Zachary Borovay (Projection Design)
Mr. Borovay's projection credits include A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop (Primary Stages, NYC), JAP: The Princesses of Comedy (Florida), The Music of Bernard Hermann (London), Behind the Limelight (NY Stage & Film), Pilobolus Dance Theater's BUGonia (National Tour), and Dead Man Walking (NYC). Additional credit include: Wendall Harrington: Grey Gardens (Playwrights Horizons), The 60's Project (NYC), In My Life (Broadway) The Good Body (Broadway), Anna Karrenina (Royal Danish Ballet), and concert tours for Simon & Garfunkle and John Fogerty; With Batwin + Robin: Golda's Balcony (Broadway), Sinatra (Radio City), Radiant Baby (Public Theater), Harlem Song (Apollo Theater), and Tommy Tune's Paparazzi; With David Gallo: Radio Golf (Yale Rep), Dance of the Vampires (Broadway), and Thoroughly Modern Millie (Broadway). Upcoming projects include Stage Entertainment's The Wiz in Holland. Visit him on the web at www.borovay.com.

Alison d'Amato (Rehearsal Pianist)
Praised as "supple" by The New York Times and "an expert pianist" by The Boston Globe, Alison d'Amato has built a reputation as a dynamic and versatile musician. She is equally committed to solo, vocal, and instrumental music, and is involved in a wide variety of innovative projects. Ms. d'Amato is Co-Artistic Director of Florestan Recital Project, an enterprising song organization, and she is committed to working with musicians to create new collaborations in colleges and conservatories. A prolific recitalist, Ms d'Amato enjoys partnerships with many of today's most exciting performers, and is sought after as a pianist and artistic advisor for recitals across North America. She has also worked with many of today's leading composers. In 2002, she received the Grace B. Jackson Prize from Tanglewood acknowledging her "extraordinary commitment of talent and energy." This fall, Ms. d'Amato will begin a new Visiting Professor position at University at Buffalo.

Matthew DiBattista (Louis Ironson)
A recently returned Boston native, Tenor Matthew DiBattista will soon appear as Goro in Madame Butterfly under the baton of Keith Lockhart with Boston Lyric Opera, as well as Jack O'Brien in The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with Opera Boston. Last season Mr. DiBattista appeared as soloist with the Boston Classical Orchestra, Coro Allegro, the Masterworks Chorale and performed as George Hancock in Margaret Garner at Michigan Opera. Singing opposite his wife, Megan Tillmann, Mr. DiBattista was Martin in The Tender Land at Opera Omaha, Rinuccio in Dorothy Danner's production of Gianni Schicchi at Skylight Opera, and Nanki-Poo in The Mikado at Mississippi Opera. Career highlights include the role of Wesley in the Emmy-nominated Central Park (Glimmerglass Opera) on PBS' Great Performances, and Hyacinth from Apollo at the "100 Days Festival" in Lisbon, Portugal, written for Mr. DiBattista and recorded on Vienna Modern Masters.

Ja-Naé Duane (Hannah Pitt)
Mezzo-soprano Ja-Naé Duane most recently was praised by The Boston Herald for her portrayal of Regina Giddens in Blitzstein's Regina. "Steely, forceful, Ja-Naé Duane commanded the stage." A natural "go-getter," this Metropolitan Opera Council Audition Regional Semi-Finalist is equally comfortable performing opera, jazz, and musical theater. She has performed in such places as the White House, Mariinsky Theatre, Lincoln Center, Boston's Esplanade, Jordan Hall, Woolsey Hall and the Fleet Center. Ms. Duane's recent engagements include Dorces Hoar in The Crucible (Chautauqua Opera), Dowager Duchess in La Vie Parisienne, Ezda in L'Etoile, and Susanna Walcott in The Crucible (Opera Boston), Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto and the Third Lady in The Magic Flute (both with Granite State Opera), Jo in Little Women and the title role in Regina (both with Boston Opera Project), Carmen in La Tragédie de Carmen, Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Baba in The Medium, all with the Boston University Opera Institute. In May 2003, she performed in concert in St. Petersburg, Russia, in collaboration with young artists from the Mariinsky Opera. She was also featured on Joseph Summer's What a Piece of Work is Man. In addition to her busy performance schedule, Ja-Naé is much sought-after as a public speaker, and is President/Founder of Wild Women Entrepreneurs, an innovative networking group for women. She has won the NATS competition, is a recipient of "Who's Who Among American College Students," Carnegie Mellon's Award for "Graduate Vocal Excellence" and the "GUSH Award."

