NEW COMMISSION OPPORTUNITY
i The Lord of Cries
The Lord of Cries An new opera by John
Corigliano with libretto by Mark Adamo
The Lord of Cries
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Bacchus (c. 1595) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610); Uffizi Gallery, Florence
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Notes for a new opera on ‘The Bacchae,’ by Mark Adamo
Scapegoating: it is always with us. Whether it targets actual goats, as in Leviticus, or merely undocumented immigrants, as in today’s America, the pattern persists. The anti-gay bishop dragged, blinking, from his boyfriend’s bed; the attorney targeting all his city’s prostitutes save those he frequents; the puppet of foreign interests railing against the ‘rigged’ process that elected him—what have they in common? Only this: the need to blame and attack others for that which we can neither resist, nor accept, in ourselves. The most profound dramatic exploration of this theme, and the one best suited to the opera house, remains The Bacchae of Euripides, written 1600 years ago. Its plot is simple. A violent, ecstatic, foreign god inflames the women of Thebes and threatens to recruit them permanently unless their city accepts his divinity. The city’s leader is, secretly, as curious and violent and desiring as the god is. But he cannot admit this. He denies the god, as a criminal, an alien, a fraud. The god gives the leader three chances to acknowledge his birthright. The leader refuses; once, twice, three times. After the third refusal, the god seduces the leader himself, and exacts upon him a terrible revenge.
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On Ecstasy and Ruin
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2 Classics don’t age. That’s what makes them classics. But—while the theme of The Bacchae is timeless—the play’s enmeshment in arcane high-Athenian religion can mask its relevance to a contemporary audience. I wanted to tell this story in an idiom clearly intelligible to modern listeners; The Bacchae remains a modern play. But I didn’t want to locate it in so flatly contemporary a setting that the play’s uncanniness would be lost. And then I remembered Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is to The Bacchae what Nahum Tate’s King Lear is to Shakespeare’s: that is, the same story, with only a falsely happy ending distinguishing the compromised copy from the terrifying original. Euripides admitted what Stoker repressed: the monster isn’t on the mountain, or in the city, but in the mirror. (Which is why the novel belongs to the history of horror, whereas the play belongs to History, period.) I concluded that mapping Dracula onto the The Bacchae could accomplish two things. By using only what the book shared with the play, I could strip away all the unnecessary Gothic kitsch of the novel. (This may be the first adaptation of the Stoker to feature not one coffin, corpse, or crucifix, nor a single drop of blood; indeed, the word vampire appears not at all in the libretto.) And because the Stoker’s Victorian England is more familiar to today’s listeners than Euripides’ Thebes is, the opera could use the novel to make the themes of The Bacchae clearer than even the original play could. When researching another opera libretto I adapted from Greek sources, I came across the quote that ‘all classicism is neo-classicism’; meaning that, from earliest times, the past, in the theatre, has always been a mask we wear to speak more clearly about the present. I can’t summarize more succinctly the method, and the goal, of The Lord of Cries.
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A tragic opera Adapted from ‘The Bacchae’ of Euripides, with elements from the novel ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker
Lead commissioner: Santa Fe Opera World premiere: July 2021, Santa Fe Opera Duration: 2 hour 15 minutes Orchestration: 3333/4431/timp.4 perc/hp.pf.synth/str
Cast Lucy (Westerna) Harker, soprano
Married to Jonathan Harker, but in love with John Seward.
Agave, soprano Autonoe, soprano Sisters/attendants of Dracula/Dionysus Ino, soprano Dracula (or ‘The Stranger’), countertenor
The god Dionysus, assuming a persona Londoners can understand.
Jonathan Harker, tenor Married to Lucy Dr. John Seward, high baritone Son of the mayor of London and leader
Dr. Abraham van Helsing, bass-baritone
of Carfax Asylum Advisor to John Seward
Captain, bass Of the schooner Semele Two Sailors, tenor/bass (from chorus) Correspondent, actor For The Westminster Gazette Chorus, SATB Observers from outside the story. Also
citizens of London, Guards, attendants, madwomen.
