It is new to me and I am intrigued by it.





Not yet mentioned, but probably familiar to y'all:
*Missy Mazolli's Song from the Uproar: the Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt* (2012)
I was very enthusiastic about this when it was released. I have to admit it has worn on me a little in the years since.
A music video promotion:





Rumours:
Has anyone else heard that Irish composer *Donnacha Dennehy* has been working on an opera; any progress?
...
I looked it up:
*The Hunger* (complete) (2014); 80'; Commissioned by Alarm Will Sound with additional funding from Arts Council of Ireland, MAP Fund and New Music USA (to assist production) 
Soprano, sean nós singer, vintage recordings, electronics, video interviews and sinfonietta ensemble

I would love, love, love to hear it. Doesn't look like there are any recordings.


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## Selby

!!!!

*Donnacha Dennehy's The Hunger* featured on Meet the Composer with excerpts!


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## schigolch

Selby said:


> Question:
> Is this YT clip of *Jay Schwartz's Narcissus & Echo* available for purchase anywhere?
> I couldn't track it down. It is new to me and I am intrigued by it.


As far as I'm aware, there is no published recording of that piece.

I watched it staged back in 2011, at Madrid's Teatro del Canal.


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## schigolch

The American composer *Frank Proto*, with the librettist John Chenault, and stage director Leon Major, premiered in 2010 the opera _Shadowboxer, _based on Joe Louis's 1978 autobiography, "My Life".

Musically, perhaps the most interesting fact about this opera is Mr. Proto's inclusion of an on-stage eight-piece jazz combo in addition to the pit orchestra.


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## schigolch

*Mark Andre* is a French composer that wrote and premiered back in 2004 his opera _..22,13..._

The title comes from the Bible: "Because I'm alpha and omega, first and last, beginning and end". It's scored for two sopranos, five altos, orchestra and electronics. The plot uses, apart from the Bible, Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" and the duel of Gari Kasparov with IBM's computer 'Deep Blue'. Interesting stuff, there is a CD published:










More recently, Mark Andre premiered the year 2014 in Stuttgart _Wunderzaichen_, after working in the opera for several years. It counts the story of Johannes, a scholar of Hebrew that is realizing his dream of visiting the country whose language and religion he has studied for much of his life, and the strange things that happen when he arrives at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.


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## schigolch

Santa Fe Opera announces the premiere of _The Revolution of Steve Jobs_, which will follow the Apple founder as he confronts cancer, and will be staged in 2017:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/06/steve-jobs-new-opera-santa-fe-revolution-life-story


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## Guest

Funny, schigolch. I was listening to _...22,13..._ for only the second time yesterday. I've thought about posting it as an excuse to post Mark Andre here, but wasn't particularly sure if it was really an opera at all.

I've always loved Andre's instrumentation choices. He doesn't really bother with instruments that don't efficiently serve his purpose; the precise scoring of the work is for "2 sopranos, 5 altos, ensemble (_2 bass clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 trombones, 2 harps, 2 cellos, 2 double basses, 2 pianos, 4 percussion_) (around hall), live electronics"

NP: Sciarrino's _Perseo e Andromeda_


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## schigolch

I think it's always better to defer to the composer's own view about his work. The description of _...22,13..._ is "Musiktheater-Passion en trois parties, pour sept chanteuses". That sounds like an opera to me. 

About _Wunderzaichen_ (Oper in vier Situationen) I think there is no doubt at all.


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## schigolch

*Libby Larsen* is one of the most prolific composers alive. She has written some fifteen operas, among many other things. Let's hear a fragment from _Every Man Jack_, based on the life of Jack London, and premiered in 2006:






Her latest project was a rewriting of her adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's _A Wrinkle in Time_, premiered in 1992, and that was to be part of the 2014 season of Fort Worth Opera Festival, but was retired due to the high costs of the production:


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## schigolch

The German composer and conductor *Manfred Trojahn* has written several operas since the 1980s.

At the time of writing, the last one was _Orest_, based in Euripides, that was premiered in Amsterdam, back in 2011, and then also staged a couple of years later at Hannover:


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## schigolch

*Javier Torres Maldonado* is a Mexican composer, living in Italy, that recently premiered in Guanajato, during the Festival Internacional Cervantino, his opera _Viaje_, inspired in a travel by the writer Juan Rulfo from Ciudad Juárez to Chiapas:


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## schigolch

One of the many different ways to compose an opera, it's not to use an orchestra. In fact, not to use any instrument at all, beyond the human voice. A great example is Rodion Shchedrin's _Boyarina Morozova _(in fact, a trumpet and some percussion is used, too):






but here below we can hear a piece by the American composer *Michael Ching*, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_:


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## schigolch

The Serbian composer *Isidora Žebeljan* has written several soundtracks for directors like Emir Kusturica, but her first opera, _Zora D_, was commissioned by the Genesis Foundation, and after its premiere in Amsterdam back in 2003, was reasonably succesful:






She also got inspiration from another movie from a Serbian director, Dusan Kovacevic's "Eine Marathon-Familie", for her 2009 opera _The Marathon_, about fights and killings in a family of gangsters:


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## schigolch

The German composer *Detlev Glanert* is a long time lover of opera; the genre caught his attention at eleven years old, watching a performance of the "Magic Flute". Since then, he decided that one day he will be writing operas, and now has already premiered around a dozen.

Arguably his biggest success so far is _Caligula_, premiered at Frankfurt Opera in 2006, and that we can listen complete in youtube:






And his most recent piece for the stage is this _Solaris_, based on the novel by Stanisław Lem, and premiered in 2012, at the Bregenzer Festspiele:


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## Selby

schigolch - I'm looking into making a few purchases; do you have personal recommendations?


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## schigolch

My friend, this is a very difficult question to answer. I'm not well aware of your tastes or, indeed, of which operas do you already own!.

So, speaking on general terms, and restricting myself to the last few years, I would recommend:


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## Selby

^ Thank you very much. I have the George Benjamin but not the others. You seem to have such strong knowledge of the genre and bless us with so many posts - most of which I have not heard of - I was curious _what has most resonated with you_. I appreciate the recommendations.


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## schigolch

The American composer *Lewis Spratlan* wrote in the year 2000 the opera _Life is a Dream_, based on Calderon de la Barca's play, and received the Pulitzer Prize, for a concert version of the piece. In fact, Spratlan have been working on his opera since the 1970s.

However, he had to wait another ten years, until finally the opera was premiered in 2010, at The Santa Fe Opera.


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## Jorge Hereth

schigolch, Gutmann was the maiden name of Olga Benário's mother. And here in Brazil we have her as Olga Benário and - after her marriage with Luís Carlos Prestes in Moscow - with her married name Olga Benario Prestes. And here in Brazil many people have her as a heroine in the struggle against fascism. Beside being a communist activist, she also was Jewish, which troubled her situation here in Brazil lots, under the Vargas dictate.

Here the entire opera:

Act 1:





Act 2:





Act 3:


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## schigolch

The Russian composer (living and working in the UK) *Elena Langer* is going to premiere her opera "Figaro Gets a Divorce" in 2016, at the Welsh National Opera. Of course, it's a sequel to Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro". We will see the outcome.

In the meanwhile, let's listen to this aria from "Songs at the Well":


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## schigolch

*Michael Nyman* is well known, among other things, by his soundtracks: "The Draughtsman's Contract", "A Zed & Two Noughts", "Drowning by Numbers", "The Piano", "The End of the Affair",...

But he has also written some opera. Back in 1987, he published _The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat_, based on the popular book by the neurologist Oliver Sacks. the opera was rather successful.






But maybe his biggest success so far is _Facing Goya_, written in 2000, and reviewed in 2002. The opera is not about the painter himself (though he is a kind of 'apparition' in the plot), but rather about mad scientists obsessed with experimenting using Goya's talent gene. It's complete in youtube:


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## Jorge Hereth

Now look at this here! An abstract opera or an indigenous way of making opera? Anyway, it's a modern Mexican opera named Xochicuicatl Cuecuechtli. Don't worry if you don't understand a word, the language is Náhuatl (modern Aztec), and at least there are Spanish subs.


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## Jorge Hereth

I know what I'm posting here is pretty on the edge of anything contemporary, but I still believe this is the most appropriated thread to post it. The opera is a Peruvian one from 1900 and remade in 1920 named _Ollanta_, composed by José María Valle Riestra (Lima: November 09,1858 - Lima: January 25, 1925) with the original libretto (1900) by Federico Blume Corbacho (Lima: April 19, 1863 - Lima: August 23, 1936) and the definitive libretto by Luis Fernán Cisneros Bustamante (París: November 22, 1882 - Lima: March 17, 1954). The opera is based on the ancient Peruvian Quechua theatre piece _Ollantay_ of which the oldest written version preserved dates from somewhen in the 18th Century; comparisons to other manuscripts from the same period make conclude the written theatre piece remounts to a much more remote source, most likely from short after the consolidation of the Inca empire. And who thought anyway the Incas would not have theatre?
But what is pretty contemporary to this very presentation of Valle Riestra's opera, is the way it's been made up by Peru's National Television; its YT uploader does not indicate any date, so from what I see in the video I presume it's been made somewhen during the mid-1970s and end-1980s. And what calls my attention is the video technology the way Peruvian National TV is making use of it. Possibly the first use of video technology in a stage presentation of an opera ever? Or does someone here have better information?

And some parts of the opera seem to me they're sung in Quechua...

So enjoy, and please forgive me if you understand that presentation should not be in this thread here.

Act 1:





Act 2:





Act 3, Part 1:





Act 3, Part 2:


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## schigolch

Indeed, the rule of the thread is establishing 1980 as the boundary for contemporaneity. Of course, it's a totally arbitrary date, used only to get a kind of convention, useful for the purpose of the thread.

So, yes, maybe there are other threads that could have been used to publish the post, such as the 'Opera Youtube' thread, but don't worry, there is no problem to hijack this one for just a couple of posts. 

I remember talking to a Peruvian friend some ten years ago, about a performance of "Ollanta" at the Huaca Pucllana, in Lima, that she had recently watched.


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## Jorge Hereth

Thanks Schigolch. What made me chose this thread here was the use of videos at an onstage opera presentation, and that one's where I saw the contemporary part in.


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## schigolch

_Song from the Uproar_ is an opera by the American composer Missy Mazzoli, that was premiered in New York back in 2012. The plot is based on the life of Swiss adventurer and writer Isabelle Eberhardt:






Mazzoli is now working on an adaptation of Lars von Trier's movie "Breaking the Waves", that will premier next year at Opera Philadelphia.


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## schigolch

*Herbert Willi* is an Austrian composer that premiered in Zurich his opera, _Schlafes Bruder_, back in 1995. After some years, the opera was staged again, in a revised version, in Vienna, during the year 2009:


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## schigolch

"Akas Käš: la promesa del guerrero" is an opera-ballet by the Peruvian composer *Nilo Velarde*, a commission of the Ministery of Culture of Peru, that was premiered back in 2012, at Gran Teatro Nacional del Perú, in Lima:


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## Jorge Hereth

Sorry if once more I go to before 1980, for this opera was composed in 1979, but seems it premiered in 1980 only.

_A Moreninha_, is a mayor classic of Brazilian literature by Joaquim Manuel de Macedo (1820-1882), published in 1844. Despite extremely integrated into the public morality views of his time's monarchic Brazil, compared to which British Queen Victoria could be labeled as a free love hippie extremist, Macedo publicly assumed himself as an extremist against slavery, the death penalty and racism. Maybe he was the only one in Brazil's history to understand how much our capital punishment - abolished in 1890 only, a few months after the proclamation of the Republic - was conditioned to the color of one's skin, gender, and juridical condition.

For after 1822 - Independence had been proclaimed September 07 that year - no hanging of a white woman could be traced, and for white men hangings were rare. Some free black women would be hanged after being declared slaves by the courts, lots of free black men were hanged, but in general, most executions went against slaves. So far we should focus on Macedo as a pretty revolutionary conservative.

He was a conservative, yes, but he had understood how things work and he continues current in his writings, he points out problems - like racism for example - and their roots we continue having. Maybe that's why his harmless _A Moreninha_ is his only work widely spread here, and his only work obligatorily study in schools here. Yes, shame on us, we are extremely critic about our current politicians, but we generally give a sh.. on our history when it becomes uncomfortable... That lack of auto-criticism which Sir Winston Churchill and several historians have pointed out would never do any good to people...

Well, so _A Moreninha_ forces us to study Macedo's other works *once we caught not what he had written, but what he had not written in it*.

So far, guess composer Ernst Mahle and librettist José Maria Ferreira got that part. And they made a really great opera of it. By the way, you'll see 1929-born Mahle conducting that one himself last year, March 26, 2014, at the local conservatory's Procópio Ferreira Theater in Tatuí, SP:


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## Sir Redcrosse

schigolch said:


> *Jörg Widmann* is a German composer and clarinenist.
> 
> {. . .}
> 
> And his most ambitious project so far, is this _Babylon_, a commision of the Bavarian State Opera, premiered in 2012, though it was not very succesful at the time:


A pity it wasn't successful, from the looks of the Staatsoper's trailer, I would love to have a DVD


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## schigolch

*Douglas J. Cuomo* is an American composer, that has also worked extensively writing music for television and movies.

In 2008, he wrote the opera _Arjuna's Dilemma_, scored for a rather colorful ensemble, including an Indian vocalist, a classically-trained tenor, a four-member female chorus, a tabla player, an improvising tenor saxophonist, and a ten-piece chamber orchestra:






In 2013, he premiered his opera _Doubt, _based on John Patrick Shanley's play and movie, at Minnesota Opera.


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## Sir Redcrosse

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, here's another Opera I sure wish had been recorded [or maybe it has and someone can end my many years of searching?]

Ginastera's Beatrice Cenci





The video, according to the comments, is of the ballet section, which is renaissance in style, but with a tinge of atonality to bring it back home.


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## schigolch

I know there is a bootleg recording of "Beatrice Cenci", coming from a performance in Buenos Aires, in 1992. You can find it, I think, in the usual places devoted to this kind of trade.


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## schigolch

*Miquel Ortega* is a Spanish conductor and composer, that has written several operas.

One of them is _La Casa de Bernarda Alba_, based on García Lorca's play. It was premiered at Brasov, back in 2007:






However, the more famous adaptation of Lorca's piece to the operatic stage is _Bernarda Albas Haus_, by Aribert Reimann, premiered in the year 2000:


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## schigolch

*Marco Taralli* is an Italian composer that has written so far three operas.

The second one, _La Maschera di Punkittititi_, was commissioned by the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, in order to be produced in 2007:






His last opera, _Nûr_, was premiered during the Festival della Valle d'Itria, in 2012, and can be watched complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

The Argentinian composer and conductor *Mario Perusso*, composer-in-residence of the Teatro Colón at Buenos Aires, premiered there back in 2011 his fifth opera,_ Fedra_. A new elaboration of the Greek myth, so frequently used as a subject in Opera.






Of course, however, the best known recent operatic piece related with the myth was Hans Werner Henze's _Phaedra, _premiered at the Berlin State Opera in the year 2007, an opera we can hear complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

Carlos Fuentes was a Mexican writer that published in 1961 "Aura", one of the novels that cemented Fuentes's reputation as one of the stalwarts of the Latin American Boom, that took place during the 1960s and 1970s, and spread Latin American literature all across the world.

*Mario Lavista* premiered in 1989 his operatic adaptation, _Aura_, at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico DF. We can watch the opera complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

_Yo, Dalí_ is an opera by the Spanish composer *Xavier Berenguel*, that has been performed at Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu, as well as at Teatro de la Zarzuela, in Madrid, back in 2011. It was commisioned by the Spanish Ministry of Culture to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the famous painter Salvador Dalí's birth:


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## schigolch

*Luis Tinoco* is a Portuguese composer that has written so far two operas.

The last one, _Paint Me_, with a libretto by the veteran British writer Stephen Plaice, was a piece for six singers and chamber orchestra, loosely based on Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales". It was premiered in Lisbon, back in 2010:






His previous effort, _Evil Machines_, was completed in partnership with another British librettist, the former Monty Python star Terry Jones, and was premiered also in Lisbon, early in 2008:


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## schigolch

_Leggenda_ was the second opera by the Italian composer *Alessandro Solbiati*. It's inspired in a passage of Dostoievsky's "The Brothers Karamazov", with a libretto by the composer, and was commisioned by the Teatro Regio, of Turin. The opera was premiered back in 2011 in another theater of Turin, the 18th century Teatro Carignano:


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## Sloe

Lee Young Lee is a Korean composer here is his opera Whang Jinie from 1999 about a famous kisaeng (some sort of entertainer/artist/servant girl ) who lived in the sixteenth century with English subtitles:






He have also composed the opera Tcheo Young from 1987 based on an old legend depicting the downfall of the Silla kingdom something peculiar with this opera is that the legend have a happy ending while the opera have not:






Here is a slideshow describing what is happening in the opera:

http://enkr.blouinartinfo.com/photo-galleries/slideshow-korea-national-operas-tcheo-yong#image=7

These are my favourite contemporary operas that I like as much as the best of the old operas.


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## Sloe

Sloe said:


> Lee Young Lee is a Korean composer here is his opera Whang Jinie from 1999 about a famous kisaeng (some sort of entertainer/artist/servant girl ) who lived in the sixteenth century with English subtitles:


So annoying to discover that I wrote wrong after I can´t edit. It is Young Jo Lee.
My description of kisaeng was not so good either:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kisaeng

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Jini


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## schigolch

Of course, *Krzysztof Penderecki* is one of the best known composers of the second half of the 20th century.

In the field of opera, he wrote four pieces. The first, and by far the more successful, was _Die Teufel von Loudun_, written in 1969 (revised twice, during the 1970s) with a libretto by Penderecki himself, based on Aldous Huxley's novel "The Devils of Loudun". Since its premiere in Hamburg, the opera was then staged in several cities across Germany, as well as the US, France, Italy and the UK, and was received with mixed reviews. Clearly, this is not the rigth work for the lover of traditional melody, or for the faint-hearted, but it's a powerful piece of music theatre, that we can hear complete in youtube:






_Paradise's Lost_, based on Milton and with an English libretto by Christopher Fry, was called by Penderecki, 'a Sacred Representation'. It was commissionedfor the 1976 US Bicentennial celebrations, and premiered at Chicago in the late 1970, and perhaps is not aging well:






Moving forward to 1986, _Die schwarze Maske_, with a German libretto by Penderecki and Harry Kupfer, was premiered at the Szalburg Festival, and it was a failure with both audience and critics.

_Ubu Rex_ was Penderecki's last try, already in the 1990s, to recover some lost ground, adapting the popular play by Alfred Jarry, but it was again another fiasco:


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## schigolch

*Tobias Picker *is one of many American composers that are leading the creation of contemporary opera in the US. He was a child prodigy, and the author of a sizable number of works in different musical fields. Restricting ourselves to opera, some of his major pieces are:

_Emmeline_ was premiered at Santa Fe, in 1996, and it's based on Judith Rossner's novel. This is a very accessible opera, very melodic in a rather conventional sense. We can watch it complete in youtube:






Picker's third opera, _Thérèse Raquin_, was premiered at San Diego, and has been performed later in several theaters, including the Covent Garden. It's of course based on Zola's novel, and in musical terms quite similar to _Emmeline_:






Picker received a commission from the MET to write an opera based on a true US classic novel: _An American Tragedy_. It was premiered in 2005, and it was reasonably successful:






The most recent one is _Dolores Claiborne_, this time based on Stephen King, and premiered at San Francisco Opera back in 2013:


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## schigolch

*Elliot Carter* was one of the more respected composer of the 20th century. In a career spanning more than seventy years he wrote some great music, starting with an style resembling Stravinsky's neoclassicism, but always in search of a personal answer, the "Carter" way. His only opera, _What next?_, was premiered when Carter was already 90 years old, and it's built around the reaction of six characters to a road accident. It was staged in the US, after a concert version in Berlin, back in 1999. Carter was sometimes charged with using a cold, almost scientific approach to music, but to be able to write this piece at his advanced age, it's a testament to the creativity of the human spirit:


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## Jorge Hereth

João Guilherme Ripper (Rio de Janeiro, 1959) is had as Brazil's most important contemporary opera composer.