Benjamin Emerson (Sound Designer)

Amanda Forsythe (The Angel)
Soprano Amanda Forsythe has been praised by Opera News for her "pure tone," "wonderful agility and silvery top notes." She has been a winner of the George London Foundation Awards, and in January 2006 was sponsored by them in her New York recital debut. She has also received prizes from the Liederkranz Foundation and the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg Foundation. Ms. Forsythe sang in Purcell's Fairy Queen with Boston Baroque in March 2006; with that ensemble, she has also performed the roles of Bastienne in Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne, Oberto in Handel's Alcina, Lieschen in Bach's Coffee Cantata, and Serpina in Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona. Recent debuts include Young Margarita in Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cendrillon in Viardot's Cendrillon with the Caramoor Festival, Orff's Carmina Burana with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Mozart's Mass in C Minor with The Handel and Haydn Society, and Mozart's Exultate Jubilate/ Vivaldi's Nulla in Mundo pax sincera with the Omaha Symphony. Upcoming projects include premieres by Elena Ruher and John Austin, a recording project with the composer Ken Sullivan, return engagements with Boston Baroque, The Providence Singers, and the Omaha Symhony, as well as debuts with Apollo's Fire and The Boston Early Music Festival.

Anne Harley (Harper Pitt)
Soprano Anne Harley is an avid performer of contemporary and early music, appearing across North America and Europe, with ensembles such as Opera Boston, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the American Repertory Theatre, the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and Boston Camerata. In 1999, she débuted in Europe at Amsterdam's Conzertgebouw as the lead in Handel's Acis and Galatea, and has since toured in Europe several times. The London Times praised her performance in Monteverdi's Vespers with the Handel & Haydn Society as "sublimely sensual" and The Boston Globe lauded her performance as Madame Mao in BMOP and Opera Boston's 2004 production of Nixon in China: "Soprano Anne Harley offers a spitfire Mme. Mao, machine-gunning high D's." The ground-breaking early Russian music ensemble, TALISMAN, which she co-founded with Oleg Timofeyev in 2000, was featured at the Boston Early Music Festival 2005 with the program "A Tribute to Stesha: Russian Gyspy Diva." Gramophone dubbed her voice "sumptuous" in their rave review of TALISMAN's first CD, Music of Russian Princesses from the Court of Catherine the Great. She has taught at the Longy School of Music and Boston University, and several years ago founded The Voice Institute, an interdisciplinary institute for voice training, which hosts workshops in extended voice performance training and voicework for actors. This spring, she was invited to join an international voicework exchange at the Moscow Art Theatre and San Diego State University. In the fall, she will join the music faculty of University of North Carolina at Charlotte as Assistant Professor.

Karin Hartmann Ludlow (Stage Manager)
Ms. Ludlow recently stage managed Opera Boston's L'Etoile this season. She made her Boston stage management debut at Boston Lyric Opera with Maria Stuarda. She has stage managed productions for many area companies, including The Nora Theatre Company, five seasons as Production Stage Manager at The New Repertory Theatre and ten seasons as Production Stage Manager at Lake George Opera. Favorite credits include three seasons for Sarasota Opera where she stage managed Tosca, Die Fledermaus, The Flying Dutchman, and various works of the Verdi cycle; Boston Lyric Opera's Carmen on the Common; and I Hate Hamlet at the New Rep Theatre.