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John Corigliano
John Corigliano continues to add to one of the richest, most unusual, and most widely celebrated bodies of work any composer has created over the last forty years. Corigliano’s scores, now numbering over one hundred, have won him the Pulitzer Prize, the Grawemeyer Award, five Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and have been performed and recorded by many of the most prominent orchestras, soloists, and chamber musicians in the world. The Metropolitan Opera’s first commission in three decades resulted in Corigliano’s first opera The Ghosts of Versailles in 1991. The opera, which counterposes the fiction of Mozart and Beaumarchais with the Reign of Terror, succeeded brilliantly with both critics and audiences. The season it opened, Corigliano was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and Musical America named him its first-ever Composer of the Year. Corigliano’s music is performed widely on North American and international stages. In recent years his music has been featured in performances throughout the US and Europe, Caracas, Australia, China, Russia, Tokyo, Krakow, Toronto, Bosnia, and beyond. Corigliano serves on the composition faculty at the Juilliard School of Music and holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Music at Lehman College, City University of New York
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Librettist
Mark Adamo first attracted national attention with the libretto and score to his uniquely successful début opera, Little Women, after the novel by Louisa May Alcott. Introduced by Houston Grand Opera in 1998 and revived there in 2000, Little Women has since enjoyed over sixty national and international engagements in cities ranging from New York to Minneapolis, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Adelaide, Mexico City, Tokyo, and the recent European premiere in Belgium (2009) and Canadian premiere in 2010 in Calgary and Banff. It is one of the most frequently performed North American operas of the last decade. Little Women was followed by three further full-length operas: Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess (2004, Houston Grand Opera); The Gospel of Mary Magdalene (2013, San Francisco Opera); and Becoming Santa Claus (2015, Dallas Opera)—each with a libretto by the composer. Composer-in-residence at New York City Opera from 2001 through 2006, where he led the VOX: Showcasing American Composers program, Adamo also served as Master Artist at Atlantic Center for the Arts in May 2003. Since 2007 he has served as the principal teacher of American Lyric Theatre’s ComposerLibrettist Development Program in New York, in which he coaches teams of composers and librettists in developing their work for the stage. Adamo began his education in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where, as a freshman in the Dramatic Writing Program, he received the Paulette Goddard Remarque Scholarship for outstanding undergraduate achievement in playwriting. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Music Degree cum laude in composition in 1990 from the Catholic University of America.
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‘The Ghosts of Versailles is one of
the best syntheses of the grand opera tradition and contemporary music that anyone’s managed to come up with – but whose sensibility, sound, and sophistication are firmly rooted in the present.’ Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, 2011
‘Some sort of masterpiece... Mr. Adamo’s libretto, built in
rhymed couplets of seemingly effortless naturalness... proceeds with amazing sureness...’ John Rockwell on Mark Adamo’s Little Women, The New York Times, 2003
‘The Ghosts of Versailles changed
the dynamic of opera in this country. Suddenly it became desirable to commission contemporary work.’ Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 2015
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The Santa Fe Opera’s mission is to advance the operatic art form by presenting ensemble performances of the highest quality in a unique setting with a varied repertoire of new, rarely performed, and standard works; to ensure the excellence of opera’s future through apprentice programs for singers, technicians, and arts administrators; and to foster and enrich an understanding and appreciation of opera among a diverse public. More than 2,100 performances of 172 different operas have been given here, including 16 world premieres and 45 American premieres. The Santa Fe Opera is proud to play a major role in the commissioning and producing of new American opera. The company is led by General Director Robert K. Meya, with additional leadership from Artistic Director Alexander Neef and Music Director Harry Bicket.
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The Santa Fe Opera From the unlikeliest of beginnings, the Santa Fe Opera has come to be recognized as one of the world’s leading opera festivals. Every summer since 1957, music lovers have been drawn to the magnificent open-air theater harmoniously situated in the mountainous landscape of northern New Mexico. The perfect marriage of art and nature leaves an indelible impression on all who visit.
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