Contemporary Opera

[Schigolch]

No, it's not in youtube.

Nuit des Hommes is Per Nørgård's fifth opera, premiered in 1996. This is something in between opera and an oratorio. Only two singers, a string quartet, percussion and electromic music is needed. The libretto are poems by Apollinaire.

However, we get a good tale of this terrible night, the vesper of the First World War, in a powerful and dramatic way.

This one is indeed complete in youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYzACgUftBU

[Schigolch]

Portrait of Alfred Bruyas, by Delacroix

It will come as no surprise that many dramatic pieces have been using Vincent Van Gogh as a subject.

In the world of Opera there are several works. The most recent one, premiered in the US and written by Bernard Rands, as explained by the composer himself:



But also Grigori Find's The letters of Van Gogh:



or Rautavaara's Vincent:




But arguably the best opera about Van Gogh so far is Jan van Vlijmen's Un malheureux vêtu de noir (the title comes from a poem by Alfred de Musset, recited by Van Gogh while contemplating the portrait of Alfred Bruyas), premiered the year 1990, in Amsterdam.

This is the beginning of the opera:


Un malheureux vêtu de noir - van Vlijmen

[Schigolch]

Jonas Forssell (Stockholm, 1956) is the resident composer of the Malmoe Opera.

He premiered there the operistic version of the drama (also a movie) "The Death and the Maiden", of the Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, that was also the librettist.




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

Forssell wanted both to represent this extreme situation and write a music pervaded with Schubert.


Forssell-Death and the Maiden-First Act

[Schigolch]

Possibly the opera with the shortest libretto of all times: Morton Feldman's Neither

NEITHER

to and fro in shadow from inner to outer shadow

from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself by way of neither

as between two lit refuges whose doors once neared gently close, once away turned from gently part again

beckoned back and forth and turned away

heedless of the way, intent on the one gleam or the other

unheard footfalls only sound

till at last halt for good, absent for good from self and other

then no sound

then gently light unfading on that unheeded neither

unspeakable home

[Schigolch]

I attended some years ago the world premiere of El Viaje a Simorgh, by Spanish composer José María Sánchez-Verdú.



Though it was an interesting experience, with some minutes of good music, it was not fully convincing. After that opera, Sánchez-Verdú premiered also Aura in Madrid, and there is a project to wrote another piece, Atlas-Utopia, for the Szalburg Biennale in 2013.

We can hear complete in youtube his chamber opera GRAMMA, written in the year 2006, and performed in Vienna, in the Fall of 2011.

[Schigolch]

Luciano Pavarotti's daughter, Cristina, and the Spanish composer Alberto García Demestres, worked together in the chamber opera Il sequestro, telling a strange tale about a terrorist cell with three female members, and television. It was staged in Modena, a couple of years ago.


Il sequestro

[Schigolch]

The Secret Agent is an opera from Michael Dellaira, resident composer of the Center for Contemporary Opera. It's based on the Conrad's novel by the same title, and we can watch it complete in youtube:

[Schigolch]

We can hear complete in youtube Einstein, composed by Paul Dessau with a libretto by Karl Mickel, and premiered in Berlin, back in 1974:

Paul Dessau - Einstein - Act 1 - #1 Es ist was Entsetzliches passiert

[Schigolch]

Towards the end of the 20th century, 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.

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.

[Almaviva]

At some point I should take a week or two of "staycation" and explore these contemporary operas complete on YouTube you've been posting. I wish the day had 30 hours... I'm really falling behind in my opera watching.

[Schigolch]

Satyricon is a chamber opera by Bruno Maderna, premiered in 1976, with a libretto by Maderna himself, in English, French, German and Latin.

Based on Petronio, it's written for four voices (soprano, mezzo, tenor, bass), a 42 instrument orchestra and pre-recorded tape. A kind of 'anti-opera', this 'theater of the imagination' is divided into 17 numbers. The piece is complete in youtube:

[Schigolch]

Conceived as a kind of prequel to Puccini's Suor Angelica, Purchase Opera commissioned this piece, Confession, to young French composer Raphaël Lucas:

[Schigolch]

From the American composer Lee Hoiby, that died recently, in 2011, we can hear a fragment of his opera The Tempest, based in Shakespeare:

[Schigolch]

I watched Wolfgang Mitterer's opera Massacre, about the Huguenots killings in France, two years ago.

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 just not there. Mr. Mitterer's considerable talent as a composer, was not extended to his work as librettist. Anyhow, it's nice listening to this opera:

[Schigolch]

Some of you will remember Fatih Akin's movie, Head on (Gegen die Wand), premiered some years ago.

An operatic version was forthcoming. Composer Ludger Vollmer wrote the piece, and the premiere was in Bremen, the year 2008. Since then the opera has won a Prize, and there have been further performances in other German theaters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7w7umza_tI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEeFhsW6uGo