Steven Maler (Stage Director)

Thomas Meglioranza (Prior Walter)
Baritone Thomas Meglioranza is in high demand for his singing of new music, Lieder, Baroque music, opera and the American songbook. He was a winner of the 2005 Naumburg Competition and the 2002 Concert Artists Guild Competition. This season he performed on Broadway with Sting and Joshua Bell in Twin Spirits: the Story of Robert and Clara Schumann, helping to raise over $150,000 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. He also made his debut with MET Chamber Ensemble singing the music of Milton Babbitt. Mr. Meglioranza portrayed Chou En-lai in BMOP and Opera Boston's production of Nixon in China and the title role in Don Giovanni with the Aspen Opera Theater. A regular soloist with the New York Collegium, he has also appeared with such orchestras as Orpheus, Philharmonia Baroque, and the National Symphony. Described by the New Yorker as an "immaculate and inventive recitalist", he is the Official Lieder Singer for the 2006 American Pianists Association Competition this year in Indianapolis, and will record an all-Schubert CD in 2007.

Nikolas Sean-Paul Nackley (Joseph Pitt)
Baritone Nikolas Sean-Paul Nackley has been acclaimed by the Boston media for his "rich, ringing tone and robust stage presence." Mr. Nackley's young career has seen him featured on both the opera and concert stages in New England as well as in California and abroad. Most recently he essayed the roles of Assan in The Consul and Alfred in La Vie Parisiene, both with Opera Boston. A proponent of new music, he was also recently heard as the Postman in Hoiby's The Scarf with the New England Chamber Opera Series as well as the world premiere of Roger Rudenstein's Grace with the orchestra of Emanuel Music, with whom he also performed the title role in Don Giovanni under Craig Smith. Other recent credits include Tom/John in the Face on the Barroom Floor, Commander Harbison in South Pacific, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Mercurio in La Calisto, Claudio in Beatrice and Benedict, and Dr. Pangloss in Candide. Opera engagements include various New England venues such as Granite State Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, and Opera Aperta. His concert appearances range from Bach to Berio and include solos in Bach'sSt. Matthew's Passion and Monteverdi's Vespers with the Carmel Bach Festival, Bach's St. John's Passion with the New Hampshire Master Chorale, Duruflé, Fauré, Mozart, and Michael Haydn Requiems with the Dartmouth Handel Society, Fine Arts Chorale, and Heritage Chorale as well as numerous performances of Handel's Messiah with orchestras throughout New England. This past season he was a featured soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society at Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall. In the past two years he was a semi-finalist in the Oratorio Society of New York competition as well as a finalist in the American Bach Society solo competition. Mr. Nackley recently recieved his Masters of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music.

Christopher Ostrom (Lighting Designer)
As Resident Lighting Designer since 1997, Christopher has designed over 30 productions for Opera Boston, including recent productions of Lucrezia Borgia, L'etoile, The Crucible, Alceste, Nixon in China, and the inaugural Opera Unlimited in 2003. Other credits include: The Crucible and Stiffelio (Chautauqua Opera), The Crucible (Mobile Opera), Tosca (Opera Providence), Albert Herring (New England Conservatory), Kismet and The Wild Party (Boston Conservatory), Permanent Collection (New Rep), Winter Wheat (Cape Rep), and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, McReele, Pugilist Specialist, and Bug (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater). Additionally he has created lighting for The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Worcester Foothills Theater, Provincetown Repertory Theater, Snappy Dance Theater, Revels, and The Walnut Hill School.