Here the video of his latest work's premiere, _O Diletante_ ( = _The Dilettante_, meaning _The Opera Lover_). In the mid-19th century, those fanatic opera lovers who tumulted opera presentations with their immediate reactions, applauding their preferred artists every time they concluded an aria and giving rivaling artists a hard ride on stage, who after a presentation used to carry their preferred artists home, and who seemed to have only opera in their heads, were referred to as _dilettantes_. In 1844 Luís Carlos Martins Pena (1815-1848) wrote a theater piece called _O Diletante_ - which premiered February 25, 1845 - in which he satirizes the habits and passions of Brazilian opera lovers and how these make other people suffer. Guilherme Ripper took Martins Pena's comedy and made an opera of it, adapting its action to nowadays times. Looks Brazilian opera lovers have not changes too much since then...

Guilherme Ripper's _O Diletante_ premiered September 25, 2014, in the Salão Leopoldo Miguez of the music school at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), with the university's symphonic orchestra conducted by André Cardoso; and here's the video of it:





And here are two more operas by Guilherme Ripper:

_Onheama_:





_Piedade_ (this one with English subs):


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## schigolch

_La Fenice_ is an opera by the Finnish composer *Kimmo Hakola*, premiered at the Savonlinna Opera Festival on July, 2012. It's a story about a menace to the famous Venetian opera house under the form of a bankrupcy and a fire, based on the actual burning down of the theater in 1996. It's a Nothern European view of Italian culture, and Italian opera buffa tradition, and also with frequent hints to historic masterpieces premiered precisely there, at La Fenice:


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## schigolch

The Italian composer *Silvia Colasanti* premiered _La Metamorfosi_ at the Florence's Maggio Musicale, back in 2012. With a libretto by Pier Luigi Pier'Alli, and based in Kafka, we can watch the opera complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Luciano Berio* wrote several operas (including an alternative ending for Puccini's _Turandot_), but arguably his more ambitious work for the stage was _Un re in ascolto_.

Premiered in 1984, with a libretto by Berio himself, based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and an idea by Italo Calvino (a king attends the performance of "The Tempest,", by a traveling theatrical troupe), this 'azione musicale' was divided in 19 sections. Regrettably, it was not a real success, receiving little love from critics and audiences alike. We can hear the opera in youtube:






And this is his ending for _Turandot_, that is really interesting, at least for fans of the opera:


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## schigolch

The Greek composer, living in Paris, *Georges Aperghis* has written several operas since the 1970s. Back in 2004, he worked with the French philosopher, musicologist and writer Peter Szendy in _Avis de tempête_, including texts by Herman Melville, Franz Kafka, Charles Baudelaire, William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo,... The opera is scored for soprano, two baritones, chamber orchestra and electronics. An interesting piece, that we can hear complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

The last of *Leonard Bernstein*'s operas, _A Quiet Place_, a kind of spin-off of his short opera _Trouble in Tahiti_, was a failure with critics and audience at its Houston premiere, back in 1983.

Bernstein and his librettist, Stephen Wadsworth, reshaped the opera in three acts, with _Trouble in Tahiti_, being given as a flahsback being most of act 2. It was staged again, and even recorded by Deutsche Grammophon:










But sadly, it was unable again to win favour. A few years ago, it was staged at NYCO, with a somewhat better fortune:


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## schigolch

The American composer *Stewart Wallace* premiered his opera _The Bonesetter's Daughter_ at San Francisco Opera, that commissioned the piece, back in 2008, with a libretto by Amy Tan, based on her own novel. The Chinese-born director and choreographer Chen Shi-Zheng took care of the stage direction.

Mr. Wallace listened to Chinese classical music, as a source of inspiration for the score, and he decided also to cast traditional Chinese singers, along with Western-trained opera singers:


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## schigolch

_Manifest Destiny_ is an opera by the British composer Keith Burstein, with a libretto by the also British playwright and poet, Dic Edwards, dealing with terrorism and with the subject of suicide bombers.

It was premiered back in 2003 at Edinburgh, and then revised extensively for a series of performances at the King's Head Theatre in London, staged as _Manifest Destiny 2011_:


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## schigolch

_Sonya's Story_ is an opera by the British composer *Neal Thornton* to his own libretto, based on the original Russian text of Anton Chekhov's play "Uncle Vanya", and commissioned to celebrate Chekhov's 150th anniversary. The opera was premiered back in 2010:


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## schigolch

_The Dreaming Child_ is an opera by the Israeli composer *Gil Shohat*, based on the play by Hanoch Levin, that was inspired by the fate of the MS St. Louis ocean liner, that was carrying Jewish refugees from Germany to Cuba in 1939. The opera was premiered at Tel Aviv back in 2010, and we can watch it complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

_The Golden Ticket_ is an opera based on Roald Dahl's classic book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by the American composer *Peter Ash*, with a libretto by Donald Sturrock. It was premiered at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis back in 2010:


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## schigolch

The Turkish-American composer *Kamran Ince* received a commission to write his opera _Judgment of Midas_, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Sardis excavations in Turkey. The piece combines Western and traditional Turkish instruments, and was premiered in 2013:


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## schigolch

The Croatian composer *Frano Parać* premiered his opera _Judita_ at the Split Summer Festival, back in 2000. Though it was a success with the audience, and was later performed in Rijeka and Zagreb, the piece still needs to be staged outside Croatia.

We can watch it complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

_The Lunch Box_ is a chamber opera by Thai composer *Thanapoom Sirichang*, it's sung in Thai and is a blending of traditional Thai music and contemporary Western opera. Mr. Sirichang lives in Australia, and the opera was premiered back in 2009, in Hobart, the capital of the island of Tasmania.


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## schigolch

_Our American Cousin_ is an opera by the American composer *Eric Sawyer* with a libretto by John Shoptaw. The plot describes the murder of President Abraham Lincoln from the standpoint of the actors performing Tom Taylor's play 'Our American Cousin', that evening at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

The opera was premiered in 2008, and a CD was also released:


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## schigolch

*Vladimir Tarnopolski* is a professor of composition at Moscow's conservatory, as well as an active composer himself. He wrote _Jenseits der Schatten_ (Beyond the Shadow) in 2006, to his own libretto based on Plato, Pliny, Dante, Leonardo and Nietzsche:


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## schigolch

The Portuguese composer and pianist *António Pinho Vargas* has written three operas, as well as quite a few non lyrical pieces, and being a teacher at the Conservatory in Lisbon.

_Os dias levantados_ was commisioned by the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, and premiered in Lisbon, in 1998:


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## schigolch

*Ivan Jevtić* is a Serbian composer, living in France, that received a commission to write his opera _Mandragola_ (based in Machiavelli). The opera was premiered at Belgrade in 2009, and was also staged in Russia and France:


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## schigolch

Italian composer *Franco Battiato*, a well-known pop musician, has however written several operas. The first one, _Genesi_, was premiered at Teatro Regio, Parma, in 1987, for reciting voice, two sopranos, tenor and baritone.


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## schigolch

*Ivan Fedele* is a well considered Italian composer and teacher. His opera _Antigone_ was premiered at Florence back in 2007.

It was based on the Antigone's myth, as presented by Sophocles, with a libretto by Giuliano Conti. The score needs 6 voices, choir, chamber orchestra and electronics:


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## schigolch

_La cabeza del Bautista_ is an opera by the Spanish composer Enric Palomar, based on the play by Valle-Inclán, that was in turn loosely inspired by the tale of Princess Salome and John the Baptist. Palomar made an homage to Strauss's _Salome_, casting the same voice types for the three main roles in his opera.

It was premiered at Barcelona's Liceu back in 2009:


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## schigolch

_1984_ is the operatic adaptation of the famous Orwell's novel, written by American conductor and composer Lorin Maazel.

It was premiered at ROH back in 2005, and was also staged later at La Scala. However, it received some rather caustic reviews, and it was not popular with the audience either. There is a DVD available:


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## schigolch

_La Creciente_ is an opera by the Mexican composer *Georgina Derbez*, based on the writings of the Argentinian screenwriter and movie director, Paula Markovitch, that is also the librettist of the opera, about the events on Argentina under a military dictatorship in the 1970s. The opera was premiered a couple of weeks ago at the Festival Internacional Cervantino, in the Mexican city of Guanajuato:


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## schigolch

*Siegfried Matthus* is a German composer, active since the times of the German Democratic Republic, that has written around a dozen operas such as:

Lazarillo von Tormes (1963)​Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke, (1983) based on Rainer Maria Rilke,​Graf Mirabeau, (1988)​Die unendliche Geschichte, (2004) based on Michael Ende's novel​
But arguably his more successful piece so far is _Judith_ (1984), staged in Germany, England, Holland and the US. We can hear the opera in youtube:






_Cosima_ is more recent, premiered back in 2007, and deals with the last days on the life of Friedrich Niestzche, that is discussing with Cosima Wagner about his life and his books. Matthus also quotes some passages from Richard Wagner's operas:


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## schigolch

*Robin Holloway* is an English composer that wrote _Clarissa_ (based on Richardson's novel) in 1976. However, the opera was uncommissioned, and it was not staged until 1990, at the ENO, in London. In 1995, he published _Clarissa Sequence_, for soprano and orchestra, a reduced version with material extracted from the opera:


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## schigolch

_Ocean of Time_ is an opera written by Swedish composer *Lars Ekström* and premiered in Stockholm, in 2004. It was commissioned by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra:


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## schigolch

*Hugo Weisgall* was an American (born in Moravia) composer and conductor that wrote about ten operas from the first one, _The Tenor_, premiered in 1952, to the last one, _Esther_, premiered in 1993. He came from a family of several generations of cantors, and was mostly interested in vocal music compositions.


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## schigolch

_Die Weiße Rose_ (The White Rose), is an opera by the German composer Udo Zimmermann. It was premiered at Dresden in 1967, but then reviewed in 1986, and so we can discuss the piece here, in compliance with the rules of the thread.

The opera present the story of Hans and Sophie Scholl, two young brothers that were executed in Nazi Germany, back in 1943, for being members of "Die Weiße Rose", a resistance clandestine group. We can watch it complete in youtube, from a performance at Nantes:


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## schigolch

Based on the Yiddish-language play "The Dybbuk" by S. Ansky, David Tamkin wrote an opera in the 1930s, but more recently, in 1993, composer *Solomon Epstein* completed _The Dybbuk: An Opera In Yiddish_ that was given a premiere in Israel at Ben-Gurion University:


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## schigolch

*Andrew Toovey* is a British composer, a disciple of Jonathan Harvey and Michael Finnissy, that has written some opera. Most of his material is available in youtube, on his own channel.

_Ubu_ (1992), based on Alfred Jarry:






_The Jupiner Tree_ (1993), based on a tale by the Grimm brothers:


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## schigolch

Television opera started in the 1950s, and one memorable example was Menotti's _Amahl and the Night Visitors_, that was aired during several consecutive years at Christmas.






One of the last examples is _Toothpaste_, a very short comedy piece by the Canadian composer *Alexina Louie*. Let's take a look with one of the contemporary opera divas, the also Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan, singing:


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## schigolch

_Dear Son of Mine_ was written by Israeli composer *Haim Permont* in the 1990s, and then premiered at The Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, back in 2000.


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## schigolch

The Czech composer (living and working since many years in New York) *Petr Kotik* wrote back in 1978 the opera _Many, Many Women_, based on the novella by Gertrude Stein. In fact, it contains the entire text of the novella, and it's to be performed with a considerable degree of freedom by the singers and several intrumentalists. It's a long experience, between five and six hours all told.















More recently, in 2014, Mr. Kotik has premiered another opera, _Master Pieces_, based on Stein's writings.


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## schigolch

Of course, *Hans Werner Henze* was a very well considered composer in his lifetime, and maybe even more so as an Opera composer.

In his long career, spanning more than 60 years, he wrote some forty pieces for the stage. One of the firsts, and my personal favorite, was _Boulevard Solitude_, another vision of Prévost's "Manon Lescaut". We can hear the opera complete in youtube:






I'm also fascinated by _Das verratene Meer_ (German version, there is also a Japanese version, _Gogo No Eiko_), based on Yukio Mishima's novel "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea", and was premiered at the Deutsche Oper in 1990:






But Henze's last opera was _Gisela!_, completed in 2010 and premiered at the Ruhrtriennale Music and Arts Festival.


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## drfaustus

In this opera, the staging is amazing and fantastic:


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## mountmccabe

schigolch said:


> I'm also fascinated by _Das verratene Meer_ (German version, there is also a Japanese version, _Gogo No Eiko_), based on Yukio Mishima's novel "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea", and was premiered at the Deutsche Oper in 1990:


Thank you for sharing this! I am a fan of Mishima's novels and am going to look more into this!


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## schigolch

_Das Krokodil_ (2004), is an opera written by the Austrian composer *Jury Everhartz*, based on Dostoyevsky's satirical short story:






Curiously enough, there is another opera based on this piece, written by Llywelyn Ap Myrddin, that we can watch complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

_The Francis Bacon Opera_ is a comic chamber opera written by the English composer *Stephen Crowe*. The libretto is based on an interview of broadcaster Melvyn Bragg with the artist Francis Bacon, back in 1985. Two singers, and one piano, are enough for this piece to run, as we can see complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

The Italian conductor *Franco Mannino* was also an opera composer. He wrote several, including one adapting Wilde's _The Portrait of Dorian Gray_. But let's hear a suite from his last piece, _Il Principe Felice_, premiered back in 1981:


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## Bardamu

schigolch said:


> The Italian conductor *Franco Mannino* was also an opera composer. He wrote several, including one adapting Wilde's _The Portrait of Dorian Gray_. But let's hear a suite from his last piece, _Il Principe Felice_, premiered back in 1981:


Mannino's best opera in my opinion.

(Premiered in 1987)



schigolch said:


> _Das Krokodil_ (2004), is an opera written by the Austrian composer *Jury Everhartz*, based on Dostoyevsky's satirical short story:


On the same subject was based Il coccodrillo by Valentino Bucchi (premiered at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 1970).


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## schigolch

The recently deceased American composer *Marvin David Levy*, wrote _Mourning Becomes Electra_ (based of course in Eugene O'Neill's play) back in 1967. However, it was extensively reviewed already in the 21st century, and staged at Chicago, NYCO, Seattle, Florida...


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## schigolch

*Otto Ketting* was a Dutch musical teacher and composer, that received in the 1980s a commission to write his opera _Ithaka_, that opened the Amsterdam Muziektheater, back in 1986.

The opera is inspired by the famous poem by Kavafis:


When you depart for Ithaca,​wish for the road to be long,​full of adventure, full of knowledge.​Don't fear the Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,​the angry Poseidon.​

We can hear the opera complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Filippo del Corno* is a still relatively young Italian composer, that has written seven operas, so far.

_Il Rimedio della Fortuna_, based on "Le Remède de Fortune" by Guillaume de Machaut, was premiered in 2012:






Del Corno is not afraid to tackle contemporary subjects, as we can see with _Io, Hitler_ (2009):






or _Non Guardate al domani_ (2008), with a libretto by Angelo Miotto, based on the kidnapping and murder of the Italian politician Aldo Moro, back in 1978:


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## schigolch

_Martin Fierro_ is an epic poem by the Argentine writer José Hernández, that is hugely popular not only in Argentina, but also in other Latin American countries and in Spain.

There is also an opera based on the poem, by Nico Posse and Mono Morello, that we can hear in this youtube:


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## starthrower

I too like the Henze. Gracias!


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## schigolch

_Le Malentendu_ is an opera by the Italian composer *Matteo D'Amico*, based on Camus, and premiered at the Macerata Opera Festival, in 2009:


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## schigolch

The Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright Reinaldo Arenas wrote _Antes que anochezca_ (Before Night Falls), bback in 1992. The Cuban-American composer *Jorge Martín* adapted the piece to the operatic stage in 2010, and the opera was premiered at the Fort Worth Opera. There was a CD released:


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## schigolch

*Luis Bacalov* is an Argentine composer, well known for his film scores. Bacalov has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Original Score, winning it in 1996 for "Il Postino" (the other nomination was back in 1967 for Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew", using different sources like Bach, Mozart, gospel hymns,...).

_Y Borges cuenta que_ is an opera written in 2008, based on two tales by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges: the delightful 'Emma Zunz' and 'El hombre de la esquina rosada' (Man on Pink Corner):


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## schigolch

_Les pigeons d'argile_ is the first opera of the French composer *Philippe Hurel*. Hurel is a veteran composer, active since the 1980s and usually associated to some extent with spectralism. The opera was commisioned by the Capitole opera house at Toulouse, and premiered there in 2014. There is also a DVD published:


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## Sloe

schigolch said:


> _Les pigeons d'argile_ is the first opera of the French composer *Philippe Hurel*. Hurel is a veteran composer, active since the 1980s and usually associated to some extent with spectralism. The opera was commisioned by the Capitole opera house at Toulouse, and premiered there in 2014. There is also a DVD published:


That is only two and a half minute but I must say that is an opera I would like to see. This is what an opera should be like.


----------



## schigolch

_Pan_ is an opera by the French composer *Marc Monnet* that was premiered at Strasbourg, the year 2005. It was scored for singers, orchestra and electronics, and also features actors and dancers. It's complete in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

*Benoît Mernier* is a Belgian organist and composer, a former student of Philippe Boesmans, that, after working primarily in the field of chamber music, was given the job of composer-in-residence at La Monnaie, Brussels. He premiered there his first opera, _Frühlings Erwachen_, back in the year 2007. The opera is based on a play by Franz Wedekind (author of "Erdgeist" and "Die Büchse der Pandora", that inspired Alban Berg's _Lulu_). The plot is about some youngsters growing up, discovering sex, and the tragic suicide of one of them.

There is a published CD/DVD:















His second opera, _La dispute_, was also premiered at Brussels, back in 2013:


----------



## schigolch

Chaya Czernowin is a composer born in Israel, but working in Austria, that wrote back in 2000 her opera "PNIMA...ins innere", or an 'opera without words' as Czernowin presented the piece. There is a DVD released:


----------



## Guest

Schigolch, have you seen/heard the entirety of the Czernowin opera in its entirety? I enjoy her music and I've been on the brink of buying that one.


----------



## schigolch

I have watched the DVD above. 

As you are well aware, quite a few contemporary composers stretches the concept of opera to its limits. This is the case here: two actors, some voices from the side, a small orchestra and electronics. No real plot, no 'operatic' singing. 

Having said that, if you like Ms. Czernowin's music, I do think this piece will certainly appeal to you. Don't get me wrong here, the blend of the orchestra, the sounds and the voices is sometimes quite interesting, and almost shocking. But there are also some parts that looked to me as rather uninspired, like the long opening.


----------



## Guest

schigolch said:


> I have watched the DVD above.
> 
> As you are well aware, quite a few contemporary composers stretches the concept of opera to its limits. This is the case here: two actors, some voices from the side, a small orchestra and electronics. No real plot, no 'operatic' singing.
> 
> Having said that, if you like Ms. Czernowin's music, I do think this piece will certainly appeal to you. Don't get me wrong here, the blend of the orchestra, the sounds and the voices is sometimes quite interesting, and almost shocking. But there are also some parts that looked to me as rather uninspired, like the long opening.


I guess what really matters to me changes on a case-by-case basis. I was listening to Furrer's _FAMA_ this morning and realized that I tend to listen to his "operas" simply as large scale works for voices and orchestra. Whereas I'm a little more attuned to the plot with, say, things like _Alice In Wonderland_ or _Die Teufel Von Loudun_ or _Written On Skin_.

Some would take issue with this. Personally, I have no problem with it. An opera is fundamentally a large-scale work for voices and musicians that is thematically unified and staged in a theatrical setting, and of course Furrer's operas have plots. But we're all here for music, so as long as they nail that element, I take no issue with boundary-pushing.

Based on the ways in which Czernowin's music appeals to me (somewhat similar to Ferneyhough, whose opera vaguely follows a plot but only as an excuse to unify the various writings of Walter Benjamin), I would suspect that an ambiguous plot would be no issue for me.


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## schigolch

The Swedish tenor *Carl Unander-Scharin*, is also a composer, that has written so far nine operas, all of them staged in Sweden. This is the last one, "The Elephant Man", premiered at the Norrlandsoperan, in Umea, back in 2012:


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## schigolch

David Alagna, the brother of the famous tenor Roberto Alagna, wrote his opera _Le dernier jour d'un condamné_, based on Victor Hugo, back in 2007. It was staged at Paris, with Roberto (that also helped with the libretto, along with his other brother, Frédéric) singing. We can watch the opera complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

I guess that composer *Mark Adamo* is reasonably well known, at least to our American members. He has written so far five operas, and the first of them, _Little Women_, premiered back in 1998, was very successful.










