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 OL 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/xlc...-annonce_music

[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:

[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:

[CountessAdele]

I'm glad you suggested Laurent Petitgirard because unfortunately I can't get into the more 'avant-garde' operas as much as I want to, and I do try. It just isn't for me.

[Schigolch]

Not everything is for everyone!, don't worry.

Avant-garde opera is more of an acquired taste for many of us. Perhaps you will like it in the future, perhaps not. But this is not a problem, there are many 'non avant-garde' contemporary operas you can enjoy today.

Have you read the interesting novel Bliss, by Peter Carey?. Or watched the movie?.

Australian composer Brett Dean decided to take the story to the operatic stage, and was able to premiere the piece in Sydney last year.

An executive suffers a stroke, and is clinically dead, but the doctors are able to revive him. After this extreme situation, he realize his wife is cheating him with his best friend, his son is into selling drugs and her daughter into consuming them. On his side, he fells desperately in love with a hippy whore named Honey...

This is an intelligent, funny and well written opera.




Bliss - Beginning

[StLukesGuildOhio]

I'm glad you suggested Laurent Petitgirard because unfortunately I can't get into the more 'avant-garde' operas as much as I want to, and I do try. It just isn't for me.

I'm quite interested in Laurent Petitgirard as well. While I quite enjoy any number of musical works that fall under the more experimental or avant garde rubric... including some operas, I have long despised the notion that the extremes of artistic experimentation represent the only art of any merit. The term avant garde is surely something of a misnomer as it denotes the body of troops heading in advance of the army as a whole... and yet none of us knows where music (as a whole) is heading.

One more experimental... and yet still exquisitely beautiful opera that I have come across is Pascal Dusapin's Perelà, Uomo di Fumo:



The entire opera is actually available (right now) on YouTube (although it is just the sound... no video):

[Schigolch]

I've watched Perelà, "Uomo di fumo" live in the theater, in Paris. I'm not very fond of the opera, though there are some interesting passages, it's perhaps too long (just over two hours) for the musical ideas of Dusapin at the time.

The biggest success of Dusapin so far is perhaps Faustus, the Last Night, with a published DVD:



Claimed to be based on Marlowe, it has been presented also in USA, at the Spoleto Festival. This doesn't follow a typical, lineal storyline, but is rather a debate between Faust and Mephistopheles about divinity and the creation of the world. Again, this piece could be somewhat challenging for people loving traditional opera, but it is rewarding, both the music and the vocal writing.

[Schigolch]

Some years ago, I watched Graciane Finzi's Le dernier Jour de Socrate at the Opéra Comique, in Paris. Recently she has premiered another opera, 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

Le matin

[Schigolch]

Some members will be familiar with Stephen Schwartz's work as musical and soundtrack composer.

After several years in the making, the first opera by Schwartz, Séance On A Wet Afternoon, based on a 1960s movie, was premiered at the NYCO.

Schwartz reflects on how Opera can be a living and thriving Art in the US:

Of course, Schwartz's early collaborator, Leonard Bernstein, comes immediately to mind when thinking about bridging the Broadway–opera divide — specifically Bernstein's works Trouble in Tahiti and A Quiet Place, which just enjoyed a much lauded City Opera revival. "Lenny was more of a classical composer to begin with," points out Schwartz. "If anything, he crossed over to Broadway from classical music, not the other way around." Schwartz pauses. "Opera is undergoing a resurgence just now that I think Lenny would like. Composers from other realms, like Rufus Wainwright, are writing operas. Rufus has an opera, Prima Donna, that I know City Opera is interested in doing. [The company has announced that it will mount the opera in spring 2012.] Musical-theater composers like Michael John LaChiusa and Ricky Ian Gordon straddle both worlds. Do I think this is a good thing? I do. The idea of opera as a museum piece is not a particularly good situation. There was a time when opera could only be either a museum piece or 'contemporary' and obtuse. If it was simply accessible to an audience, then it was viewed as cheap or not worthy — it needed to be difficult, and the audience had to struggle with it, to be good. I don't think that's particularly helpful either. But that fact is changing."

[myaskovsky2002]

I'm glad you suggested Laurent Petitgirard because unfortunately I can't get into the more 'avant-garde' operas as much as I want to, and I do try. It just isn't for me.

I'm quite interested in Laurent Petitgirard as well. While I quite enjoy any number of musical works that fall under the more experimental or avant garde rubric... including some operas, I have long despised the notion that the extremes of artistic experimentation represent the only art of any merit. The term avant garde is surely something of a misnomer as it denotes the body of troops heading in advance of the army as a whole... and yet none of us knows where music (as a whole) is heading.

One more experimental... and yet still exquisitely beautiful opera that I have come across is Pascal Dusapin's Perelà, Uomo di Fumo:



The entire opera is actually available (right now) on YouTube (although it is just the sound... no video):

Thank you for the tip! I've just bought Guru. It is lovely.

Martin

[Schigolch]

Robert Ashley is 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, includes 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 stuff is mainly for lovers of avant-garde opera, but specially recommended for them:

Robert Ashley - Atalanta

If someone wants to get more information on Ashley, this documentary by movie director Peter Greenaway is available on youtube:

[Schigolch]

I understand Saariaho's L'Amour de Loin is very highly rated for some members, and I do share this feeling.

However, I haven't read other impressions about the rest of her operas: Adriana Mater, La Passion de Simone and Émilie.

Though I like the three of them, it's Émilie, premiered in Lyon last year, that seemed to me the most worthy companion to L'Amour. The libretto is again by Amin Maalouf, and the opera is based on the life of Marquise Émilie du Châtelet, a mistress of Voltaire, and one of the first women to acquire a reputation as a scientist.

The great Finnish soprano Karita Mattila sung Émilie. The radio version is easy to come by, and it's worth a hearing. This is the beginning:

Émilie - Saariaho

[Schigolch]

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

As many other composers today, Parra tries to find new musical possibilities, investigating in the physical reality of sound. 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 existence of extra dimensions in the Universe, and is based on some theories from Harvard 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, though it did not left any lasting impression in my mind. But it's worth a hearing.

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



and the beginning of Hypermusic Prologue:



Parra - Hypermusic Prologue

[Schigolch]

Alois Hába was a Czech composer, one of the fathers of microtonal compositions, especially using the quarter tone scale.

He was born in Moravia, into a musical family; and he was very much impressed by the Moravian folklore and the freedom of their performers. He studied in Berlin with Schreker, Schönberg and Busoni, and finally worked as professor at the Prague Conservatory.

His best known work is the opera Matka (Mother), which received its premiere at Munich, in 1931. Hába himself wrote the libretto, a simple story about a large farmer family, and the adjustments they need to make, due to the death of the first wife, and the marriage to a second, and younger girl.

It makes for an interesting hearing, even if for some listeners the music could be a little strange at the beginning, due to the quarter tone scale.



Fragment

[Schigolch]

X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, was written by Anthony Davis, based on the power struggle between Malcolm X and his mentor, Elijah Muhammad, for control of the Black Muslim movement. It was premiered at the NYCO, in 1986.

This is the overture:

X, overture