Drew Poling (Roy Cohn)
A performer of astonishing versatility, baritone Drew Poling appears with equal ease on opera, concert, and recital stages as well as those of the musical theater. His opera roles draw on repertoire from all musical periods from Aenaes to Henry Kissinger, including Count Almaviva, Dandini, Rossini's Figaro, Hérode, Gianni Schicchi, and Albert Herring's Mr. Gedge. An avid performer of new music he has sung the American debuts of several major new works. In 1999, he debuted George Benjamin's Sometime Voices at Tanglewood, in a performance The Boston Globe called "unspeakably beautiful." He made his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut in Oliver Knussen's Where the Wild Things Are, with Oliver Knudsen conducting, and was featured to critical acclaim as the First Lion in Lucas Foss's Griffelkin with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Mr. Poling reprised his role on the world premiere recording of the work recently released on the Chandos label. As a recitalist, Mr. Poling has appeared internationally in the UK, Spain, and Amsterdam with pianists Darleen Lawrence and Jeffrey Arnold. In 1998, he was invited by the Chinese Ministry of Culture to perform opera and lieder in Beijing and Shanghai. Mr. Poling most recently appeared in Boston in the Florestan Recital Projects "FrancisFest," and a marathon concert series presenting the complete songs of Francis Poulenc. Mr. Poling is a resident of New York City where he is a member of the Gotham Knights Rugby Football Club.

Clint Ramos (Set and Costume Designer)
Mr. Ramos designs scenery and costumes for Opera, Theater, Dance and Film. Recent credits include Un Ballo In Maschera and La Traviata (Noorlaand Operan, Stockholm) and Noli Me Tangere (Cultural Center of the Philippines). He has also designed for Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Juilliard, Fokoperan (Stockholm), Rijksteatern, Ballet Stuttgarter and others. Associate design credits include Mother Of Us All (New York City Opera), Biblical Stories (De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam), Tales of Hoffmann (Virginia Opera). Theater: NY Public Theater, Culture Project, Foundry Theater, Mint Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, Ma-Yi Theatre, New York Theater Workshop, Speakeasy Stage, and seven seasons with Boston's Commonwealth Shakepeare Co. Upcoming: Taming of the Shrew (CSC), Here Lies Love by David Byrne (B.A.M. Next Wave 2007). Film: Passion of Helen (History Channel), The Lost Item (Sundance '04), Bleach (Sundance '00), Kim Chi, Psychopathia Sexualis. Television: Oxygen, MTV, Lifetime, VH1, History Channel and A&E. MFA in Design from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Gil Rose (Conductor)
Gil Rose is recognized as one of a new generation of American conductors shaping the future of classical music. His orchestral and operatic performances and recordings have been recognized by critics and fans alike. In 1996, Gil Rose founded the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), one of the few professional orchestras in the country dedicated exclusively to performing music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Under his leadership, BMOP's unique programming and high performance standards have attracted critical acclaim and earned the ensemble eight ASCAP awards for adventurous programming and the 2006 John S. Edwards Award for Srtongest Commitment to American Music. Since 2003, Mr. Rose has also served as Music Director of Opera Boston, an innovative opera company in residence at the historic Cutler Majestic Theatre. Opera Boston has been named "Best in Boston" by The Boston Globe for seven consecutive years. As a guest conductor, Mr. Rose made his Tanglewood Festival debut in 2002 conducting Lukas Foss' opera Griffelkin, a work he recorded for Chandos and released in 2003 to rave reviews. Last year he made his guest debut with the Netherlands Radio Symphony conducting three world premieres as part of the Holland Festival. He has led the American Composers Orchestra, the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra in the Czech Republic, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra of the Ukraine and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, as well as recent appearances with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players including a performance with this renowned ensemble at the Seiji Ozawa Hall 10th Anniversary Concert. At the 2003 Opera Unlimited festival, Mr. Rose led the world premiere of Elena Ruehr's Toussaint Before the Spirits, the New England premiere of Thomas Ades' Powder Her Face, as well as the revival of John Harbison's A Full Moon in March with "skilled and committed direction" according to The Boston Globe. Also recognized for interpreting standard operatic repertoire, Mr. Rose's production of Verdi's Luisa Miller was hailed as an important operatic event. The Boston Phoenix said "Gil Rose proved himself a superb Verdian, thinking out both the subtle details of small phrases and the sweep of entire scenes." The Boston Globe recognized the production as "the best Verdi production presented in Boston in the last 15 years." Mr. Rose's recording of Samuel Barber's Vanessa for Naxos (the first recording since the premiere) has been hailed as an important achievement by the international press. He was recently chosen as the "Best Conductor of 2003" by Opera Online. Also recognized for his recordings of American orchestral repertoire, Gil Rose's discography includes world premiere recordings of music by George Rochberg, Eric Chasalow, Tod Machover, Lee Hyla, Reza Vali, Steven Mackey, Bernard Rands, Lukas Foss, and Stephen Paulus. Upcoming releases include works by composers Michael Gandolfi, John Harbison, Elena Ruehr, and Gunther Schuller. His world premiere recording of the complete orchestral music of Arthur Berger was chosen by The New York Times as one of the "Best CD's of 2003."

