Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Notes on Viardot, a work in progress.
Sunday, March 19, 2023
Dinner 4 3 (full info)
Last month, my short opera DINNER 4 3 got its first live performance in the US. Written with Deborah Brevoort, the show is part of the Tales from a Safe Distance project of the Decameron Opera Coalition. You can stream the opera on idagio, but it's behind a paywall. The original audio (and it is a really nice recording! of the version with two tenors) is available on soundcloud.
The cast for this under fifteen minute opera is: Wife (M or S), Husband (T or B), and Lover (T). The Husband Versions have some different vocal lines. It is available with piano accompaniment, or with the original orchestration--violin, bassoon, piano, with optional sax and drums at the end. The plot, which is loosely based on a story from the Decameron, is simple--wife and husband have made arrangements to have a fling, with the same man.
Here's the direct download link for the perusal score (baritone version).
Here is the archival video of the Fargo Moorhead opera production in February 2023.
Friday, March 10, 2023
David Hamilton
David Hamilton, my colleague, tenor, teacher, and Artistic and General Director of Fargo-Moorhead Opera, is retiring. I am so grateful to him for our many collaborations! He sang in productions in my Opera Memphis days and brought me to Fargo several times to conduct. Even more important for me, he worked with me consistently as a composer. Back in 2007, he put together a group to tour CORPS OF DISCOVERY, my opera with librettist Hugh Moffatt about the Lewis and Clark expedition. I distinctly remember a traffic jam in the Theodore Roosevelt national park caused by buffalo and a host on the Missouri river who suggested I sleep under the stars that night by the river. (I took his suggestion.)
More recently, FM Opera has done a couple of productions of SPEED DATING TONIGHT! and commissioned some new dates, including this one which is lifted from David's life.