A brilliant melodist, he counted also with a witty libretto, written by himself:


----------



## schigolch

*Kari Tikka* is a Finnish composer and conductor that have written several operas so far. Arguably the most successful one was "Luther", premiered back in 2000, with a DVD released:










This 'Armolaulu', the Grace Song, is indeed a catchy tune:


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## schigolch

Of course, *Steve Reich* is one of the most famous composers of our days, however he seemed to be somewhat refractory to opera.

Working with his wife, the visual artist Beryl Korot, he created in the 1990s, _The Cave_, what they called a 'multimedia opera'.

Exploring further the concept, they released another 'multimedia opera', _Three Tales_, back in 2002. It's based on three episodes of the 20th century: the Hindenburg's zeppelin accident, the atomic tests on the Bikini atoll, and the cloning of the sheep Dolly.










It has been released both as a CD, with the music by Reich, and as a DVD, including images by Korot. Well, this is again clearly on the boundaries of the genre. In any case, it's a nice piece of music:


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## schigolch

The American composer *David Conte* has written six operas so far. The second one, _The Gift of the Magi_, based on the short story by O. Henry, was premiered back in 2001, and it's complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

_Jackie O_ is a chamber opera, by the American composer *Michael Daugherty*, premiered back in the 1990s. It has been called a "pop Opera", and with reason. At least, the score is more akin to Stephen Sondheim or William Bolcom than, say, to John Adams.

However, is quick, witty and makes for good entertainment. Each character is given a non-classical music style and vocal lines are quite direct. The staging of the DVD above is from Bolonia.

I guess this is one of the very few operas in which Maria Callas is a character, instead of a singer.


----------



## Becca

Gerald Barry, the Irish composer who had quite a success with his _Importance of Being Earnest_, will have a new opera, _Alice's Adventures Underground_, premiered in a semi-staged version later this year.


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## schigolch

The British composer and conductor *Oliver Knussen* wrote two operas back in the 1980s, _Where the Wild Things Are_ and _Higglety Pigglety Pop!_, both with a libretto by Maurice Sendak, based on his own eponymous children's books.


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## schigolch

I guess many members have watched David Lynch's movie, _Lost Highway_.

Based on this movie, Olga Neuwirth wrote in 2003 an opera with the same title, and a libretto by the Nobel Prize winner, Elfriede Jelinek. Apart from Austria, there have been performances also in Germany, Switzerland, the US and the UK.

This is mainly for fans of avant-garde opera, however:


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## schigolch

*Gian Carlo Menotti* started to write opera back in the 1930s, and among them there are wonderful pieces like The Consul (1950), but since 1980, the threshold we are using for this thread, he only wrote five operas. Arguably the more successful one was _Goya_, premiered in 1986:


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## schigolch

The Estonian composer* Erkki-Sven Tüür* wrote the opera above at the beginning of the 21st century, and the DVD was recorded during a staging at Tallinn, the year 2007.

Raoul Wallenberg was a businessman from Sweden, working in Budapest during the Second World War, where he helped to save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the extermination camps, using the services of the Swedish Embassy. The Red Army detained Wallenberg in 1945, and charged him with spying for the US. He apparently died at a Soviet prison in 1947, though this has been disputed.


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## schigolch

The Chinese composer *Tan Dun* reached world fame thru his soundtracks, and the Beijing Olympic Games.










_Marco Polo_, his first opera, premiered back in 1996 was a success for Tan Dun:






However, his major work for the MET, _The First Emperor_, premiered in 2006, received rather mixed reviews:


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## schigolch

_La mujer de la sombrilla_ (The Woman with the Parasol) is a chamber opera written by the Spanish composer *Juan Cruz Guevara*, premiered in 2011, presenting the life of a woman fighting with the Alzheimer disease:


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## schigolch

Back in 2002, the Italian cellist and composer *Giovanni Sollima* premiered his opera _Ellis Island_ in Palermo. The opera deals with the subject of immigration, and Sollima wrote the leading role, Felicità, for a pop singer (Elisa) instead of a classical trained female vocalist:


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## schigolch

The American composer *Margaret Garwood* wrote in 2010 her opera _The Scarlet Letter_, that adapts Hawthorne's classic novel of the same name. It was premiered in Philadelphia:


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## schigolch

*Cristian Carrara* is an Italian composer that has written five operas so far.

Arguably, _Oliver Twist_ (2012) is his biggest success. We can watch the opera complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

The veteran Italan composer *Azio Corghi* has written around a dozen operas, during a career spanning 25 years. Some of these operas were premiered in important theaters, such as Milan's La Scala.

Let's hear some fragments from his first opera, _Gargantua_ (1984):






and some from his latest one, _Giocasta_ (2009):


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## schigolch

*Vladimír Franz* is a Czech opera composer, stage director and painter. Incidentally, he was also a registered candidate in the 2013 Czech presidential election.

The opera-oratorio _Údolí suchých kostí_ was composed for the 30th anniversary of Ars Brunensis Chorus back in 2009.


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## schigolch

_Jago_ (2009) tells the story of Shakespeare's character, Iago, after the events of "Othello". The opera includes re-orchestrated selections from Verdi's _Otello_ as well as additional music written by the Italian composer Carlo Pedini:


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## schigolch

During his long career, the Italian composer *Flavio Testi* wrote eight operas. We can listen to one complete piece premiered back in 1966 at the Piccola Scala, _L'Albergo dei Poveri_:






While one of his latest works, _Saül_, is the tale of King Saul's decline and demise, and the eventual rise of King David, based on the work of André Gide. It was written in 1991, but it was not premiered until 2003, in Paris.


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## Pugg

*CONRAD SUSA: "The Dangerous Liaisons"*






CONRAD SUSA: "The Dangerous Liaisons"
_Just a small bit alas.
_
Conrad Stephen Susa (April 26, 1935 - November 21, 2013) was an American composer. Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, Susa studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Juilliard School, where his teachers included William Bergsma, Vincent Persichetti and, by his own claim, P. D. Q. Bach, the fictitious spoof character created by American composer Peter Schickele.[1]

From 1959 to 1994, Susa was composer-in-residence for the Old Globe Theater (San Diego, California), where he wrote incidental music for over 200 productions there. In 1988, he joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and remained there as a professor of composition until his death.[2]

Susa became particularly known for his 5 operas.[3] His 1973 chamber opera, Transformations, set to texts from the poems of Anne Sexton, is one of the most frequently performed operas by an American composer.[4][5] His other compositions include choral works and incidental music for various plays. His music is published by the E.C. Schirmer Music Company.[1]


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## Pugg

I don't know if this is allowed in this thread but anyway: contemporary in Belgium.

https://operaballet.be/nl/programma...il&utm_term=0_b661b79814-bd571a8f50-106983593


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## schigolch

The idea of the thread is to discuss about operas written after 1980, but in the case of "Der König Kandaules", even if the piece was originally from the 1930s, Zemlinsky never completed the work during his lifetime, and the world premiere, with a full orchestration, took place much later, back in 1996. So, it fits well in the thread.


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## Pugg

Thank you schigolch , I remember from now on :tiphat:


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## schigolch

_Doloritas_ (1992) is the first version of an opera that the Mexican composer *Julio Estrada* wrote, based on Juan Rulfo's "Pedro Páramo". Later, he developed the opera into a more complex piece, under the title of _Murmullos del páramo_:


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## schigolch

_La Güera_ (1982) is an opera by the Mexican composer *Carlos Jiménez Mabarak*, based on the life of a female character from the early 19th century, Doña María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco y Osorio Barba, also known as la Güera (the Blonde). The opera is complete in youtube:


----------



## Pugg

Pugg said:


> CONRAD SUSA: "The Dangerous Liaisons"
> _Just a small bit alas.
> _
> Conrad Stephen Susa (April 26, 1935 - November 21, 2013) was an American composer. Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, Susa studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Juilliard School, where his teachers included William Bergsma, Vincent Persichetti and, by his own claim, P. D. Q. Bach, the fictitious spoof character created by American composer Peter Schickele.[1]
> 
> From 1959 to 1994, Susa was composer-in-residence for the Old Globe Theater (San Diego, California), where he wrote incidental music for over 200 productions there. In 1988, he joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and remained there as a professor of composition until his death.[2]
> 
> Susa became particularly known for his 5 operas.[3] His 1973 chamber opera, Transformations, set to texts from the poems of Anne Sexton, is one of the most frequently performed operas by an American composer.[4][5] His other compositions include choral works and incidental music for various plays. His music is published by the E.C. Schirmer Music Company.[1]


I received my copy of a none commercial DVD, looks very interesting.
Von Stade/ Fleming/ Hampson and David Hobson participating :tiphat:


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## schigolch

_Glory Denied_ is a chamber opera by the American composer *Tom Cipullo*, premiered in 2010*. * It is based on the story of Colonel Jim Thompson, an American soldier held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for many years. The opera was a success with the audience, and also with many critics:


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## schigolch

_Home is a Harbor_, is the first opera of the American composer Mark Abel, written in 2015, and has already been released in CDformat:


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## schigolch

Curiously, quite a few pop or rock composers have tried, usually with rather indifferent results, to write one opera. _Luna_ (1997), is a piece by the Spaniard José María Cano, that was recorded in CD with singers like Plácido Domingo, Teresa Berganza and Renée Fleming.

.









We can hear the full opera, in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

*Peter Androsch* is an Austrian composer that has written several operas, including one version of the famous novel by Anthony Burgess, "A Clockwork Orange" (1994).

_Freunde!_ is a more recent piece, premiered at the Hannover Staatsoper in the year 2011:


----------



## mountmccabe

David T. Little's first grand opera, _JFK_, premieres tonight in Fort Worth. The opening is available on YouTube from a few preview performances:






His last opera, _Dog Days_, was based on a short story by Judy Budnitz (that is the complete story; _Flying Leap_ is a collection of short stories). It premiered in New Jersey in 2012 (and I'm stick kicking myself for not going). I find this extended excerpt where Lisa first befriends the man in a dog suit very compelling and moving.






And earlier work, _Soldier Songs_ has been presented as a staged piece. It is approximately an hour long and written for baritone and a small ensemble. There are some excerpts on YouTube from the performances at the 2013 Prototype Festival in NYC, and a complete recording can be heard on Spotify.


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## schigolch

*Michael Finnissy* is an English composer and pianist, and the author of a handful of operas. The first one, _Shameful Vice_ (1994), was a chamber opera with a libretto by the composer, based on the last days of Tchaikovsky's life:


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## sadams

In December 2016, the European premiere of the opera CINDERELLA by Alma Deutscher will take place in Vienna.
http://www.cinderella-in-vienna.com

In December 2016/January 2017, there will be four performances of Deutscher's CINDERELLA, in a new production, with additional music, full staging and orchestra, and sung in German.


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## Jeffrey Smith

These three have been recently released on CD


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## schigolch

Back in 2008, Center Stage Opera commissioned _Marie's Orchard_, from the American composer *Philip Westin*, based on Willa Cather's novel, "O Pioneers!".

We can watch the opera complete in youtube:


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## Pugg

Jeffrey Smith said:


> These three have been recently released on CD


This one I like to have/ hear


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## schigolch

You can take a look at this opera in youtube:


----------



## Belowpar

Just found this. There must have been more than one performance in this location as I saw one with no rain.

I was cycling home along the towpath when there was sign saying "Path Closed Opera 6.30pm tonight".
I stayed and quite enjoyed it!


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## schigolch

*Michel van der Aa* is a Dutch composer of contemporary classical music. So far he has published several operas, of which perhaps the more succesful was _After Life_, premiered in 2009 and based on Hirokazu Koreeda's movie:


----------



## schigolch

During a long career, the British composer *Michael Tippett* wrote half a dozen operas. The last one, New Year, was premiered back in 1989 and it's the only one that was written after 1980. We can hear a suite from the opera:






Though, arguably, his biggest operatic success was _The Ice Break, _premiered in 1977, at Covent Garden, that it's complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Kevin Puts* is an American composer that won the Pulitzer Prize back in 2012, with his first opera, _Silent Night_, on the historical spontaneous 1914 Christmas truce between British, French and German soldiers.






After this success, Minnesota Opera commisioned Puts to write a second opera, _The Manchurian Candidate_, based on the 1959 novel by Richard Condon:


----------



## schigolch

_Hohepa_ is a chamber opera written by the New Zealand composer *Jenny McLeod*, relating the tragic story of the Maori chief Hohepa Te Umuroa, identified as a rebel by Governor Grey, arrested and sentenced to hard labour in the convict colony of Tasmania. It was premiered at Wellington Opera House in 2012, and we can watch it complete in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

_Maria Theresia_ is an opera by the Austrian composer Roland Baumgartner about the life of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. It was commissioned by the Slovak National Opera, and premiered at Bratislava back in October, 2012:


----------



## schigolch

*Xavier Montsalvatge* was a Spanish composer, that wrote three operas. One for children, "El gato con botas", is regularly performed in Spain. But the most important piece for him was "Babel 46", that was a very long project, extending from the mid 1960s to the 1990s, when it was premiered at the musical festival of Peralada. We can watch it in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

_The Love of the Nightingale_ is an opera written by the Australian composer *Richard Mills*, based on the Greek legend of the rape of Philomela by her brother-in-law Tereus, and the revenge undertaken by Philomela and her sister Procne. It was premiered in Perth, back in 2007:


----------



## schigolch

*Michèle Reverdy* is a French composer (born in Alexandria, Egypt) that has published six operas since the 1980s.

_Médée_ was a commission from the Lyon Opera, that was premiered there in January, 2003:


----------



## Pugg

Jeffrey Smith said:


> These three have been recently released on CD


A friend of mine leant it to me, he bought it and don't like it.
Going to give it a spin this weekend


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## Sloe

schigolch said:


> Perhaps *S. P. Somtow* is the only person in the world that is at the same time composer, conductor, and an SciFi writer. He is of Thai origin, though his upbringing is entirely American.
> 
> Mr. Somtow has composed some operas (of course, writing his own librettos). In the year 2003 _Mae Naak_ was premiered in Bangkok, based on a popular ghost story:


I can say that seeing this clip and hearing about that opera was what led me to discover opera and to rediscover classical music. I had a period when I watched lots of Asian horror films and the ones I liked the most was the ones about sweet and innocent girls who died tragic deaths.

Here is a clip where Somtow is talking about Mae Naak:






Judging of what he says he could have staged Le Villi with a Thai setting especially since Opera Siam have staged several western operas with Thai Settings. Such as Aida, The Ring, The Flying Dutchman and Othello.


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## schigolch

The Canadian composer *Victor Davies* wrote _Transit of Venus_ back in 1992, based on the play with the same name by playwright Maureen Hunter, that also was the author of the libretto:


----------



## schigolch

*Bent Lorentzen* is a Danish composer, a veteran of music for the theater (his first piece is from the 1960s) and the author of some twenty operas. The one below, _Fackeltanz_, was written back in 1993:


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## schigolch

_La chute de Fukuyama_ is an opera written by the French composer *Grégoire Hetzel*, on the killings of the 9/11, and the reactions of several passengers in an airport, and the American thinker Francis Fukuyama, of "end of history"'s fame. It's complete in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

The Italian composer *Fabrizio Carlone* premiered his opera _Bonjour M. Gauguin_ in Venice, back in 2005. It was staged also by the West Edge Opera company, in the year 2013:


----------



## schigolch

_O scrisoare pierdută_ (The Lost Letter) is an opera by the Romanian composer *Dan Dediu*, premiered at Bucarest, back in 2012:


----------



## schigolch

_The Wandering Jew_ was a commission from the BBC to English composer *Robert Saxton*, back in 2008. There is a CD published by NMC:


----------



## Sloe

King Jumong is an opera by the Korean composer Youngkeun Park about an ancient Korean king that had its premier in 2002 here is a performance from 2015:






A reportage about the opera:











Summary of the opera:

http://www.nationalopera.org/ENG/Pages/Perf/Detail/Detail.aspx?IdPerf=300506


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## schigolch

"Werbung" is a radioopera commissioned by the Danish National Radio (DR) to the composer *Lars Klit*. It was broadcasted September 17th, 2010 on DR-P2:


----------



## schigolch

The Hungarian composer *Sándor Szokolay* wrote several operas during his long career, but arguably his most succesful one was the first, _Vérnász_, based on García Lorca's "Blood Weddings", and written in the 1960s.

However, he wrote several more after that. _Ecce homo_ is from 1986:


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## schigolch

_Love, lust, opera and art occupy the Padroni family, Italian immigrants living on a vegetable farm near Boston in the 1930s. Widower Enio is the proud father of three children: Peter, the backbone of the family, Lawrence, the young idealist, and daughter Julia, whose simpleminded longing is for love. A meddling neighbor and a stranger selling rabbits trigger emotional upheavals that uncover secrets and alter lives._

This is the summary of John C. Picardi's play "7 Rabbits on a Pole Scene", adapted to the operatic stage by Pasquale Tassone (music) and Elizabeth Searle (libretto), and premiered in 2011:


----------



## schigolch

_Claude,_ by Robert Badinter (libretto) and Thierry Escaich (music) is inspired in Victor Hugo's "Claude Gueux", and has been premiered at the Opéra de Lyon, back in 2013:

There is a DVD published:


----------



## schigolch

The young American composer *Nico Muhly* premiered "Two Boys" at the MET, back in 2013:






It seems both the MET and the composer were happy with the results, as they agreed to stage a new opera by Muhly in 2019, "Marnie".


----------



## schigolch

_Amatista_, an "erotic opera" written by the Argentinian composer Andrés Gerszenzon, based on the novel of the same title by Alicia Steimberg. Premiered in Buenos Aires a few months ago:


----------



## Scopitone

I don't know if this link works outside of the US, but I just stumbled across:

GREAT PERFORMANCES

*San Francisco Opera's Moby Dick*
Aired: 11/01/13 
_Expires: 10/31/16_
Video has closed captioning.
San Francisco Opera performs the award-winning opera "Moby-Dick," composed by Jake Heggie with libretto by Gene Scheer.

http://www.pbs.org/video/2365112413/#_=_
*
Note the expiration date.*

I am looking forward to checking this out - I should be able to watch it in the PBS app on my Roku.


----------



## schigolch

Not working for me.


----------



## Scopitone

schigolch said:


> Not working for me.


Bummer!

Well, maybe it's not any good anyway.


----------



## schigolch

The American composer *Don Davis* is best known by his work on the "Matrix" trilogy, but he has also premiered an opera, _Río de Sangre_, back in 2010:


----------



## Pugg

schigolch said:


> Not working for me.


For me neither.


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## schigolch

The young Belgian composer *Line Adam* was runner-up to the Opéraj Prize in 2012, with her opera _Sybil et les Silhouettes_, that was later staged at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie. We can watch the opera in youtube:


----------



## Pugg

Scopitone said:


> I don't know if this link works outside of the US, but I just stumbled across:
> 
> GREAT PERFORMANCES
> 
> *San Francisco Opera's Moby Dick*
> Aired: 11/01/13
> _Expires: 10/31/16_
> Video has closed captioning.
> San Francisco Opera performs the award-winning opera "Moby-Dick," composed by Jake Heggie with libretto by Gene Scheer.
> 
> http://www.pbs.org/video/2365112413/#_=_
> *
> Note the expiration date.*
> 
> I am looking forward to checking this out - I should be able to watch it in the PBS app on my Roku.


Look at this :

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/EuroArts/8024263688


----------



## Scopitone

Pugg said:


> Look at this :
> 
> http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/EuroArts/8024263688


That's a superb price, even for the non-sale amount.

Very good to know, thanks. :tiphat:


----------



## Sloe

I recently heard Daniel Fjellström´s opera "Det går an"from this year. The opera is based on the novel with the same name by Carl Jonas Almquist from 1839.

The opera was surprisingly good and could even give me some ear-worms in fact I listened through it in one sweep. You can listen to it here for 30 days after the broadcast:

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/768413?programid=2359


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## schigolch

The Swedish composer *Hans Gelfors* has recently written an operatic adaptation of Hitchcock's thriller, _Notorious_:


----------



## schigolch

_The opera "Nosferatu" is an attempt to immerse into the human organism, to reflect the sounds and images produced inside the body. The action of the opera actually takes place entirely inside Nosferatu, and all of its characters are products of his inner world. That world constantly regenerates and reconstructs itself, showing how desperate human civilization is.