Matthew Truss (Belize)
Countertenor Matthew Truss, a native of Indianapolis, Indiana makes his debut with Opera Boston and Boston Modern Orchestra Project as Belize in Opera Unlimited 2006s production of Angels in America. This past February, Mr. Truss was the recipient of the 2006 John Moriarty Encouragement Award in the New England Region Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Also in February, Mr. Truss sang the role of Oberon, in the Boston Conservatory Opera's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream by Benjamin Britten, directed by Sanford Sylvan and conducted by Frederico Cortese. Mr. Truss recently received his undergraduate degree from The Boston Conservatory with an emphasis in opera performance. While there, he made his operatic debut in the title role of Akhnaten by Philip Glass, directed by Sanford Sylvan and conducted by Beatrice Affron. Mr. Truss has been privileged to perform in master classes with world-renowned guests like Paul Sperry, Daniel Helfgot, Lisa Saffer and Christine Brewer. Mr. Truss studies with Victor Jannett.

Back to Top

Synopsis

Part I

Scene 1 We meet Louis, unable to admit his homosexuality to his family, and his AIDS-stricken lover, Prior, who has just discovered his first lesion caused by AIDS ("The wine-dark kiss of the angel of death").

Scene 2 (split scene) Roy Cohn, a famous and sleazy prosecutor offers Joe a job at the Justice Department. But Joe, acting according to his Mormon principles refuses ("I have to ask my wife"). Meanwhile, Harper, a Valium addict, waiting for her husband Joe to arrive, has an imaginary meeting with Mr. Lies, who offers to take her to a destination of her choice ("Antarctica…I want to see the hole in the ozone").

Scene 3 Harper (still under the influence of Valium) and Prior meet in the course of a shared hallucination ("You can see things…"). Harper correctly guesses that Prior has AIDS and Prior tells her that her husband is gay.

Scene 4 Just as Louis seems intent on ending their relationship, Prior succumbs to a fever attack, during which he hears the voice of an Angel ("Who is that? - Prepare the way!").

Scene 5 ("Joe, I have something to ask you.") Joe, back at last, refuses to pay heed to Harper, claiming that she takes too many pills. He also denies his homosexuality.

Scene 6 Roy refuses to admit that he has AIDS and gives Henry, his doctor, the official version: he has liver cancer ("Homosexuals are men…who have zero clout. Does this sound like me, Henry?"). Ethel Rosenberg, sent to the electric chair by Roy's trial prowess, makes her first appearance ("Oh god." "He doesn't hear you, I guess").

Scene 7 (split scene) Louis, terrified by Prior's suffering, leaves the hospital in a hurry. Prior talks to Belize (a gay nurse) about the Voice, which he has heard again ("A marvelous work and a wonder we undertake"). Meanwhile, Joe calls his mother from a payphone ("Momma. I'm a homosexual"). But his admission falls on deaf ears.

Scene 8 Joe walks closer to Louis, who is sitting on a bench. In spite of Joe's hesitation ("I'm just observing…"), they go back to Louis' apartment.

Scene 9 Hannah, Joe's mother, arrives from Salt Lake City to be with her son. A somewhat deranged homeless woman after a ranting monologue ("Have you read the prophecies of Nostradamus?"), tells her how to get to the Mormon Visitor's Center.

