Contemporary opera

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.

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:

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 .

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:

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

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

Click to expand...

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:

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.