_These words are from the composer himself, *Dmitri Kourliandski*, on his opera _Nosferatu, _commissioned by the Perm Opera, and premiered in Perm, back in 2014:


----------



## Sloe

Some of the operas mentioned in this thread are really good it is sad to think that many of these are staged only once and will probably never be staged again.


----------



## schigolch

Well, it's a very common doom indeed. Many operas written since the 17th century were not staged that often, anyway.

There are quite a few operas mentioned in this thread that are really a success, nevertheless.


----------



## Sloe

schigolch said:


> Well, it's a very common doom indeed. Many operas written since the 17th century were not staged that often, anyway.
> 
> There are quite a few operas mentioned in this thread that are really a success, nevertheless.


Just a thought I had.
Just because I think it is sad that good
operas are doomed to be forgotten it does not mean that I demand them to be staged just that it would be nice.


----------



## schigolch

*Suzanne Giraud *is a French composer, often inspired by works of art in Literature, Painting, Sculpture,... that has written a few operas, including "Caravaggio" (2012) premiered at Metz, including interesting vocal lines:


----------



## schigolch

*Kerek Gábor* is a Hungarian composer that has written two operas so far. The second one, "Parodie" was premiered back in 2014 at the Armel Opera Festival, along with a piece by the Czech composer Jaroslav Krcek:


----------



## schigolch

The French composer and pianist *Thierry Machuel* has written three operas so far. The last one, "Le Duplicateur" was premiered back in 2014:


----------



## schigolch

*Franco Donatoni* was an Italian composer, widely admired not only by his compositions, but also by his work as a teacher. During his long career spanning fifty years, he wrote two operas: _Atem_ (1984), and _Alfred, Alfred_ (1995):


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## schigolch

The American composer *Lee Hoiby* wrote several operas during his long career. Arguably, the more famous was his setting of Tennessee Williams's _Summer and Smoke_, premiered back in 1971:






But within the time parameters of this thread, we should mention _The Tempest_, a three-act opera written in 1986:


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## arpeggio

*Jake Heggie: MOBY DICK*

Jake Heggie: _Moby Dick_

I saw the production with the Washington Opera. I really enjoyed it.

There is a DVD of the San Francisco Opera Production.

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=5208&name_role1=1&bcorder=1&comp_id=480544


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## Scopitone

arpeggio said:


> Jake Heggie: _Moby Dick_
> 
> I saw the production with the Washington Opera. I really enjoyed it.
> 
> There is a DVD of the San Francisco Opera Production.
> 
> http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=5208&name_role1=1&bcorder=1&comp_id=480544


I watched that production on PBS. I really enjoyed it. They did some creative stuff to show the storm and the guys leaving the ship in the little whaleboats.


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## schigolch

*Charles Wuorinen* is a veteran American composer, active since the 1950s, that is widely considered as a reference in contemporary classical music. So far in his career, he has written four operas. The more famous one, by far, is his more recent, the operatic adaptation of "Brokeback Mountain":


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## schigolch

_As One_ (2014) is a chamber opera by the American composer Laura Kaminsky, written for two singers and string quartet, and dealing with the experiences of the transgender protagonist:


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## mountmccabe

I'm not sure which performance that video from _As One_ is from, but it's from the West Edge Opera run at the Oakland Metro Operahouse in 2015. I saw one of the performances and wrote about it at the time.



mountmccabe said:


> The following week I went to the Oakland Metro Operahouse* for the West Coast premiere of _As One_. This is a 75 minute chamber opera by Laura Kaminsky with a libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed (who also provided background film for the production). The score was performed by the Friction Quartet. This is a piece for two singers, both representing a transwoman, in sort of a before and after or male side and female side way, though they both sing throughout the piece. I really liked it and would love to hear it again; there were some really lovely parts especially as the piece moved on. The singers Dan Kempson and Brenda Patterson sounded wonderful together.
> 
> For this production there were ten supers provided background characters - other students, her parents, etc - illustrating some of the story. This was occasionally successful, but I think the piece worked best when she went to Norway and was by herself (though this could be just because this was what the opera was building to).


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## Reichstag aus LICHT

schigolch said:


> _As One_ (2014) is a chamber opera by the American composer Laura Kaminsky, written for two singers and string quartet, and dealing with the experiences of the transgender protagonist


At last, a genuine vehicle for "crossover" singers


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## arpeggio

*John Adams I WAS LOOKING AT THE CEILING AND THEN I SAW THE SKY*



Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> At last, a genuine vehicle for "crossover" singers


Would John Adam's _I Was Looking at the Ceiling and I Say the Sky_ count?


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## Reichstag aus LICHT

arpeggio said:


> Would John Adam's _I Was Looking at the Ceiling and I Say the Sky_ count?


I was actually thinking "crossover" in the sense of gender identity, but thanks for the John Adams clip nonetheless. I have an audio recording of "I was looking at the ceiling", but haven't seen it performed before. Lively - and lovely - stuff, indeed.


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## arpeggio

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> I was actually thinking "crossover" in the sense of gender identity, but thanks for the John Adams clip nonetheless. I have an audio recording of "I was looking at the ceiling", but haven't seen it performed before. Lively - and lovely - stuff, indeed.


I apologize for misunderstanding your post


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## arpeggio

Deleted -duplicate post


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## schigolch

It's remarkable how many classical composers we can find in such a small country as Finland. One of them is *Aulis Sallinen*, that has written six operas, from "Ratsumies" (1974) to "Kuningas Lear" (1999). But his best known contribution to the genre is of course "Kullervo" (1988), based on the story in the Finnish epic, _Kalevala:

_


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## arpeggio

The two Sallinen operas I really like are _Palatsi_ and _The King Goes Forth to France_,


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## schigolch

_Anya17_ (2012), an opera written by the British composer *Adam Gorb*, was premiered in Liverpool and Manchester, with some success, and then there have been new productions in Germany and in the USA:


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## schigolch

The prolific American composer *Paul Moravec*, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Music, has recently written an opera based on Stephen King's _The Shining_. It was premiered in the past month of May, at Saint Paul:


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## schigolch

*Tsippi Fleischer* is an Israeli composer that wrote her chamber opera "Cain and Abel" back in 2002 in Tel Aviv. It was also staged three years later in Vienna:


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## schigolch

Though, of course, *Mikis Theodorakis* is much better known as a songwriter and soundtrack composer, he also wrote several operas in the late 1980s and early 1990s, related to Greek classical mythology: _Medea_, _Elektra_, _Antigone_...

We can watch _Antigone_ complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

*Karlheinz Stockhausen*'s contributions to opera are _Atmen gibt das Leben_, a choral piece written in the late 1970s, and the massive, colossal _Licht_, a cycle of seven operas that took him more than two decades to complete.

The first of these operas to be written was _Donnerstag aus Licht_, premiered at La Scala back in 1981. Let's watch the scene 3, "Examen" where the protagonist, Michael, gain admission to a conservatory, after his father was killed in a war, and her mother was murdered at a hospital for mental diseases (both real facts of Stockhausen's life):


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## schigolch

*Robin de Raaff* is a Dutch composer that premiered his first opera, _Raaff_, back in 2004. Despite its title, the opera was not about the composer, but was rather inspired by the relationship between Anton Raaff, the tenor for whom Mozart wrote the title role of _Idomeneo_, and Mozart, as well as the story of _Idomeneo_ and it's creation:


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## schigolch

"Bridgetower" is a 'jazz opera' written by Julian Joseph and Mike Phillips, about violin prodigy George Bridgetower. The opera was commissioned for the 2007 City of London Festival:


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## schigolch

*Jo Kondo* is a Japanese composer, with a mixed background of traditional Japanese music, and Western education, but mostly interested in avant-garde compositions.

His opera _Hagoromo_, premiered in 1994, blends Western techniques with Japanese traditions:


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## Skilmarilion

*Glass*: _Les enfants terribles_

Not as well known as many of Glass' other operas. It is perhaps one of his most lyrical yet rhythmic works, expertly combining his minimalist approach with a neo-classical sensibility (possibly alluding to Les Noces in its orchestration). Highly recommended.


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## schigolch

Complete in youtube, for anyone interested:


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## mountmccabe

Fantastic! I would like to get to know this before the local production by Opera Parallèle in May.


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## thpaw

Mein Favorit


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## schigolch

The Irish composer *Gerald Barry* has written six operas so far.

My personal favorite is still his first, _The Intelligence Park_ (1990):






But his more successful pieces so far are _The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant_ (2005), based on Fassbinder's play and with an all-female cast:










and _The Importance of Being Earnest_, this time based on Wilde, that was premiered in Los Angeles back in 2011:


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## cimirro

Well, I have composed an opera with a sacred theme, I will post it in the two places for the interested people





This is the Aramaic version of Pater Noster (Lord's Prayer) for a Baritone with the piano reduction
Aramaic is the language believed to have been spoken by Jesus Christ

The name of the Aria in the original language is *ܐܒܘܢ* 
it sounds "Abwun" and means almost the same as "Our Father"

The Opera name is* ܡܠܟܐ ܕܝܗܘܕܝܐ * {Op.33}
it sounds "Malk'a) d'iyhuwd,aye)" and means "King of Jews" 
it is my Op.33

Baritone: Luiz Fernando Sahd & Piano: Artur Cimirro

All the best
Artur Cimirro


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## schigolch

The French composer *André Bon* has written five operas so far in his career. We can watch complete in youtube the third, _La jeune fille au livre_, that was commissioned by the Minister of Culture of France, and premiered back in 1993:


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## schigolch

The veteran Dutch composer *Theo Loevendie* has written several operas during his long career.

Arguably the more successful so far is _Esmée_, premiered in Amsterdam back in 1995, that we can hear complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

The American *John Adams* is one of the more famous opera composers alive. He has written already several operas, with two major successes, _Nixon in China_ (1987) and _Doctor Atomic_ (2005). His new opera, _Girls of the Golden West_ (with a libretto by Peter Sellars) will be premiered next year at San Francisco Opera.

Two very nice examples of Adam's musical talents. "News", from _Nixon in China_:






And the splendid aria for baritone "Batter my Heart", based on a sonnet by John Donne, from _Doctor Atomic_:


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## schigolch

Though of course the more successful opera by the American composer *Carlisle Floyd* is _Susannah_, written back in 1955, he has continued to work in the field for more than fifty years.

In fact, his two latest operas are within the 'after-1980' threshold that we are using in this thread.

_Willie Stark_, premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 1981, and based on the novel "All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren:






_Cold Sassy Tree_, premiered again at Houston Grand Opera, this time in 2000, and after the novel by Olive Ann Burns:


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## metro845

There are six albums of Manouri's work at Classics Online HD, including some of his vocal music. The instrumental works, combining standard instruments in real time interaction with AI computer software, are more interesting than the video samples of the operas that you've nicely inserted. for those sampling, I agree entirely with your take on the vocal treatment.

Alas, the albums won't be there for long. As of December 1, Classics Online HD will cut down drastically on the number of albums it offers. The focus will be on Naxos' own recordings plus closely associated labels. For the 100,00+ album streaming service, we'll have to go to the Naxos Music Library, with its compressed audio streams.



schigolch said:


> This is a thread to debate about contemporary opera. The opera that is being composed in our own days.
> 
> Of course, the obvious question is: "what is the limit of _our own days_?".
> 
> For the sake of this thread, let's define contemporary opera as any opera written after 1980. This gives us more than thirty years, and is a reasonable time for a genre that tends to think in centuries.
> 
> Perhaps some TC members that are fans of Opera, are not very familiar with the latest new things in the genre. Or they are afraid only avant-garde Opera is being composed now. We will see that this is not the case, not by any means. There are new operas for (almost) everyone to enjoy, no matter what is our personal taste.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Philippe Manoury*, (Tulle, 1952) is a French composer living in the US, with some important success in his career. He has been working with electronic music, as well as large orchestras.
> 
> In the field of Opera, his best known piece is _K_, premiered the year 2001, in Paris. This is relatively short opera, that was the recipient of several awards in France. It's based on Kafka's _Der Prozeß (The Trial)_, and it's quite interesting:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This year Manoury has premiered his fourth opera, _La Nuit de Gutenberg_, in Strasbourg.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It seems rather nice as far as the instrumental music goes, but the vocal treatment can be suspected, something like the usual _sprechgesang_ for the male singers, and the high coloratura roles for females.
> 
> http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl...ry-opera-national-du-rhin-bande-annonce_music


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## metro845

Opera America maintains a highly valuable online timeline of new operas premiered in North America:http://www.operaamerica.org/applications/NAWD/timeLine.aspx

This year there were 21 premiers.

There's one remaining premier: December 2, 2016: It's A Wonderful Life (Jake Heggie / Gene Scheer) Houston Grand Opera


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## schigolch

*Paolo Furlani* is an Italian composer that has written several operas, some of them for children.

Like, for instance, "La casa dei mostri" (2003):






or "Il vestito nuovo dell'imperatore" (2009):


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## sadams




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## schigolch

The Russian composer *Vasily Lobanov* has written two operas, so far. _Antigone_, based on Sophocles, was premiered in 1987, while _Otets Sergiy_ (Father Sergius), after Tolstoi's story, was written in 1995, and we can watch in youtube:


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## schigolch

"The Wings of Daedalus" is an opera written in 2003 by the Italian composer *Maurizio Squillante*, about a Cyborg, seen as a contemporary Daedalus. There is no orchestra, just electronics and voice:


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## schigolch

*Nicholas Lens* is a Belgian composer, whose first opera was "Slow Man", based on the novel by J. M. Coetzee, and with a libretto by Coetzee himself, that was premiered back in 2012 at Poznań:






Then, he wrote his second one, "Shell Shock", with a libretto by Nick Cave, in 2014. It was premiered at Brussels's La Monnaie:


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## Becca

Gerald Barry's latest opera Alice's Adventures Under Ground had it's world premiere in Los Angeles a week ago and it's second performance at the Barbican in London this week. In both cases the cast included Barbara Hannigan as Alice and was conducted by Thomas Ades.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/nov/29/alices-adventures-under-ground-review-opera-barbican-london-gerald-barry

View attachment 90508


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## schigolch

*Sylvano Bussotti* is an Italian composer (in addition of a writer, a film director, a singer/actor and he even was the artistic director of La Fenice), that has written several operas during his long career.

Arguably his more famous piece is "La Passion selon Sade", written back in 1966:






But we can also hear "Nympheo" (1990), that is in the words of Bussotti himself: _"Nympheo" is a collection of diverse material in which I can find no global meaning, in that the various subjects don't make up a story... it consists of an accumulation of heterogenous materials that have an existential relationship with their creator. There is no plot, but the existential matrix connects the opera evocatively to both the past and the future._


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## schigolch

The Hungarian composer *Sándor Balassa* wrote his opera "Karl és Anna" back in 1995, and we can watch it in youtube:


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## schigolch

The German composer *Magret Wolf* premiered in 2012 "Refidim junction", a piece about the fate of two Jewish women in Germany, during the 1930s:


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## Blancrocher

Georg Friedrich Haas - Koma (libretto by Händl Klaus)



> In Michaela's room on the nursing ward. She has been in a vegetative state since an accident at the lake - perhaps a drowning attempt . Her family has become a community of shared fate. Barbara, her little daughter, has fallen silent along with her mother. But her husband Michael, her sister Jasmin and the latter's husband Alexander, with whom she had a love affair, speak to her, touch her and live with Michaela in the hope of reaching her - of bringing her back.
> 
> In his newest opera - to be premiered at the Schwetzingen Festival in May 2016 - Georg Friedrich Haas works with phases of absolute darkness that correspond to Michaela's shadow-world state, and in which her singing is the underlying force of this community of fate; the relatives remain on their own, and an almost impenetrable, complex web of relationships opens up.


http://www.internationales-musikinstitut.de/en/program2016/316-31-07-2016/1809-koma-en.html

The above video is the May premiere referred to in the note.


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## schigolch

The British composer, pianist and conductor *Thomas Adès* has written three operas so far, and all of them were reasonably successful.

"Powder her Face" was premiered in 1995, and have been staged several times since then:






"The Tempest", based on Shakespeare, was premiered back in 2004, at the Covent Garden, and also enjoyed several productions in Frankfurt, Vienna, Strasbourg, Santa Fe,... and also New York's MET:






His last opera, "The Exterminating Angel", based on a movie by Luis Buñuel, was premiered at the 2016 Salzburg Festival:


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## schigolch

*Gordon Getty* is an American composer (among many other things), that has written several operas.

Arguably, his more accomplished work so far is "Usher House", based on Poe:


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## xpangaeax

I REALLY like this thread. I just saw L'amour de Loin at the Met last week, and I've been reeling over it ever since. After reading through the liner notes and seeing that Saariaho was inspired by Messiaen's _St. Francois..._, I listened to that on Spotify and loved it as well. Haas' _Bluthaus_ has so far stuck out to me the most of the ones mentioned here, and I'm eager to continue scouring the posts for more.

Is there a summary of the posts so far, or some sort of "top recommendations" for modern avant-garde opera in brief?


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## schigolch

No, I'm afraid there is no summary available.

However, about 'Top Recommendations' for modern avant-garde opera, I can indeed share some of my favorites (on top of "L'amour de loin", that I love too):

*** "Luci mie traditrici" - Sciarrino
*** "Lost Highway" - Neuwirth
*** "An Index of Metals" - Romitelli
*** "Hanjo" - Hosokawa
*** "Shadowtime" - Ferneyhough
*** "Antigone" - Fedele
*** "Written on Skin" - Benjamin


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## schigolch

*Vladimir Cosma* is an already veteran Romanian composer, working since many years in France. Some of his soundtracks: "La raison d'Etat", "Diva", "Le Bal"... are well known.

He worked several years on his first opera, _Marius et Fanny_, based on Marcel Pagnol's trilogy. The opera was premiered in Marseille, back in 2007, with Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu as lead singers. We can watch it complete in youtube:


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## Reichstag aus LICHT

schigolch said:


> "News", from _Nixon in China_


Here's _I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung_ from the same opera, spectacularly sung by Hye Jung Lee in the Cardiff Singer of the World final:


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## schigolch

*Paul Schoenfield* is an American composer and pianist, that was commissioned back in 1999 to write an opera for the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. "The Merchant and the Pauper" is based on a story by Rabbi Nachman of Bratislava:


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## schigolch

The veteran English composer *Harrison Birtwistle* has written a dozen operas in his long career. The first one, _Punch and Judy_ (1967) was quite the scandal when it was premiered, but it was received with a lot of praise, beyond the controversy:






And, of course, he also wrote back in the 1980s the complex and seminal opera _The Mask of Orpheus_. But coming back to the 21st century, his arguably biggest success ever was _The Minotaur_ (2008), that was premiered at the Royal Opera House, and also was recorded in a DVD:


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## schigolch

*Gershon Kingsley* is a popular music composer (he was one of the first people to use a Moog synthesizer), that later in life also worked in classical music and in 2008 premiered, with the German librettist Michael Kunze, his opera _Raoul_, based on the story of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg:


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## schigolch

*James MacMillan* is a British composer that premiered back in 2007 his opera "The Sacrifice", in Cardiff.

With a libretto by the poet Michael Symmons Roberts, the piece is inspired by the cicle of Welsh legends, _Mabinogion_, though the action takes place in the 21st century. MacMillan's musical language is firmly tonal. In the words of one reviewer: 'a modern opera for people who dislike modern opera':


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## schigolch

New opera by George Benjamin and Martin Crimp announced:

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/new-opera-by-george-benjamin-and-martin-crimp-announced


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## Blancrocher

schigolch said:


> But coming back to the 21st century, his arguably biggest success ever was _The Minotaur_ (2008), that was premiered at the Royal Opera House, and also was recorded in a DVD:


Great post. I don't know what it is about Birtwistle--he seems to keep doing the same stuff he's always done, only better and better. I love The Minotaur dvd, and some of his recent instrumental works are among my favorite pieces by anyone--I especially like the Moth Requiem and Angel Fighter albums.