Scene 1o (split scene) Louis admits to Prior that he is afraid of AIDS, and he fearfully leaves the room to Prior's rebuke ("'Love…love!' Do you know what love means?"). Meanwhile, Joe tries to justify his nocturnal Central Park promenades. But Harper prefers the refuge of her dreams ("This is so scary, I want this to stop") and she calls out for Mr. Lies, who takes her away.

Scene 11 Prior, in the grips of a nightmare, sees a ghost of ancestors appear, and then another one ("Are we having a convention?" "We have been sent to declare her fabulous incipience"), both of whom vanish as the Angel appears.

Part II

Scene 12 The messenger Angel is floating above Prior's bed. Prior, sexually aroused by his vision, refuses to be the Prophet that the Angel makes him out to be ("Open the suitcase. Remove the Book").

Scene 13 (split scene) Joe has his first homosexual experience with Louis, who feels guilty at abandoning Prior ("You don't have these terrible, terrible, horrible dreams") while Joe receives a hallucinatory visit from Harper. Meanwhile, Hannah tries in vain to wrest Harper from her lethargy ("I watched TV…It was a show about Antarctica"). And at the same time, Belize asserts that angels don't exist, even though Prior was totally disturbed by this visitation ("Maybe the world has driven God from Heaven").

Scene 14 Roy is suffering, and vents his racist and homophobic prejudices on Belize, who leaves the room after tending to Roy. Ethel Rosenberg reappears ("I decided to come here so I could see could I forgive you"). Roy, who is dying, gets her to sing a nursery rhyme.

Scene 15 The Woman from the Bronx, coming for the free movies, enters the Mormon Visitor's Center. Joe makes a failed attempt to visit his mother ("Nothing surprising"). Prior, feverish, meets Hannah, who offers him the compassion she refused her son, and takes him to the hospital.

Scene 16 Although initially skeptical ("People have visions"), Hannah is finally forced to accept the existence of the Angel. Taken aback, she urges Prior to fight with the Angel to obtain its blessing. Prior gets the better of the Angel, who asks Prior to return the Book to Heaven ("You have prevailed, Prophet. You…Choose").

Scene 17 The Angels noisily discuss the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Prior accuses God of abandoning mankind ("If all He has to offer is death, you should sue the bastard for walking out"), and puts the Book on the table because, even though ill, he still wants to live.

Scene 18 Five years later on, Prior is still alive. Louis, Belize, Hannah and Prior embrace the future ("More life").

© Le Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris (France), Programme book for the World Premiere of Angels in America, Paris, November 2004

Back to Top


Program Notes

THIS ONE INSTANT

by Volker Hagedorn

Cuts? Actually, all the creative folks hate them. It's such a shame to lose any of the nice bits! But Peter Eötvös doesn't feel that way at all- he willingly made cuts to keep his audience from getting tired. "I took something out there", he says, and his hands lift a half inch off the table, about ten inches apart, index and middle fingers forming scissors which quickly and gently cut a section out of an imaginary score, the extent and shape of which we're left to contemplate. The gesture lasts but a few seconds and happens as if of its own volition. Eötvös's hands often accompany his conversation so discreetly and precisely, so elegantly and effectively. With these graceful hands the composer has also achieved significant success as a conductor. For the world premiere of his most recent work, the two-act opera Angels in America based on Tony Kushner's AIDS drama, Eötvös himself led the musical preparation at the Paris Châtelet.

The day after the premiere, the sixty year old, whose Palestrina beard evokes his distant Renaissance colleague, sits in his third floor apartment, offers up chocolate and seems so relaxed one would think he's having a nice vacation along the Seine. So this is the border crosser from Transylvania, the man between the styles who's perennially confounding the experts. Seven years ago he achieved a breakthrough with his opera on Chekov's Three Sisters that his complex scores had never won him before. Eötvös had already been a known figure in avant-garde circles and also among the European radio orchestras, including the BBC, but now a wider audience was discovering this artist who essentially shuns the cultivation of a recognizable image. He's always changing his style, his language-just the opposite of the isolated and subjective creator who pours his very identity into his work.