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## schigolch

*Julia Wolfe* is an American composer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for her oratorio "Anthracite Fields". She has worked with his husband Michael Gordon and fellow composer David Lang in several pieces related to the field of Opera, such as "The Carbon Copy Building", with a libretto by Ben Katchor. It was written in 1999, and a CD was released in 2007:


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## sadams

An aria from Deutscher's opera _Cinderella
_Cinderella: Theresa Krügl (soprano)


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## mountmccabe

schigolch said:


> *Julia Wolfe* is an American composer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for her oratorio "Anthracite Fields". She has worked with his husband Michael Gordon and fellow composer David Lang in several pieces related to the field of Opera, such as "The Carbon Copy Building", with a libretto by Ben Katchor. It was written in 1999, and a CD was released in 2007:


I did not know about this!

I am seeing a performance of Anthracite Fields as part of Cal Performances season in a couple weeks.

KQED (the major local PBS affiliate) just had an article about the numerous options for modern opera in the Bay Area in February.

The list (plus a couple additions, since they're already including one oratorio)
Jonathan Dove - Flight, Opera Parallèle
Kevin Puts - Silent Night, Opera San Jose
John Adams - The Gospel According to the Other Mary, San Francisco Symphony
Julia Wolfe - Anthracite Fields, Cal Performances
Ted Hearne - The Source, SF Opera Lab 
Snapshot, program 2, West Edge Opera

Snapshot presents portions of four in-progress operas by local composers. Program 1 was presented in January (I was out of town). Program 2 features works by Carla Lucero, Allen Shearer, Linda Bouchard, and Liam Wade.


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## schigolch

Happy coincidence, indeed!. "Flight", in particular, is a very interesting opera.

In a couple of weeks, I will attend the world premiere of Elena Mendoza's second opera: "La ciudad de las mentiras", and I have high hopes for this piece.


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## schigolch

*Conrad Cummings* is an American composer, that wrote in 2010 _The Golden Gate_, a chamber opera based on the novel-in-verse by Vikram Seth, and it was staged in New York, gaining some praise from the critics:


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## schigolch

*Lou Harrison* was an American composer, noted by his interest in non-Western classical music, especially Javanese gamelan. Back in 1970, he wrote an opera for puppets, "Young Caesar" based on the life of the teenager Julius Caesar. Just before his death in 2003, Harrison reviewed extensively the opera, and this new version was finally premiered in 2007, in San Francisco:


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## schigolch

*Ned Rorem* is an American composer, that wrote several operas and chamber operas during the 1950s and 1960s. Then, after a long hiatus, he wrote a new opera back in 2005, when he was already an octogenarian: "Our Town".

Rorem worked with his librettist J. D. McClatchy to adapt Thornton Wilder's play. There has been several productions of the opera during the last ten years, in several US cities.


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## schigolch

Back in 2011, NYCO presented a triple bill of one-act pieces that were on the fringe of the concept of opera.

One was Schönberg's 30-minute "Erwartung":






The second was the intriguing and beautiful "Neither", written by Morton Feldman:






And the last one, a new piece premiered for the occasion, "La Machine de l'Être", by John Zorn. Here there are not even words, just sounds from the soprano:


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## schigolch

I like the music of the Spanish composer Elena Mendoza, and her first opera, _Niebla_, was really interesting for me.

I was actually hoping that the world premiere of her second opera, _La ciudad de las mentiras_, at Madrid's Teatro Real would be one very successful piece.

Sadly, this was not the case. Ms. Mendoza tried, as other composers before her, nothing less than to "reinvent" the genre. And she got lost somewhere along the way.


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## schigolch

*Marco Tutino* is an Italian composer, that has written quite a few operas during the last thirty years.

The last one, premiered at San Francisco Opera back in 2015, "La ciociara", is an adaptation of the play by Alberto Moravia that was also used as the basis of a famous movie by Vittorio de Sica, known in English speaking countries as _Two Women_, with Sophia Loren winning an Oscar to the Best Actress.






But arguably his biggest success so far is "Senso", also an adaptation of the movie by Luchino Visconti (based on a novella by Camillo Boito), that was premiered in 2011 at Teatro Massimo in Palermo, and that we can find complete in youtube:


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## Eddy Rodgers K

schigolch said:


> I like the music of the Spanish composer Elena Mendoza, and her first opera, _Niebla_, was really interesting for me.
> 
> I was actually hoping that the world premiere of her second opera, _La ciudad de las mentiras_, at Madrid's Teatro Real would be one very successful piece.
> 
> Sadly, this was not the case. Ms. Mendoza tried, as other composers before her, nothing less than to "reinvent" the genre. And she got lost somewhere along the way.


As a Spanish speaker, I think it's a shame that Hispanic opera doesn't have many major works or composers. Some might say it has none.


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## schigolch

Speaking about contemporary stuff, there are some operas in Spanish that has been reasonably successful.

For instance, "Ainadamar", by Osvaldo Golijov:


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## schigolch

The Australian composer *Liza Lim* has written several operas since the 1990s, such as:

"The Oresteia" (1993) --> 




"The Navigator" (2008) --> 




"Tree of Codes" (2016) -->


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## schigolch

Philipp Maintz's _fluchtlinie_, for baritone and orchestra, was recreated later in his first opera, "Maldoror", premiered back in 2010 at the Munich Biennale, with a libretto by Thomas Fiedler:


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## schigolch

The French composer *Denis Levaillant* wrote back in the 1990s an opera about financials and the Stock Exchange, with the title "O.P.A. Mia":


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## schigolch

Like other composers mainly devoted to write movie soundtracks, *Howard Shore* was interested in the opera genre. Eventually, he decided to create an opera, using as basis David Cronenberg's film "The Fly" (Shore himself wrote the soundtrack for the film), and with a libretto by David Henry Hwang.

"The Fly" was premiered at Paris's Théâtre du Châtelet, back in 2008, and was lated staged also in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, neither the audiences nor the critics loved the opera:


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## dillonp2020

I've been to a few contemporary operas, so I find myself qualified to answer. I can barely stand sitting through the first act of most. I went to a performance of Dead Man Walking, and I couldn't stand it. To me it represented what new operas are, an interesting libretto, but poor music. The orchestra and vocals I just can't deal with. I'd rather sit through the entire ring cycle than listen to a full modern opera. To me it's similar to Dunkin Donuts coffee, I know it's terrible, but I keep thinking it might be better this time. And as with Dunkin Donuts coffee, it is never good.


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## schigolch

*Elisabeth Naske* is an Austrian composer that has written several operas for young audiences. One of them is an adaptation of the popular novel "Die rote Zora", that was premiered in Lucerne, back in 2007:


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## schigolch

*Samir Odeh-Tamimi* is a Berlin-based Palestinian-Israeli composer, active since more than twenty years, but so far he has written only one piece for the stage: "Leila and Madschnun", premiered back in 2010 at Bochum:


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## schigolch

Back in 2008, Joaquin Nin-Culmell's opera "Celestina" was premiered in Madrid.

In fact, the opera was written in 1965, but it took more than forty years to be staged. The musical language was pretty similar to other operas of the period (Poulenc's Carmelites, just to mention one), but it was a nice experience anyway:


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## schigolch

Today the next season of La Scala was announced:

http://www.teatroallascala.org/it/stagione/2017-2018/opera/index.html

With the confirmation of the first opera written by Kurtág, now over 90 years old. Of course, these are major news, let's see the outcome in 2018.


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## mountmccabe

Oh, wow, I love Beckett's _Endgame_! Wonderful!


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## schigolch

Bernard Herrmann enjoyed a great success as a soundtrack composer, but he was especially fond of one of his pieces, the best one in his opinion, his opera _Wuthering Heights_.

Based on Emily Brontë's novel, the libretto was from screenwriter Lucille Fletcher, that was also Herrmann's wife at the time. The opera was never premiered while Herrmann was still alive, but he paid himself the cost for a CD recording, in 1966. Operatic producers asked Herrmann to cut the score and change the ending, but the composer adamantly refused.










Then, in April 2011, at Minnesota Opera, _Wuthering Heights_ was performed with the original score, as written by Herrmann:


----------



## malvinrisan

I'm discovering Messiaen's Saint Francois at the moment. It's really grand!! I love his music.


----------



## marcpuck

Does _Bomarzo_ count as 'contemporary' here? Today's my first day and I can't spend more time exploring until this afternoon. I think it must-- never knew Herrmann composed an opera. While I enjoy the spectacle that is _Bomarzo_, the music itself of _Wuthering Heights_ is more appealing personally, based on the YouTube clip _supra_, anyway.


----------



## schigolch

We use a self-imposed threshold of 1980 to determine if an opera is contemporary, or not. But we are flexible, anyhow, so we can count "Bomarzo", premiered back in 1967, as contemporary, too.

There were some very recent performances of "Bomarzo", a few months ago at Madrid's Teatro Real:


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## schigolch

A piece of avant-garde, _Itinerário do Sal_ (2008), by the Portuguese composer Miguel Azguime:


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## schigolch

_Nuit des Hommes_ es is the fifth opera by the Danish composer Per Nørgård, premiered back in 1996. A quite simple frame: two singers, a string quartet, percusion and electronics. In the libretto, we can find Appllinaire's poems.

However, it deals with a terrible subject; the eve of the Great War.

It's complete in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

The Lebanese composer based in France, *Zad Moultaka*, wrote back in 2010 an opera in Arabic, "Zajal", for one singer, one actor a small ensemble and electronics. The zajal is a traditional form of Arab poetry, dating back to the 11th century, in Andalusia:


----------



## schigolch

Actually, Mozart didn't die in 1791.

He just feigned his death in order to escape from his creditors, and then he lived for many years in Italy working in disguise for a young and rather average Italian composer, named Rossini. This arrangement was very succesful until Mozart really died, and then Rossini was forced to retire.

This is the plot of a contemporary opera, _Un segreto d'importanza ovvero La faticosa vecchiaia di Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart_, by Sergio Rendine and Lorenzo Arruga, premiered at the Opera of Montecarlo, back in 1992.


----------



## schigolch

An example of American opera written and premiered in a college. This is "The Chairs", scored for two singers, one actor, a Pierrot ensemble and electronics, by Kevin Zhang, from the University of California, Irvine:


----------



## mountmccabe

schigolch said:


> *Libby Larsen* is one of the most prolific composers alive. She has written some fifteen operas, among many other things.


West Edge Opera is doing three performances of her opera _Frankenstein_ in Oakland, starting this Friday.

The only excerpt I've found is "What the Monster Saw," first composed as an stand-alone instrumental piece:


----------



## Scott Bremer

Michael Chioldi in Dominick Argento's _The Andreé Expedition_
Vermont Opera Project

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B26o2_-lslzuY3A2NjFrTWpFVmM/view


----------



## schigolch

placeholder............


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## schigolch

"Hadestown" is a 'folk-opera' by the American composer Anaïs Mitchell, a retelling of this most operatic subject, the descent of Orpheus into the underwold, in search of Euridice:


----------



## Blancrocher

^^^ Interesting genre classification. Hard for me not to think of other rock/folk concept albums--particularly Pink Floyd's The Wall!


----------



## schigolch

The Spanish composer *Cristóbal Halffter* has written four operas so far. The last one, _Schachnovelle_ (based on Stefan Zweig's novella) was premiered back in 2013, at Kiel Opernhaus:


----------



## schigolch

_Girls of the Golden West_, the last opera from John Adams, due to be premiered in the coming days, at San Francisco Opera:


----------



## Don Fatale

schigolch said:


> "Hadestown" is a 'folk-opera' by the American composer Anaïs Mitchell, a retelling of this most operatic subject, the descent of Orpheus into the underwold, in search of Euridice:


I'm quite a fan of Anaïs Mitchell, and this album which deserves a stage treatment. It's a long way from operatic style though. But if people want to have folk-opera, rock-opera then that's fine by me. Work with a concept is always to be encouraged.


----------



## mountmccabe

schigolch said:


> _Girls of the Golden West_, the last opera from John Adams, due to be premiered in the coming days, at San Francisco Opera:


I'll be sure to post my comments; I'll be at the Final Dress on the 17th and opening night, the 21st.


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## schigolch

"EVA!", a contemporary opera by the Romanian composer Dan Dediu, premiered back in 2009:


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Hello there in operaland! Decided to suddenly hear some contemporary operas, and hoped there was a topic here. There is! So far I've heard Saariaho (L'Amour de Loin) and currently Andriessen (La Commedia). It seems I have to catch up on this


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## schigolch

Indeed. 

Maybe you would like this one: "Written on Skin" (2012), by George Benjamin:


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## schigolch

In the long history of opera, some subjects have been treated time and again.

The same is true when we restrict ourselves to contemporary opera. For instance, let's take Pinocchio. On top of several children operas, we mentioned some time ago in this same thread the very interesting "The Adventures of Pinocchio", by Jonathan Dove:






Another piece on the same subject was premiered this same year, at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, written by the Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans: "Pinocchio".


----------



## schigolch

"Mary, Queen of Scots" premiered at Edinburgh Festival back in 1977, is the most performed opera by Scottish composer *Thea Musgrave*.






However, she has written ten operas, in a remarkably long operatic composing career, starting in 1955, with her last piece, "Pontalva" dating back to 2003. "Harriet, the Woman Called Moses", based on the life of the American abolitionist and former slave Harriet Tubman, was premiered in 1985:


----------



## Sloe

Today is day of the martyrs so here is the opera Lutgarda from 2013 about Lutgarda and John who died as Christian martyrs:






A reportage about the opera:


----------



## sadams

Cinderella - Opera in Four Acts - by Alma Deutscher - Presented by The Packard Humanities Institute and Opera San José - From The California Theatre in San José, CAThis is the American debut of Cinderella.


----------



## schigolch

This past November, Salvatore Sciarrino premiered his 17th opera, "Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo", at Milan's Scala.


----------



## schigolch

"It's a Wonderful Life", the most recent opera by Jake Heggie, premiered one year ago, and already with this live recording released by Pentatone available:


----------



## schigolch

"La invención de Morel" (The Invention of Morel), is a novel by the Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares, written in 1940, and that is one of the highlights of Latin America's 20th century literature.

Stewart Copeland, the drummer of the band The Police, has premiered in 2017 an opera based on the novel, with the same title, at Long Beach Opera and Chicago Opera Theater.


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## schigolch

"Java suite" is the third opera written by the Spanish composer Agustí Charles, premiered in 2012. We can watch the piece, complete in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

Federico Ibarra is a Mexican composer that has written nine operas so far, starting back in 1981 with "Leoncio y Lena".






His last opera for the time being is "Antonieta, un ángel caído", premiered in 2010 in Mexico City. We can watch it complete in youtube:






Though my favorite is "Alicia", written in 1995 and based on Lewis Carroll:


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## Sloe

Just saw The Second Violinist by Donnacha Dennehy on operavision. Really good:


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## Blancrocher

schigolch said:


> "La invención de Morel" (The Invention of Morel), is a novel by the Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares, written in 1940, and that is one of the highlights of Latin America's 20th century literature.


Agreed--a favorite book. Interesting idea to turn it into an opera.


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## Blancrocher

Post deleted--schigolch had gotten to the opera I was discussing (Pinoccho) before me. 

I'm not surprised!


----------



## schigolch

Blancrocher said:


> Post deleted--schigolch had gotten to the opera I was discussing (Pinoccho) before me.
> 
> I'm not surprised!


There is no problem to discuss any single opera in several posts, anyway.


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## schigolch

The American composer Mason Bates premiered in 2017 his first opera, "The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs", with a libretto by Mark Campbell, at Santa Fe Opera:


----------



## schigolch

"Only the sound remains" is the last opera by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, premiered at Amsterdam back in 2016.

The opera brings together two small pieces, both based in ancient Japanese theater. Also, Saariaho uses traditional Japanese music as part of her array of sounds for the opera.

I will be able to watch the show in person during Teatro Real's 2018-2019 season:


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## schigolch

World premiere of George Benjamin's _Lessons in Love and Violence_, next May, 10th, at London's Royal Opera House:


----------



## LezLee

Skilmarilion said:


> Glass' latest opera is again based on a Kafka novel -- _The Trial_ (2014).
> 
> Like _In the Penal Colony_, it's a chamber opera (or 'pocket' opera as Glass calls them).
> 
> Hopefully a recording release won't be too far off.


My friend and I saw 'The Trial' last year. It was brilliant and really funny! I don't see a CD being very successful as the music doesn't really stand up on its own, you really need to see the action. I'm hoping for a DVD.


----------



## schigolch

"Darkling" is an opera written by American composer Stefan Weisman, back in 2006. The piece was well received by the critics, and was performed several times, both in the USA and in Europe:


----------



## schigolch

https://www.medici.tv/en/operas/george-benjamin-lessons-love-and-violence/

George Benjamin's "Lessons in Love and Violence" in Medici TV this Saturday.


----------



## schigolch

The recently deceased *Eric Salzman* was an American composer, scholar and impresario, known for his work on 'New Music Theater' and also as co-founder of the American Music Theater Festival and his activity as Composer-in-Residence at the Center for Contemporary Opera in New York City.

Let's hear one of his pieces: "Cassandra Ground Zero", premiered back in 2001:


----------



## schigolch

The German composer Detlev Müller-Siemens, won the Rolf-Liebermann's prize with his opera "Die Menschen", back in 1990. There is a recording available:


----------



## schigolch

"A Trip to the Moon" (2017), first opera of the American composer Andrew Norman:


----------



## schigolch

The Spanish composer *Agustín Castilla-Avila* premiered recently his chamber opera "Die Lutherin", based on the life of Katharina von Bora, the wife of Luther:


----------



## ErgoPhizmizPLC

Hello. I have been composing and producing contemporary DIY operas since 1992 at 12 years old. My stuff has also been produced by Tete a Tete Opera (directed by Bill Bankes-Jones) and Mahogany Opera (directed by Frederic Wake Walker). I'm also currently working on the images for the Cleveland Orchestra's new production of Ariadne auf Naxos.

Here's a bunch of links...

Manifesto! What is 21st Century Opera? 




Mozart vs Machine: Behind the Scenes (2017) 




Gala (2013) 




GARGANTUA: An Excessive Entertainment (2012) 




The Mourning Show (2010) 




And here is my blog http://ergophizmizplc.blogspot.com

So that's me. BUT I introduce myself to you with a cry for help!

We are, out of necessity, crowdfunding to make the new production happen. If you can spare a few quid, please help. If not, then please share on your social networks and so on. The future of the super-mega-techno-DIY-apocalypse-opera depends on you good people!

So please take a few minutes to have a peep at this https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nibiru-a-community-techno-apocalypse-opera/x/19059677#/

The Quietus magazine were good enough to cover it http://thequietus.com/articles/2503...nthard-collective-ergo-phizmiz-lottie-bowater

And The Wire magazine https://www.thewire.co.uk/news/5187...oney-for-a-political-techno-spoken-word-opera

Thanks very much for your time, lots of love and kisses,

Ergo Phizmiz (PLC) & Lottie (Depresstival) Bowater
AVANTHARDCOLLECTIVE

Pow!


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## schigolch

"The Scarlett Letter", written in 2008 (and revised in 2016) by the American composer Lori Laitman:


----------



## schigolch

Is just amazing how many composers are coming from a country like Finland, with a rather small population.

One of these composers is *Veli-Matti Puumala*, active since the late 1980s and the author of the opera "Anna Liisa", written back in 2008 and based on a play by Minna Canth.


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## Sloe

Speaking of Finnish opera here is Aulis Sallinen´s latest opera Castle in the Water from 2017:


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## Sloe

Previously I have presented the opera Lutgarda but there is another opera about Lutgarda. 'The Couple Lily, John and Lutgardis' by David Chol-Woo Lee from 1999:


----------



## schigolch

_Micromégas_ is an opera (action lyrique in 7 tableaux) written by the French composer *Paul Méfano* in 1983, and based in Voltaire:


----------



## schigolch

"Cuatro corridos" (2013) is a chamber opera, dealing with the subject of human trafficking, of four women trapped in prostitution and slavery in the San Diego/Tijuana border.

With a libretto by the Mexican writer Jorge Volpi, four composers were involved in creating the music: Hilda Paredes, Arlene Sierra, Lei Liang and Hebert Vázquez, each giving voice to one of the female characters.

This is "Dalia", the part written by Arlene Sierra:


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## schigolch

_Viimeiset kiusaukset_ (The Last Temptations") is an opera by Finnish composer Joonas Kokkonen, the only one he ever wrote. Based on the life and death of the Finnish Revivalist preacher Paavo Ruotsalainen, it was written in 1975, and then revised for its premiere at the MET, back in 1983:


----------



## schigolch

Tapio Tuomela is a Finnish composer, whose second opera, _Äidit ja tyttäret_ (Mothers and Daughters, 1999), based on the Kalevala, was commissioned by the Finnish National Opera:


----------



## schigolch

"Second Nature" (2015) is an opera by the American composer *Matthew Aucoin*, built around a future dystopia, where humankind is almost extinct:


----------



## schigolch

*Behzad Abdi* is an Iranian composer, versed both in Persian traditional music, and Western classical music. He was fusing them in his opera "Rumi", written back in 2009:


----------



## schigolch

"Cooperstown, jazz opera in nine innings" was written by the American composer *Sasha Matson* back in 2007. It's complete in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

"Laure" was the first opera of the French composer *Aubert Lemeland*, written in 1994 and based on Alfred de Vigny. The second, and final one, "Lieutenant Karl", based on Jules Roy, was never staged while Lemeland was still alive.

Let's listen to "Laure" in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

"Democracy, An American Comedy", was written by the American composer *Scott Wheeler*, in collaboration with the playwright Romulus Linney, on a commission from Washington National Opera. It was premiered back in 2005:


----------



## schigolch

*Sebastian Fagerlund* is a Finnish composer that has written two operas so far. The first one, _Döbeln_, written in 2009:






and the second one, _Höstsonaten_, based on Ingmar Bergman's movie, and premiered in 2017:


----------



## schigolch

"Weakness" is an opera written by the American composer *Barbara White* back in 2012. The opera retells the Celtic story known as 'The Curse of Macha':


----------



## schigolch

_I, Claudius & Claudius the God_, by Robert Graves, adapted by Igor Escudero and libretto by Pablo Gómez, is an opera trilogy based on Robert Graves' novels, to be premiered soon:

http://iclaudiusopera.com/en/?fbclid=IwAR2ksD4mcuxzvfxshQPRFU78HAs4upJe6mpU_bo9ZQXNYFT8ssNzBflCwQ8


----------



## schigolch

The composer Carlo Gesualdo has been the inspiration for several operas written in the last 30 years. One of them is this "Gesualdo" (1996), by the German composer Franz Hummel:


----------



## fluteman

Alex Ross calls Gyorgy Kurtag's new opera Samuel Beckett: Fin de Partie "the final masterpiece of 20th century music". Did anyone here attend the premiere at La Scala? Kurtag is best known for brief but intense works in the manner of Webern, but this is a two hour opera that the 92-year old Kurtag plans to expand!


----------



## schigolch

"Esmée" (1998) by the Dutch composer Theo Loevendie, based on the life and death of Esmée van Eeghen, member of the Dutch resistance against German's occupation during the Second World War:


----------



## Durendal

What's the latest opera to have made it into regular rotation in the opera houses of the world?


----------



## schigolch

Well, I guess this depends on what one means by "regular rotation". There are over 25,000 performances of opera every year.

Some recent titles that were performed in several venues during the last years include "Satyagraha" (1980), "Saint François d'Assise" (1983), "Nixon in China" (1987), "Luci mie traditrici" (1998), "L'amour de loin" (2000), "Ainadamar" (2003), "The Tempest" (2004), "Doctor Atomic" (2005), "Written on Skin" (2012),...

The most recent one that appears in many venues, I would say is probably Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmélites", premiered back in 1957.


----------



## Art Rock

schigolch said:


> The most recent one that appears in many venues, I would say is probably Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmélites", premiered back in 1957.


Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream was first performed on 11 June 1960. Wikipedia states "The opera has entered the general operatic repertory, and has become one of the most frequently performed operas written since the second world war.", without reference unfortunately.


----------



## schigolch

Just released the third opera of George Benjamin, "Lessons in Love and Violence":


----------



## schigolch

*Robert Livingstone Aldridge* is an American composer that has written so far two operas, both based on classic books from American literature, and both published in CD as part of the excellent series 'American Opera Classics'.

The first, "Elmer Gantry", is an operatic adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's novel, and was premiered back in 2007:






The second, "Sister Carrie", is based on Theodore Dreiser's novel, and premiered in 2016:


----------



## schigolch

"Unicamente la verdad" is an opera written by Mexican composer *Gabriela Ortiz*, based on a song by the popular music trio 'Los tigres del Norte', about love, drugs and murder in the US-Mexican frontier. It was premiered back in 2008:


----------



## schigolch

"The Greater Good, or the Passion of Boule de Suif" is an opera by the American composer *Stephen Hartke*, based on Guy de Maupassant's short story. It was commissioned by the Glimmerglass Opera, and premiered back in 2006. It has also been published in CD:


----------



## Faramundo

hello
i'm only the shyest trespasser in the land of contemporary opera : i do not like what fosters anxiety, the sense of loss and the armageddon atmosphere that prevails in many works which are not to my taste : not enough melody, grandeur or sunlit epic; for some reason this second Aldridge excerpt brings ravishment here; also i reacted more than positively to Daniel Catan's Florencia in las Amazonas; Lori Laitman is also within my radius : question is where can i go from here !?? as you seem to be the global thesaurus on past WW2 opera stuff, you might advise me on some of these rarely trodden paths. And what about CD's ? apart from NAXOS multi million catalogue, where to find what's on other labels, surely not Amazon ??
Many thanks


----------



## schigolch

Not only avant-garde Opera is being written in the last few decades. There are contemporary operas for (almost) everyone to enjoy, no matter what is our personal taste.

If you liked Catán's "Florencia en el Amazonas", maybe you can try Osvaldo Golijov's "Ainadamar".

Robert Aldridge is part of a movement in American opera that is using classic pieces from American literature, to write an operatic adaptation, usually in a fairly traditional musical language. There are many pieces that you can try, let's mention just a few: "The Grapes of Wrath" by Ricky Ian Gordon, "A View from the Bridge" by William Bolcom, "Little Women" by Mark Adamo, "Moby-Dick" by Jake Heggie, "An American Tragedy" by Tobias Picker, "The Scarlet Letter" by Lori Laitman...

About CDs and stuff, I don't quite understand your point. Indeed, most of my purchases are done in Amazon. If not available in Amazon, then I look for other alternatives.


----------



## Faramundo

Thanks for that; indeed I checked Amazon and most works at, much to my surprise, within their catalogue. I will investigate all the works you mentioned; my copy of an Aldbridge opera is already under way.
I will keep you informed of my next "coups de coeur". Cheers


----------



## Sloe

I heard Niko Muhly´s opera Marney recently:






I would say it is ok. Not the best but I can listen to it with some pleasure. The flaw is that it have the usual lack of tunes from the singers in contemporary opera which makes the singing just sound like one recitative.


----------



## Sloe

Sloe said:


> I heard Niko Muhly´s opera Marney recently:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I would say it is ok. Not the best but I can listen to it with some pleasure. The flaw is that it have the usual lack of tunes from the singers in contemporary opera which makes the singing just sound like one recitative.


After having heard it some other times. I have to draw back some of what I said.The opera is rather tuneful also the orchestral music sounds really lush. I would say more tuneful than "La fanciulla del west" by Puccini that I also have been listening to.


----------



## lextune

schigolch said:


> This is a thread to debate about contemporary opera. The opera that is being composed in our own days.
> 
> Of course, the obvious question is: "what is the limit of _our own days_?".
> 
> For the sake of this thread, let's define contemporary opera as any opera written after 1980. This gives us more than thirty years, and is a reasonable time for a genre that tends to think in centuries.


Well, my favorite "contemporary" opera was originally written in 1977, (still contemporary to me  ), but it had a major revision in 1996 (and that is the version that is performed now), so I think it counts. For those who haven't guessed already it is Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre.

At the time of it's composition the then-trendy term "anti-opera" rubbed Ligeti the wrong way, and he referred to his only opera the first anti-anti-opera. Much nonsense, of the hilarious and/or terrifying type occurs through the anti-anti-opera. Filled with sex, violence, and cursing, the opera is a monument to the 20th Century itself, and encompasses nothing less than the end of all creation. ("In the name of the Almighty; I smite the World to pieces!") But of course, it is the music that truly makes Le Grand Macabre a masterpiece.

If you like Ligeti, (and somehow don't know Le Grand Macabre), drop everything and listen to it now. If you don't know Ligeti, but are an adventurous listener (which seems likely, since you're in this thread) give it a listen and let me know what you think. Cheers. :cheers:


----------



## schigolch

A production of "Le Grand Macabre", by La Fura dels Baus, performed at Barcelona's Teatre del Liceu, back in 2011:


----------



## lextune

Yes, I have this^ on Blu Ray. As far as I know it is the only way to see the opera on video, and I did like it enough to buy a copy, but the Esa-Pekka Salonen live CD recording is a superior musical production in my opinion.


----------



## Faramundo

Truly wonderful.

I have just received that CD box.


----------



## schigolch

"Je suis narcissiste" is a contemporary opera buffa, written by the Spanish composer Raquel García-Tomás, and recently premiered at the Teatro Español, in Madrid. It was a success with both audience and critics:


----------



## schigolch

"Bel Canto" is an opera written by the composer *Jimmy López* and the Pulitzer-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, based on Ann Patchett's bestselling novel, that takes place during the 126-day terrorist takeover of the Japanese Embassy in Peru, back in 1996. The opera is sung in nine languages, including Spanish, English, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Latin, Italian, and Quechua, and it was premiered in 2015:


----------



## schigolch

"Fin de partie" is an opera by György Kurtág, adapted from the play _Endgame_ by Samuel Beckett.

The premiere took place at Teatro alla Scalla, in November, 2018.

We can listen to the complete opera in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

The American composer and pianist *Jack Perla* has written "An American Dream", an opera with librettist Jessica Murphy Moo, that is being performed these days at Anchorage Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Virginia Opera:






Also, his opera "Shalimar the Clown", based on the book by Salmar Rushdie, has been released by Albany Records:


----------



## schigolch

Mauricio Kagel's "Aus Deutschland" (1981), complete in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

"L'invisible" is the last opera written so far by German composer *Aribert Reimann*, premiered in Berlin back in 2017. The French libretto is by the composer himself, and is based on three short plays by Maurice Maeterlinck; _L'Intruse, Intérieur_ and _La mort de Tintagiles.

_A quite interesting piece:


----------



## schigolch

"Einstein's Inconsistency" (2014), by the American composer *Thomas Sleeper*, is a series of eight short operas of decreasing length, from twenty-one minutes down to one. The composer claims that they may be recombined in any order creating a new overall structure.


----------



## schigolch

"Il servo padrone" (2000) is a 'companion piece' written by Italian composer Aldo Tarabella, for a joint presentation with Pergolesi's "La serva padrona". A CD was eventually recorded:


----------



## schigolch

The German composer *Johannes Kalitzke* has written five operas so far. Arguably the more successful is "Die Besessenen" (The Possessed) after Witold Gombrowicz, that was written back in 2010:


----------



## schigolch

"The Passion of St. Thomas More" (1995) is a chamber opera scored for three singers and four players (English horn, Guitar, Indian harmonium, played by the composer himself for the premiere, and percussion), by American composer Garrett Fisher.

The piece is complete in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

"Harriet" (2018) is the last chamber opera written by the Mexican composer Hilda Paredes. It's based on the Afro-American freedom fighter and former slave Harriet Tubman, and her struggle against slavery:


----------



## schigolch

Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini is a Swiss composer that has written a few operas so far. The most recent one is "Edward II", premiered in 2017 at the Deutsche Oper, in Berlin:


----------



## schigolch

"The Handmaid's Tale" is now quite popular due to the series in HBO.

However, the novel by Margaret Atwood has been adapted twice to the operatic stage. The first time, by Poul Ruders, but more recently, back in 2013, by the British composer Chris Garrard:


----------



## schigolch

Richard Thompson is a performer and composer of both jazz and classical music. His chamber opera, "The Mask in the Mirror", based on the love and marriage of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore, was premiered back in 2012:


----------



## Blancrocher

An article about Missy Mazzoli's recent "Breaking the Waves":

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...with-big-ideas-opera-is-a-place-for-big-ideas

I'm interested to see this operatic version of the great film.


----------



## schigolch

Shakespeare's "The Tempest" has been adapted several times to opera, including versions by Thomas Adès, Lee Hoiby and Frank Martin. Composer Joseph Summer has given it another try, with a libretto written by her daughter Eve. The piece is available in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

"Euridice" is a chamber opera written by the Spanish composer Joan Albert Amargós back in 2001. The opera was premiered in Barcelona, and was published by Harmonia Mundi:


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-black-composers-terence-blanchard.html?fbclid=IwAR3PeNScPeNwfm_HzujsF_g9giXV6jLVx3IUDDRe4OjJROIUonBMYiCixRs
Hello opera subforum. I never post here, but thought this would interest you. Terence Blanchard, whom I only know from his jazz trumpet playing, has written an opera! Anyone heard it?


----------



## mountmccabe

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-black-composers-terence-blanchard.html?fbclid=IwAR3PeNScPeNwfm_HzujsF_g9giXV6jLVx3IUDDRe4OjJROIUonBMYiCixRs
> Hello opera subforum. I never post here, but thought this would interest you. Terence Blanchard, whom I only know from his jazz trumpet playing, has written an opera! Anyone heard it?


I have not seen his new opera, but I have seen a performance of his first opera, _Champion_, about the boxer Emile Griffith. I quite enjoyed it. This one sounds really compelling and I heard good things about the performances in St. Louis.


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## schigolch

"Qudsja Zaher" (2013) is an opera by the Polish composer Pawel Szymanski, with a libretto by Maciej Drygas, on the subject of immigration, inspired by the suicide of the Afghan refugee Qudsja Zaher, and a parallelism with events in the Baltic Sea, a thousand years ago:


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## schigolch

The American composer William Mayer wrote several operas, but his most successful by far was "A Death in the Family" (1983), after James Agee, first produced by the Minnesota Opera Company:


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## schigolch

The recently deceased German conductor and composer Hans Zender, wrote three operas during his long career. This is the second one, "Don Quijote de la Mancha", written in 1993, and rewritten in 1999:


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## schigolch

Alva Henderson completed his opera "Nosferatu", based in the film by F. W. Murnau, back in 1994.


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## Granate

After 5 years, we are organising in TC the next poll of Operas and Opera recordings. We are currently re-doing with a poll the Top 100+ Operas of all time, and any member with a consistent top can vote throughout the next months.

This is a call for all the opera fans (I'm targeting both Baroque and Contemporary since the Late Romantic fans have voted massively) to vote in this poll, even come up with a rank of operas since the 100 most voted and recommended will lead to a Recordings poll that will be published next year and will remain sticky until a new poll is made, probably by 2025.

Positions 1-10 will be settled *this friday* while the weekend will discuss their final position, and then continue to the next 10 (11-20).

Visit *The 2020 TC Top 100+ Most Recommended Operas List* to read the rules and vote
Visit *Discussion: The 2020 Talk Classical Top Recommended Opera CDs and DVDs* to discuss the voting issues about both operas and recordings


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## schigolch

"Invisible Cities" (2014) is an opera by the American composer Christopher Cerrone, based on Italo Calvino's classic novel, that was a candidate to the Pulitzer Prize. It's complete in youtube:


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## tortkis

David Avidor and Nicole V. Gagné: AGAMEMNON









Nicole V. Gagné, David Avidor, John Giorno, Rudolph Grey, Sussan Deyhim, Vera Beren, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Phil Minton, Roger Turner, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Julius Eastman, Charles K. Noyes, David Shea, Robert Ashley, Shelley Hirsch, Ned Sublette, Arto Lindsay

_"David Avidor and I created AGAMEMNON to be an opera specifically for disk rather than live performance. All the musicians were recorded individually, from December of 1986 through December 1988. The vocalists were given only the text of their own character's lines and recorded their tracks without hearing the music of any other players."_ - Nicole V. Gagné

A very interesting lineup of performers. My favorite is this part by Blue Gene Tyranny, though it is very short.





And this by Beren and Ashley.





full opera
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNB6PCJBrfBooXOg2Yr_G0Y9P0FbZDGwo


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## schigolch

"Radek" (2006), chamber opera by the Austrian composer Richard Dünser:


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## schigolch

From the Mexican composer Marcela Rodríguez, we can listen a fragment of her chamber opera "Séneca, o todo nos es ajeno", written in 1993:


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## Seattleoperafan

From what I've seen it is often dramatic in a theater, but I with the exception of Britten, I wouldn't want to listen to most of them in the car for repeat listenings.


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## Zhdanov

*Manotskov* - 'Tchaadsky' (2017)






*Schedrin* - 'Dead Souls' (1976)


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## schigolch

*Andy Pape* was born in California, but moved to Denmark while still a young man, and he is now composer in residence at The Odense Symphony Orchestra

"Leonora Christine, Dronning Af Blaataarn", opera in two acts (1998):


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## schigolch

The late Hungarian composer Attila Bozay wrote in 1985 his opera "Csongor és Tünde", based in the play by Mihály Vörösmarty, that was also recorded by Hungaroton:


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## schigolch

The Australian composer Gordon Kerry have written several operas, but arguably his more accomplished piece so far is "Medea" (1993) with a libretto by Justin Macdonnell, and staged in the USA and Germany, on top of his native Australia. There is a CD published:


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## Clayton 2

Hello all. I've been detached from music for a time while I relocated 5,600 miles away from Berkhamsted...

I took the wife to see the premier of Only the Sound Remains by Kaija Saariaho in 2015. It's two small works, Always strong and The feather mantle, based on Japanese plays and Saariaho uses computer wizardry with the sound and the voices (also lighting and imagery). For some this might sound like a no-no but I thought it worked very well and found it exciting and moving.
The wife, who likes some opera but finds some difficult to follow also liked these pieces and more thought the voice of Phillipe Jaroussky was the most amazing voice she ever heard!


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## schigolch

I attended myself a performance of "Only the Sound Remains" at Teatro Real, a couple of years ago. It was an interesting evening, even if I much prefer other Saariaho's operas, like "L'Amour de loin" or "La Passion de Simone":


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## Clayton 2

I too, prefer her work L;amour de loin, it is profoundly beautiful and relevant. I have not yet seen La Passion de Simone but it sounds interesting.

*****************************************************************************

Hosokawa Toshio is a Japanese composer born in Hiroshima. Commissioned by Hamburg state opera, he composed an opera Stilles Meer or Silent Sea in 2016 with the text by Japanese playwright Hirata Oriza.
The story again draws on a Japanese Noh play but is brought forward to the 2011 Tohoku disaster (the tsunami that took almost twenty thousand lives) It incorporates a theme of the cycle of life, that in Japan is seen with the sea, clouds, rain and rivers. It is interesting and intelligent.


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## schigolch

Indeed, couldn't agree more about Hosokawa.

There is a DVD published of "Stilles Meer":


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## schigolch

Kate Soper is an American composer and singer, that is fond of singing in her own works. For instance, "Ipsa Dixit", a chamber opera written in 2016:


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## schigolch

The Italian composer Mauro Cardi spent nine years to complete writing his opera "Oggetto d'amore", a cycle of seven musical scenes based on Pasquale Panella's texts, and published in CD back in 2009:


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## schigolch

Is there such a thing as an opera-mariachi?.

Yes, there is.

Let's listen to "Cruzar la cara de la luna", written by José 'Pepe' Martínez Barajas in 2008:


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast

As someone more interested in 20th century music than music from any other period, and constantly looking forward, I just wanted to say muchísimas gracias, schigolch! All of your recommendations will keep me busy for the next several months (or years!). Es un trabajo increíble el que hacés


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## schigolch

Henrik Hellstenius is a Norwegian composer that has written so far two operas. The second one, "Ophelia: Death by Water Singing" was premiered at Oslo, back in 2005, and also staged later in Poland and Germany. There is a CD published:


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## SanAntone

I posted this on the Opera YouTube thread before I found this thread.






*György Kurtág: Opera "Fin de partie (Endgame)* (2010-2017)
Samuel Beckett: Endgame. Scenes and monologues. Opera in one act (2010-2017)

Nagg: Leonardo Cortellazzi (tenor buffo)
Nell: Hilary Summers (mezzo-soprano)
Hamm: Frode Olsen (bass-baritone)
Clov: Leigh Melrose (baritone)

Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, conducted by Markus Stenz

recording of the first performance (Milan, Teatro alla Scala, November 15, 2018)


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## JohnHunter84

I think that nowadays a wonderful opera is also created. Recently attended the rock opera "Rock Symphony". And this is an unreal combination of classical opera singing and rock music with a choir. Just to the ants.


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## schigolch

From the British composer James Dillon, of 'new complexity' fame, let's listen to "Philomela", music theatre in 5 acts, written back in 2004:


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## schigolch

American composer Jack Beeson wrote several operas during his long career, the last one was "Sorry, Wrong Number", adapted from the play by Lucille Fletcher, in 1996:






But his most important success in the field, was back in 1965, with "Lizzie Borden", premiered at the New York City Opera:


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## schigolch

Harald Weiss is a German composer, director and screenwriter, settled in Majorca since many years. This is his opera "Arche", written in 1984:


----------



## schigolch

Written by the Swiss composer René Wohlhauser in 2002, we can watch "Gantenbein", based on the book by Max Frisch, and premiered at Lucerne City Theatre:


----------



## schigolch

The Spanish composer Mauricio Sotelo was commissioned by the Teatro Real management to write an opera some years ago, and he complied with "El público", based on a play by García Lorca and premiered in Madrid, back in 2015:


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## schigolch

The Chinese composer Du Yun has been living in the United States since she was a teenager, and in 2016 she premiered her opera "Angel's Bone", with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, about the fate of two angels forced into spiritual and sexual slavery on Earth, at the hands of a human couple.

The opera was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2017.


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## schigolch

"Love & Diversity" (2012) a piece of musical theater performance for a small ensemble, written by the German composer Manos Tsangaris:


----------



## Handelian

I watched part of the recent production of ‘Marnie’ from the Met broadcast. Never has so much money been spent on such an uninspired score.


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## Sloe

Handelian said:


> I watched part of the recent production of 'Marnie' from the Met broadcast. Never has so much money been spent on such an uninspired score.


I disagree I think it is a good opera with a really lush sounding score that is nice to listen to.


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## schigolch

"Der Mann mit der Blume im Mund" is a short opera by the Austrian composer Gerhard E. Winkler, based on Pirandello, and scored for baritone, speaker and instrumental ensemble. It was premiered back in 2017:


----------



## ericdxx

I've tried to get into two "recent" operas. Rio de Sangre by Matrix composer Don Davis and Prima Donna by much praised indie rock singer Rufus Wainwright. 

I would love to hear your opinions on these operas!?

Just from a first impression Rio de Sangre sounds like an opera based on the Matrix-sound and I find myself longing for more melodies and themes. Prima Donna sounds like a pop musician having fun but way too bland for me (it's entirely possible that there's a great aria in there but I don't have the patience to sit through it right now)


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## schigolch

"Río de sangre", despite being sung in Spanish, is a very typical American contemporary opera, in almost everything: music, singing, plot,... it's also a pretty average one.






About "Prima Donna"... well, I guess Mr. Wainwright loves Opera very much.


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## schigolch

"That Man Stephen Ward" (2007) is an opera based on the English osteopath and artist who was one of the central figures in the 1963 Profumo affair, and it was written by the British composer Thomas Hyde.

It's complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

"Tragicomedia" is a short opera by the German composer Michael Hirsch, written in 2008. It's based on a key work of 15th century Spanish literature: 'La tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea' (usually known as 'La Celestina') by Fernando de Rojas:


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## Handelian

Sloe said:


> I disagree I think it is a good opera with a really lush sounding score that is nice to listen to.


What on earth was nice about it?


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## schigolch

"Inheritance" (2018) is a chamber opera written by composer Lei Liang, with a libretto by poet Matt Donovan. It's based on the life of Sarah Winchester, the widow and heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune:


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## schigolch

"Acquanetta" (2005, revised in 2017) is an opera by American composer Michael Gordon, with a libretto by Deborah Artman. Gordon has published two versions: a chamber one, and another with a bigger orchestra.


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## ericdxx

schigolch said:


> "Acquanetta" (2005, revised in 2017) is an opera by American composer Michael Gordon, with a libretto by Deborah Artman. Gordon has published two versions: a chamber one, and another with a bigger orchestra.


A for effort but F for failure. I'm sorry but that one had me laughing out loud. It sounds like the Evanescence song from hell!


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## SilviaM

Who watched Miroslav Srnka "SouthPole" - about Scott's and Amundsen's race to the South Pole (2016)? 
I found the concept of a "double opera" interesting. On the left side of the stage you can watch Scott's team, all in black and all tenors; the right side shows Amundsen and his team in gray and all baritones.


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## schigolch

It is an interesting proposition indeed. I have a bootleg copy. Unfortunately, it remains mostly a proposition...


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## schigolch

"Sukanya" is an opera written by the Indian composer and sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, with a libretto by the novelist Amit Chaudhuri.

It combines Western operatic tradition with Indian vocal music and Indian instruments.

The opera was left unfinished on Shankar's death in 2012, but was completed by David Murphy and premiered at the Royal Opera House in 2017:


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## schigolch

The Italian composer Camillo Togni decided in the early 1970s to write a trilogy of operas, based on texts by the poet Georg Trakl. First came "Blaubart", completed in 1975. The second, "Barrabas", premiered in 1985. However, the third and last, "Maria Magdalena", was left unfinished when Togni died, in 1993.

This is "Barrabas":


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## Sloe

Handelian said:


> What on earth was nice about it?


It feels comfortable listening to and has memorable tunes.


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## schigolch

Eight Internet addicts gather in a a church basement and share their stories, in a score written for an a cappella chamber choir.

A musical or a chamber opera?.

This is "Octet", by Dave Malloy:


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## schigolch

The English composer Wiliam Alwyn wrote a couple of operas in his later years. Of them, arguably the most accomplished was "Miss Julie", based on Stringberg, that was written in 1978, but was not staged until 1992, in Denmark:


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## schigolch

"Covid fan tutte" is a 2020 comic opera produced by the Finnish National Opera as an adaptation of Mozart's "Così fan tutte". The libretto is by Minna Lindgren, written to music by Mozart. The idea for the opera was conceived after the pandemic caused the cancellation of Finnish National Opera's planned production of Wagner's "Die Walküre":


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## schigolch

"The Pillow Song" is a chamber opera written in 1988 by the English composer Paul Alan Barker. It's based on the work of the Japanase writer Sei Shōnagon, published back in the 11th century:


----------



## schigolch

"Jane Eyre" is an opera in two acts by Michael Berkeley to a libretto by David Malouf, based on Brontë, that was premiered in 2000 at the Cheltenham Festival. The opera was recorded by Chandos:


----------



## allaroundmusicenthusiast

Ok, so this week I listened to a few contemporary operas. I don't remember if they were already discussed or brought up here, but I wanted to share them anyway. I will just give a few adjectives of how I thought/felt about them. 
I started on tuesday with Kurtág's final work "Fin de Partie" based on Beckett's play of the same name. It was quite dense, in the sense that it dragged on for a bit, but I really enjoyed it all in all, not my favorite work by Kurtág, but a great one anyway.
Then yesterday I listened to Rihm's "Die Eroberung von Mexico". All I can say is that I absolutely loved it, it's an astonishing work. The day continued with two Haas' operas "Bluthaus" and "Morgen und Abend". I really liked Bluthaus, it's full of crazy moments and great climaxes, the polyphony of voices and characters is very interesting. "Morgen und Abend" on the other hand is a much more leaner work, I would go as far as saying that it is quite pretty, especially the orchestral writing. It gets off to a slow start without any singing for 25 and then picks up. Although it can be a bit uneven, I think it's a good work. These are the two operas by Haas' that I found on YT, don't know if these are his best. 
And today I finally listened to "Alice in Wonderland" by Unsuk Chin, one of my favorite contemporary composers. I must say I was really disappointed apart from a few scenes, not very cohesive and not very exciting. Then it was time for Golijov's "Ainadamar". This opera rivals Rihm's for my most enjoyed work of the week. It's very moving, very open to different styles (the percussion and the rhythms sometimes create this feeling of electronic music which is amazing), great voice writing and a very ambitious work which strives for greatness and something greater than the sum of its parts, it has a longing for something deep and beautiful. 
So, Schigolch, and the rest of the participants on this thread, have you listened to these works? What do you make of them?


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## schigolch

Yes, indeed I have. Some of them, like "Ainadamar" and "Die Eroberung von Mexico", live and staged in the theater.

My favorite among the ones mentioned in your post is "Die Eroberung von Mexico". I think is a major work, with some fascinating musical moments, the choice of instruments, a wonderful percussion or the duet at the end.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast

Yes, I agree completely on Rihm's opera. It might be even one of the greatest works of the last 30 years


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## schigolch

"A Place To Call Home" is an American opera written by Edward Barnes. It was commissioned by the Los Angeles Opera and premiered in 1993.

The opera is an account of four different teenage refugees (from El Salvador, Iran, Cambodia an Angola) in the United States.


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## schigolch

"Gernika" is an opera written by Francisco Escudero in 1985. The libretto was written by Escudero himself, in Basque, and it was a commemoration on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica, well known due mostly to Picasso's famous painting:


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## schigolch

In the words of the composer herself: 'An opera created expressly for episodic release via broadcast and online media'.

This is "Vireo" by Lisa Bielawa:


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## Seattleoperafan

I have found some contemporary opera to be compelling dramatically, but not something I would want to listen to driving in the car for repeated listenings.


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## schigolch

There are literally thousands of operas written after 1980, so pretty much everything under the Sun is there.

Lately, I'm not driving a car. I hardly leave home because of the pandemic. But I fondly remember, for instance, to drive listening to the wonderful Traversée from "L'Amour de loin". Or the choir of Angels from "Written on Skin".

Hope it will be possibe again in the near future.


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## schigolch

Alastair White is a Scottish composer, still in his early thirties, that have already written a handful of operas.

"Robe" is a 'fashion-opera' that has been published in CD just one year ago:


----------



## Stewart Limmson

There is no shortage of great American operas. Since I'm commenting off a thread on Thomas Pasatieri, I will say that two of his operas--_Black Widow_ and _Washington Square_ provided some of my most deeply rewarding operatic experiences. And then there's his teacher, Vittorio Giannini, who composed some 17 operas, of which the most famous is his adaptation of _The Taming of the Shrew _ He was a great opera composer. And another Giannini student, Nicolas Flagello, wrote a handful of operas. Perhaps the most profoundly beautiful is _The Judgment of St. Francis _. But if we want to talk about even more recent operas, the discussion is not complete without mention of Daniel Catan's unforgettable _Florencia en el Amazonas _. All these operas demonstrate unequivocally that there are plenty of great American operas. And let's not forget about Lee Hoiby's _Summer and Smoke _--another great work.


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## schigolch

"Margaret Catchpole" (1979) is an opera written by the British composer Stephen Dodgson, based on the life of an English woman convicted and sentenced to exile in Australia, towards the end of the 18th century.

Naxos has recently released a recording of the opera:


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## schigolch

A fragment of "Demiurgos", an opera written by the recently deceased Polish composer Juliusz Luciuk.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast

This week I listened to 2 contemporary french operas: 60e Parallele from 1997 by Philippe Manoury and Passion from 2008 by Pascal Dusapin. I really liked both, the second one I'd even recommend it to someone that is not so interested by contemporary music, it's not classical by any means, but it borrows some things from baroque opera. There are recordings on spotify of both, and here's a performance on Youtube of the Dusapin


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## schigolch

During his long life, the Israeli composer (born in the German Empire, back in 1910) Josef Tal wrote eight operas, the first one in 1955, while the last one was premiered at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, in 1995.

This opera was "Josef", and we can watch it in Youtube:


----------



## schigolch

The Italian composer Franco Battiato has died, at 76 years old.

He is more famous for his pop songs, but he also wrote four operas.

This is "Gilgamesh" (1992):


----------



## schigolch

"Teneke" is an opera in three acts by Italian composer Fabio Vacchi, based on the eponymous novel by the Turkish author Yaşar Kemal. It was premiered back in 2007, at the Teatro alla Scala of Milan:


----------



## schigolch

"La página en blanco" was commissioned by Madrid's Teatro Real to the Spanish composer and singer Pilar Jurado. She wrote the opera, created a role for her to sing, and the piece was premiered back in 2011:


----------



## Rogerx

Dear Sicholg
From the Holland festival can be heard by streaming: until June 29th

https://www.hollandfestival.nl/nl/programma/2021/time/


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast

This week was the premiere of Saariaho's new opera, Innocence. This saturday it'll be livestreamed through this website https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/097910-000-A/innocence-festival-d-aix-en-provence-2021/


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## schigolch

Susan Kander is an American composer, that wrote in 2017 "dwb (driving while black)", with Roberta Gumbel as librettist. It was premiered in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, in a streamed video.


----------



## schigolch

A new version of "War and Peace", by Alexey Rybnikov back in 2013


----------



## amadeus1928

Has anybody here ever listened to Cinderella by Alma Deutscher? If you haven't then I beg you to go do that right now.


----------



## schigolch

"Flagstad, the Opera" is, rather obviously, a newly written opera about Kirsten Flagstad.

The opera was written by Ketil Bjørnstad and Einar Bjørge.


----------



## schigolch

"Count Cagliostro" (1981) is a comic opera by the Russian composer Mikael Leonovich Tariverdiev.

We can watch it in youtube:


----------



## schigolch

"Œdipe sur la route", an opera written in 2002 by the Belgian composer Pierre Bartholomée:


----------



## schigolch

"The Sour Thunder" (2008), an Internet opera by Mendi & Keith Obadike:


----------



## schigolch

"The Snow Queen" (2019) is an opera by the Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen. It has been premiered both in Danish and in English. It's based on the fairy tale _Snedronningen_ by Hans Christian Andersen:


----------



## schigolch

Guido Morini is an specialist in early music and together with the tenor Marco Beasley, he founded his own ensemble Accordone.

"Una Odissea" (2002), is a project for an opera in one act:


----------



## schigolch

"Les Enfants d'Izieu" (1993) is an opera written by Nguyen-Thien Dao, about 44 French children captured by the Gestapo in Izieu, and taken to concentration camps:


----------



## schigolch

"Ikone" (2020) by Nicola Segatta, complete in youtube:


----------



## Rogerx

Program

The Murderess (Η φόνισσα)
Opera by Giorgos Koumendakis (b. 1959)
Libretto by Yannis Svolos, based on Alexandros Papadiamantis' novel of the same title

The Murderess' tells the story of Hadoula - also known as 'Frangoyannoù' - an old woman living on the island of Skiathos in the mid-19th century. At that time, daughters born into poor families were considered an economic burden. Hadoula takes pity on such families and, after killing her own newborn granddaughter, goes on to murder other young girls in what she considers 'mercy killings'.
The opera follows her every thought and step, delving deep into her troubled soul.
Casting

Greek National Opera Orchestra
GNO Chorus
GNO Children's Chorus
Vassilis Christopoulos (Conductor)
Alexandros Efklidis (Stage Direction)
Mary-Ellen Nesi (Mezzo-soprano) : Frangoyannoù (The Murderess)
Anna Stylianaki (Soprano) : Maroyssò
Tassos Apostolou (Baritone) : Ioassaf
Myrto Bokolini (Soprano) : Delcharò
Vangelis Maniatis (Baritone) : Yannis Perivolàs
Sophia Kyanidou (Soprano) : Yannoù
Fylli Georgiadou (Soprano) : Xennoula's mother
Yannis Christopoulos (Tenor) : First police officer
Yanni Yannissis (Baritone) : A magistrate
Nicholas Stefanou (Tenor) : Second police officer / Asseso
Marilena Striftobola (Soprano) : Kriniò
Stelina Apostolopoulou (Soprano) : Toula
Miranda Makrynioti (Mezzo-soprano) : Myrsouda
Georgios Papadimitriou (Baritone) : A doctor
Maria Konstanta (INTERPRETE) : Amersa
Angelos Nerantzis (INTERPRETE) : Konstantìs

Sunday, December 12 at 21:00 on Mezzo Live HD

Tuesday, December 14 at 17:00 on Mezzo Live HD
Friday, December 17 at 09:30 on Mezzo Live HD
Sunday, December 19 at 02:00 on Mezzo Live HD

I found this for you schigolch, hope you can receive the Mezzo Channel
Snips on You Tube


----------



## SanAntone

I recently watched two contemporary operas:

*MUHLY*: _Marnie_
PERFORMANCE DATE: NOV 10, 2018

CONDUCTOR: Robert Spano
MARNIE: *Isabel Leonard*
TERRY RUTLAND: *Iestyn Davies*
MARK RUTLAND: *Christopher Maltman*
MRS. RUTLAND: *Janis Kelly*
MARNIE'S MOTHER: *Denyce Graves*










*ADAMS*: _Doctor Atomic_
PERFORMANCE DATE: NOV 8, 2008
COMPOSER: JOHN ADAMS
LIBRETTIST: PETER SELLARS










CONDUCTOR: Alan Gilbert
J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER: *Gerald Finley*
KITTY OPPENHEIMER: *Sasha Cooke*
EDWARD TELLER: *Richard Paul Fink*
ROBERT WILSON: *Thomas Glenn*

Both were well done, IMO, and the Met did a good job with the productions.


----------



## DeGustibus

I like Marne quite a bit. I think it's very well designed, and I am a sucker for anything Ms. Leonard does. (She's also a fun follow on Instagram.) I have taken a couple of runs at Dr. Atomic, but never been able to get into it, despite being very familiar with the underlying Oppenheimer/Manhattan Project story. 
It has also been great to see the Met doing some new operas. We went to see Fire Shut Up in My Bones in HD last month, and I listened to Eurydice on Saturday. I don't think either one is a great opera, but they are both worth the time to listen.


----------



## SanAntone

DeGustibus said:


> I like Marne quite a bit. I think it's very well designed, and I am a sucker for anything Ms. Leonard does. (She's also a fun follow on Instagram.) I have taken a couple of runs at Dr. Atomic, but never been able to get into it, despite being very familiar with the underlying Oppenheimer/Manhattan Project story.
> It has also been great to see the Met doing some new operas. We went to see Fire Shut Up in My Bones in HD last month, and I listened to Eurydice on Saturday. I don't think either one is a great opera, but they are both worth the time to listen.


I haven't seen _Fire Shut Up My Bones_ since The Met hasn't made it available on their Opera on Demand yet.


----------



## schigolch

Rogerx said:


> I found this for you schigolch, hope you can receive the Mezzo Channel
> Snips on You Tube


Thanks, I do receive the Mezzo channel.


----------



## schigolch

"The Lesson of Da Ji" (2013) is an opera written by Alice Ping Yee Ho, a composer born in Hong Kong, but living in Canada.


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## composingmusic

There’s some really good recommendations on this thread! I’ll have to go and check out some of the operas I’m not yet familiar with, and it’s nice to see so many links to performances. A few that I’ve enjoyed (I think most of these, if not all, have been mentioned) include L’Amour de Loin (Saariaho), Written on Skin and Lessons in Love and Violence (Benjamin), Alice in Wonderland (Chin), Lost Highway (Neuwirth), FAMA (Furrer), Lohengrin and Macbeth (Sciarrino)… there’s many others too. I haven’t managed to watch Innocence by Saariaho yet, but am hoping to do so soon!


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## SanAntone

*Georg Friedrich Haas*: _Thomas _(2013)






*Georg Friedrich Haas* (*1953)
_Thomas_, Opera for voice and ensemble (2013)
libretto by Händl Klaus

Otto Katzameier, Thomas
Wolfgang Newerla, Matthias
Kai Wessel, Michael
Daniel Gloger, Dr. Dürer
Michael Feyfar, Dominik
Raminta Babickaite, sister Agnes
Ruth Weber, sister Jasmin
Sarah Wegener, Ms. Fink from the funeral service

Catalina Vicens, Olga Zheltikova, harpsichord
Martin Malaun, zither
Luisa Marxen, Agnieszka Koprowska-Born, percussion
Viviane Chassot, accordion
Estelle Costanzo, harp
Flavio Virzi, mandolin
Wolfgang Sehringer, Andrés Hernandéz Alba, guitar
Michel Galante, conductor

Elisabeth Gabriel, director
Vinzenz Gertler, stage & costumes
Guido Petzold, light
Saskia Bladt, dramaturgy
Heta Multanen, video


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## schigolch

composingmusic said:


> There's some really good recommendations on this thread! I'll have to go and check out some of the operas I'm not yet familiar with, and it's nice to see so many links to performances. A few that I've enjoyed (I think most of these, if not all, have been mentioned) include L'Amour de Loin (Saariaho), Written on Skin and Lessons in Love and Violence (Benjamin), Alice in Wonderland (Chin), Lost Highway (Neuwirth), FAMA (Furrer), Lohengrin and Macbeth (Sciarrino)… there's many others too. I haven't managed to watch Innocence by Saariaho yet, but am hoping to do so soon!


"Innocence" is a wonderful opera, indeed; and with a great libretto by Sofi Oksanen. Hopefully I will also be able to watch it some day, though I'm not going to the theater since the first wave of the coronavirus.

At least, we can take a look online in the meanwhile:

https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/097910-000-A/kaija-saariaho-innocence/


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## composingmusic

schigolch said:


> "Innocence" is a wonderful opera, indeed; and with a great libretto by Sofi Oksanen. Hopefully I will also be able to watch it some day, though I'm not going to the theater since the first wave of the coronavirus.
> 
> At least, we can take a look online in the meanwhile:
> 
> https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/097910-000-A/kaija-saariaho-innocence/


Indeed, that's where I was planning to watch it. I know someone who was able to see it live, and they said it was marvellous. I've been able to see quite a few contemporary operas live in the theatre, so I'm thankful for that.


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## Rogerx

schigolch said:


> Thanks, I do receive the Mezzo channel.


Did you see it already?


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## schigolch

Not yet, but I recorded it.


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## Rogerx

schigolch said:


> Not yet, but I recorded it.


I've seen a bout a hour, hard nut to crack for me that is. 
( Also recorded)


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## schigolch

Heinz-Juhani Hofmann is a Finnish composer, that wrote "Ahti Karjalainen" back in 2012, to be premiered at the Kokkola Opera Summer Festival:


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## Rogerx

French composer Guillaume Connesson (*1970) is building an impressive musical oeuvre, to which he has recently added an opera: 'Les bains macabres'. For this romantic contemporary thriller opera he worked closely with librettist Olivier Bleys (*1970), a successful French author with dozens of novels to his credit. The result is an enigmatic narrative with a film noir soundtrack about the macabre 'Bains Terminus': ailing patrons who come to take the waters here never leave. When the Pool police investigates their mysterious deaths, the realms of life and death turn out to be not as separate as expected... In this February 2020 production, directed by Florent Siaud, soprano Sandrine Buendia plays the part of Célia and baritone Romain Dayez plays Mathéo. Conductor Arie van Beek conducts the Orchestre des Frivolités Parisiennes.
Found a ( for me) new one.


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## schigolch

Rogerx said:


> I've seen a bout a hour, hard nut to crack for me that is.
> ( Also recorded)


Watched, not a fan.


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## Rogerx

schigolch said:


> Watched, not a fan.


Me neither, I can not past it, I've tried it but I wiped it from the hard disc.


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## schigolch

"L'enigma di Lea" is an opera written by the Spanish composer Benet Casablancas, and premiered at the Liceu in 2019.


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## schigolch

"Das Jagdgewehr" is an opera written by the Austrian composer Thomas Larcher, and premiered in 2018. It's based on a nivel by Yasushi Inoue, and a DVD has been published:


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## schigolch

"Antonieta", by the Mexican composer Federico Ibarra, premiered back in 2010:


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## schigolch

Joseph Phibbs was born in London, and is a composer, a pianist and a cellist. He has been working in association with the BBC, during all the 21st century.

"Juliana" is a chamber opera from 2018, that we can find in youtube:


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## Rogerx

Olga Neuwirth (geb. 1968)	
Orlando
Kate Lindsey, Anna Clementi, Eric Jurenas, Constance Hauman, Margaret Plummer, Agneta Eichenholz, Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, Matthias Pintscher

schigolch out in April .


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## schigolch

Olga Neuwirth had a huge impact with "Lost Highway", around 20 years ago. It was an opera adaptation of the David Lynch film. It's really interesting:






"Orlando" is also very promising, Neuwirth has won the Grawemeyer Award for this opera.


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## schigolch

The Danish composer Bo Holten premiered back in 2017 his opera "Schlagt sie tot!", based on Martin Luther's life:


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## SanAntone

On May 20, the renowned *Kronos Quartet* will release _Mỹ Lai_, an acclaimed opera which tells the story of one man's efforts to stop the 1968 massacre of over 500 unarmed civilians by the US Army in Mỹ Lai, Vietnam.

Mỹ Lai premiered to rave reviews in 2017, with the LA Times writing: "It reminds us of our ability to stumble across beauty when there is otherwise no meaning, only insanity, to be found." Now, this definitive recording captures the madness, raw emotion, and musicianship of the performance for all to hear.

The unimaginable brutality of the event impacted all those who witnessed it firsthand, including helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, who, against orders, intervened to save Vietnamese lives. Thompson's true story is the basis of the opera, composed by *Jonathan Berger* with libretto by *Harriet Scott Chessman*, and features Vietnamese multi-instrumentalist *Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ* and vocalist *Rinde Eckert*. (Folkways)


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## justekaia

I clearly understand this a great contemporary opera thread, but coming in late into the game I would love to see a kind of recap of the operas that have been featured in this thread. It would probably enable me to contribute to this thread. So Schigolch if it is not too much to ask, plse give us an overview. Most of the operas mentioned are in my collection, but then some are unknown territory.
Thks Justekaia


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## schigolch

It's more than 10 years now, since the thread was started.

I think it's too late now for an index, or similar.

But please feel free to contribute with any content you like. We can discuss an opera several times.

In fact, discussing the same opera endlessly, it's just the way this great passion works.


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## schigolch

There is a long list of operas inspired by Carroll's Alice. Some of them discussed in this same thread.

Let's mention one of the more recent ones, written in 2016 by the Irish composer Gerald Barry, under the title of "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" (the original title that Carroll planned to use for his first Alice novel). The opera was premiered at the Royal Opera House on 3 February 2020:


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## schigolch

John Anthony Caldwell is an English musicologist and composer, that published in 1998 his opera-oratorio "Good Friday":


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## schigolch

The British composer John Joubert wrote his last opera, "Jane Eyre", based on Charlotte Brontë, during more than 10 years. It was finally completed in 1997. It's complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

"Los Comuneros", by Igor Escudero, premiered recently in Salamanca, Spain:


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## schigolch

"Eurydice" is an opera written by Matthew Aucoin with a libretto by Sarah Ruhl, premiered at the Los Angeles Opera in 2020, and then at the Met in 2021.

The opera retells retells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice from Eurydice's point of view.


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## schigolch

Jeanine Tesori started her career working for Broadway, but in time she has also written opera.

For instance, this "Blue" premiered back in 2019:


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## OffPitchNeb

*schigolch, *Do you recommend any contemporary operas with Jazz or Tango influences?


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## schigolch

OffPitchNeb said:


> *schigolch, *Do you recommend any contemporary operas with Jazz or Tango influences?


There are several "jazz operas" discussed in this same thread. Just to mention one, "Shadowboxer" by Frank Potro, based on Joe Louis's 1978 autobiography, 'My Life'. There is an inclusion of an on-stage eight-piece jazz combo in addition to the pit orchestra.

It's not contemporary, but I would recommend Ernst Krenek's "Jonny spielt auf", written in 1927:






About "tango" operas, of course we need to go with Astor Piazolla's "María de Buenos Aires":


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## schigolch

"Barabbas – Opera Without Singers", written by Ketil Hvoslef at the beginning of the 21st century:


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## schigolch

"Les Éclairs", it's an opera written by Philippe Hersant, with a libretto by Jean Echenoz after his own novel. It was premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris just a few months ago:


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## schigolch

"Fat Pig" is a chamber opera by composer Matt Boehler, based on the play by Neil LaBute. It was premiered in 2020.


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## ColdGenius

schigolch said:


> "Fat Pig" is a chamber opera by composer Matt Boehler, based on the play by Neil LaBute. It was premiered in 2020.


The title sounds promising.


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## schigolch

"Il Sognatoio", experimental opera in nine scenes (2017), by Ludovico Peroni:


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## SanAntone

*Brett Dean*: _Hamlet _(2017)


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## SanAntone

*Louis Andriessen* - _La Commedia_, Film Opera (2009)


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## SanAntone

*The War Bride* is a short opera by *Nathan Felix* that follows a WWII bride, Jean Groundsell Contreras, from Britain as she faces new challenges as an immigrant in the USA in the 1940’s. Performed live at Timucua in Orlando on Dec 10 2021.






Felix's latest opera, _No. 5_ based on the life of Coco Chanel is due to be staged this October.


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## BBSVK

SanAntone said:


> *The War Bride* is a short opera by *Nathan Felix* that follows a WWII bride, Jean Groundsell Contreras, from Britain as she faces new challenges as an immigrant in the USA in the 1940’s. Performed live at Timucua in Orlando on Dec 10 2021.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Felix's latest opera, _No. 5_ based on the life of Coco Chanel is due to be staged this October.


There was actually a melody when I checked randomly somwhere in the 2/3 of time.


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## SanAntone

*JOHN ADAMS | The Gospel According to the Other Mary *(opera-oratorio) (2013)










From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

_The Gospel According to the Other Mary is an opera-oratorio by the American composer John Adams. The world premiere took place on May 31, 2012, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic who also premiered the staged version on March 7, 2013, at the same venue.

The work focuses on the final few weeks of the life of Jesus, including his passion, from the point of view of "the other Mary", Mary of Bethany (sometimes mis-identified as Mary Magdalene), her sister Martha, and her brother, Lazarus. The libretto by Peter Sellars draws its texts from the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible and from Rosario Castellanos, Rubén Darío, Dorothy Day, Louise Erdrich, Hildegard von Bingen, June Jordan, and Primo Levi._

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0


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## schigolch

Premiere of John Adams' "Antony and Cleopatra" in San Francisco.



https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/11/arts/music/john-adams-antony-cleopatra-opera.html


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## schigolch

"Yes, I Will, Yes!" (2016), is a monodrama by Dieter Schnebel, based on Molly Bloom's Soliloquy:


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## SanAntone

*Chunky in Heat *(2019)

*



*
In the fiction writer A. M. Homes’s first opera libretto, “Chunky in Heat,” a teen-ager named Cheryl—who was nicknamed Chunky as a child, after her fondness for the candy bar—lives life in a bathing suit by the pool of her dysfunctional family’s Los Angeles home. The literalism of the title is a sleight of hand: there’s sex with boys, but the "heat" is really the hot haze of the city that blankets Cheryl’s consciousness and makes it difficult for her to act, even as her family members die off in traumatizing and bizarre ways. *Six different composers—Jason Cady, Paula Matthusen, Erin Rogers, Aaron Siegel, Shelley Washington, and Matthew Welch—set Homes’s dark comedy to music, compounding its strangeness.* Presented by Experiments in Opera, the production stars Sarah Daniels and features the chamber ensemble Contemporaneous; Alison Moritz directs.

— Oussama Zahr (The New Yorker)


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## eljr

SanAntone said:


> *Chunky in Heat *(2019)
> 
> *
> 
> 
> 
> *
> In the fiction writer A. M. Homes’s first opera libretto, “Chunky in Heat,” a teen-ager named Cheryl—who was nicknamed Chunky as a child, after her fondness for the candy bar—lives life in a bathing suit by the pool of her dysfunctional family’s Los Angeles home. The literalism of the title is a sleight of hand: there’s sex with boys, but the "heat" is really the hot haze of the city that blankets Cheryl’s consciousness and makes it difficult for her to act, even as her family members die off in traumatizing and bizarre ways. *Six different composers—Jason Cady, Paula Matthusen, Erin Rogers, Aaron Siegel, Shelley Washington, and Matthew Welch—set Homes’s dark comedy to music, compounding its strangeness.* Presented by Experiments in Opera, the production stars Sarah Daniels and features the chamber ensemble Contemporaneous; Alison Moritz directs.
> 
> — Oussama Zahr (The New Yorker)


Very cool. What did you think of it?


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## SanAntone

eljr said:


> Very cool. What did you think of it?


I was engaged and thought it was among the more enjoyable new operas. Cast was very good.


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## BBSVK

I bought tickets to a new contemporary opera, Impresario Dotcom by Lubica Cekovska. Am I getting adventurous or what ? Has anyone seen it here ?


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## SanAntone

*Hans Thomalla : Dark Spring *(2021)






Hans Thomalla’s third opera “Dark Spring”—the others being “Fremd” and “Kaspar Hauser”—was premiered by Mannheim Opera in Fall 2020 and recorded by Oehms Classics over the course of its five performances. Since November a recording has been available both online and as a CD. It is this recording which is now being reviewed.

This work depicts four young people who have grown up under the pressures of modern life. Israeli mezzo-soprano Shachar Lavi sang the part of Wendla, Swedish mezzo-soprano Anna Hybiner appeared as Ilse, Australian tenor Christopher Diffey sang Melchior and the part of Moritz was played by Sudanese counter-tenor Magid El-Bushra. The Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim was conducted by Alan Pierson, while Barbora Horáková Joly served as the production’s director and Cordula Demattio oversaw the dramaturgy.

The opera is actually a dramatized song-cycle, a fresh example of the interesting modern musical hybrid known as a ‘song opera.’ In performance it runs continuously, but the various numbers function just as easily as stand-alone musical pieces that often hover above the incidents which one would assume inspire or reflect the words. (Opera Wire)


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## SanAntone

In November 2018, Experiments in Opera presented four new works for voice and modular synthesizer commissioned from *Jason Cady*, *Andrew Raffo Dewar*, *Joan La Barbara* and *Kamala Sankaram*. Each of these new works focused on a single story that is told through the surprising and absorbing sound world of modular synthesizers. 






Pretty neat!


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## schigolch

"Raphaël, reviens!" is a children opera written by the French composer Bernard Cavanna back in 2000. There are now youtube links available:


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## Rogerx

Schigolch , this might intrest you:
Source: SlippeDisc 



https://slippedisc.com/2022/10/anne-sofie-von-otter-and-thomas-hampson-to-star-in-bergman-remake/


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## eljr

SanAntone said:


> I was engaged and thought it was among the more enjoyable new operas. Cast was very good.


I watched your YouTube above and thoroughly enjoyed it!

I also found The Flee theater where it had played. I was unaware of this performance space and the innovative things they were performing.


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## schigolch

Rogerx said:


> Schigolch , this might intrest you:
> Source: SlippeDisc
> 
> 
> 
> https://slippedisc.com/2022/10/anne-sofie-von-otter-and-thomas-hampson-to-star-in-bergman-remake/


Interesting indeed.

However, the protagonist couple in 2024... Well, let's see the score when available.


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## SanAntone

*Caroline Polachek* has released an aria she wrote for _Last Days_, an opera adaptation of Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film which is loosely based on the death of Kurt Cobain.

The opera, like the film before it, charts the disintegration of Blake, a Cobain-esque rockstar who has fled rehab and is hiding out in his mansion, attempting to elude fans, his family, and a private detective on his tail. It has been praised by critics as “hypnotic”; “bleak and beautiful”, “grim but fascinating”. (dazed)


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## SanAntone

Composer *Ellen Reid* and librettist *Roxie Perkins*’ opera _p r i s m_, which challenges us to not look away from the aftermath of sexual assault. The score moves from lush post-Romanticism to deafening club beats to the thorny avant-garde as the protagonist pieces together memories fractured by trauma. (explore classical music)


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## Rogerx

Kevin Puts’s The Hours, Saturday, Dec 10-2022






The Hours







www.metopera.org






Source Metropolitan opera.


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## schigolch

"Trois contes" is an opera written by the French composer Gérard Pesson, in 2019.


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## BBSVK

Do you know any contemporary opera buffa ?


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## SanAntone

BMOP/sound announced the release of the recording of the revised version of *Anthony Davis*’ opera, _X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X_. The recording is from a live performance of this seminal work from earlier this year at Boston’s historic Strand Theatre, with conductor/producer *Gil Rose* leading the *Boston Modern Orchestra Project* and the *Odyssey Opera* chorus in a groundbreaking session, featuring celebrated bass-baritone *Davóne Tines* in the title role of Malcolm X. Due out on October 25, this is the first in a series released over the next five years, _As Told By: History, Race and Justice on the Opera Stage_, which elevates and celebrates Black creativity in opera.

*Act II, Scene 2, "When I was little"*






Boston Modern Orchestra Project · Davóne Tines · Anthony Davis · Gil Rose · Odyssey Opera Chorus · Thulani Davis


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## schigolch

BBSVK said:


> Do you know any contemporary opera buffa ?


Opera buffa is a genre, I guess you mean a contemporary opera that is also a comedy. 

Comedies there are a few, indeed, some of them mentioned in this same thread.

An example: Gerald Barry's "The Importance of Being Earnest".


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## schigolch

The Spanish composer Albert Guinovart wrote in 2019 "Alba eterna", a chamber opera with four characters singing about their love for the dancer Alba.


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## eljr

*My Lai*

Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ

*Release Date:* 20th May 2022
*Catalogue No:* SFW40251CD
*Label:* Smithsonian Folkways


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## schigolch

Kjartan Sveinsson is a member of the Icelandic rock band Sigur Rós, and he also wrote music for several soundtracks.

In 2014, he presented his first opera, "Der Klang Der Offenbarung Des Göttlichen", that was premiered in Berlin:


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## Rogerx

schigolch, 
If you have Instagram you can see rehearsals from The Hours....I am going to watch it in the cinema


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## schigolch

The Russian composer Alexander Vustin wrote in 1989 "The Devil in Love", based on the novel by Jacques Cazotte.

However, the opera was not staged until 2019, at the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre in Moscow:


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## schigolch

Ned Rorem died a couple of days ago, at the mature age of 99.

His last opera, "Our Town", was premiered in 2006. It's complete in youtube:


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## schigolch

"Pauline" is an opera written by Tobin Stokes, with a libretto by Margaret Atwood, and it's based on the life of the Canadian writer Pauline Johnson. It was premiered at City Opera Vancouver, back in 2014:


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## schigolch

The Spanish composer Josep Soler wrote in 1974 the oratory "Oedipus et Iocasta", based in Seneca. Later, he reviewed the work, converted it to an opera, and it was premiered as such at the Liceu Theater, back in 1986:


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## schigolch

"Altzoko Haundia" (the giant from Altzo) is an opera in Basque language by David Azurza, premiered in 2015... in Altzo, of all places:


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## SanAntone

*HARRIET TUBMAN : WHEN I CROSSED THAT LINE TO FREEDOM*
Music and Libretto by *Nkeiru Okoye*

February 21-March 1, 2014 - WORLD PREMIERE 
Irondale Center, 85 S Oxford St Brooklyn, NY 11217

Performances by: Janinah Burnett, Briana Hunter, Nicole Mitchell, Clinton Ingram, Damian Norfleet, Marsha Thompson, Ernest Jackson, Patrice P. Eaton, Kyle Guglielmo, Anthony P. McGlaun. 

Chorus: Brandie Sutton, Hannah Fuerst, Tesia Kwarteng, Christiana Little, Kevin Tucker, Leslie Tay, Ras Dia, Charles D. Carter 

Featuring a string quintet from The Harlem Chamber Players 
Conductor: Leslie B. Dunner 
Stage Director: Lemuel Wade 
Assistant Conductor: Mila Henry


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## Andrew Kenneth

Now playing in La Monnaie / De Munt (Brussels opera) =>

Philippe Boesmans's 2022 opera *On purge bébé !*

An opera about a constipated 7 year old who doesn't want to take his laxative.


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## SanAntone

*Stephen McNeff: 2117/Hedd Wyn*
Steffan Lloyd Owen, Meinir Wyn Roberts, Paul Carey Jones, Llio Evans, Alys Mererid Roberts, Craig Yates, Laurence Kilsby, and William Rennie with Welsh National Youth Opera, Only Boys Aloud Academi 2017, Only Boys Aloud, and Welsh National Opera Orchestra conducted by Stephen McNeff






Stephen McNeff's opera _2117/Hedd Wyn_ has had an intriguing history. Written for the 2017 centenary of the death of Welsh poet Hedd Wyn (Ellis Humphrey Evans), the opera has a libretto by poet and writer Gruff Rhys (best known for his association with the Welsh rock band Super Furry Animals) and was intended to be used for a film being produced by Welsh National Opera (WNO). The film never happened, but the soundtrack was recorded. And this has finally seen the light of day.


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## schigolch

The recently deceased German composer Franz Hummel wrote the opera "Gesualdo", back in 1996. The opera is complete in youtube:


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## eljr

So glad I discovered Unsuk Chin here at Talk.


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