But he very easily could have gone down that other path. At fourteen the prodigy had already begun studying with the graying Kodály. "But when I hit sixteen," says Eötvös, "I realized I could improvise." When Peter Eötvös saw images, he heard their sounds in his head and felt them in his fingers. The Theater Academy discovered the youngster and let him improvise on Hammond Organ to their young directors' stagings and short films. And in the movies "some things were permitted"-for example the Western avant-garde- that otherwise certainly would not have been in a Hungarian state still reeling from the after effects of its failed uprising against the Soviet Union. Though Eötvös was finished with Kodály at the Academy of Muisic, as a film musician he could now put into practice what he'd heard of Boulez and Stockhausen, voices from a Pandora's Box whose lid had been left cracked open. "The politicians were clever enough not to forbid too drastically." And he was clever enough not to provoke them. "I don't like to fight," says Eötvös, "I am careful and canny," something that shows clearly in his outlook on life: "When something does not turn out as one thought it would, it often turns out as something better." And that is how it was for the composer, who, unlike his ambitious colleagues, ended up working as a film composer. "My whole current interest in opera is based on this time period-the experience of how one creates these atmospheres." This doesn't happen by digging old sound costumes out of the closet to match the hundred-year old Three Sisters, nor by updating Chekov's drama to the present day. "The Russian feeling of 1901", as Eötvös calls it, is rather a quality of sound hidden behind the notes which connects across boundaries of time

STOCKHAUSEN'S PERCUSSIONIST, BOULEZ'S CONDUCTOR

In one scene of that earlier opera, Irina, one of the three sisters languishing in their provincial hometown, listens to the drunk Baron Tusenbach's declaration of love: "My life is transformed and seems so beautiful," he says, in heavily slurred Russian. "Beautiful?" she retorts, "Stop it!" But behind both of them, heavy and beautiful sounds lie stretched out to the horizon, emerging from a nineteenth century which only found its realization over the course of the twentieth. Out of the dark strings twist oboe and horn lines in a gesture that suggests late Romantic harmonies where they are no longer to be found. An intangible melancholy extends out from the twilight between Irina and Tusenbach and one can imagine them even without the stage, standing on the cusp of a new century, helpless and sad. And the orchestra increasingly surrounds the two with the love they can't consummate, a gently effective music with no hint of affect. "Chekov," says Eötvös, "can describe with love and eternal helpfulness-we're related in that way." In fact, through the period of composition, he felt that he lived with Chekov "as if with a member of the family."

Up to this first opera at the age of 54, the composer's musical path was exceptionally broad, from moving to Germany at the age of 22, working as Stockhausen's percussionist and pianist in Cologne, and a stint as a guru in the Electronic Music Studio of the WDR up until the discovery of his talent as a conductor. As appreciated as he is among musicians for his modesty, Peter Eötvös speaks of the "aura" that an ensemble leader has to communicate, the ability "to establish a world in which the notes have their place." This is more about one's bearing than about any specific conducting technique, an area, incidentally, in which he is entirely self-taught.

When Boulez needed a conductor for the opening of his new music studio, IRCAM in 1979, Eötvös was his first choice, and from that engagement blossomed a career that hardly left any time for composition. The only large scale work he produced in the nineteen-eighties is a sparkling oversized toy for orchestra called Chinese Opera."That was successful and it works", says the composer, as if speaking of a car he'd constructed. In an odd way, this piece served as the vehicle that led him to opera. The conductor Kent Nagano assumed Chinese Opera was a work for the stage, wanted to perform it and was disappointed to discover that it lasts only twenty minutes and uses no singers. "Why don't you write a true opera?" Nagano asked his colleague, and out of this exchange came the commission to compose Three Sisters for Lyon. The opening of this window to Chekov in 1998 caused a sensation that has changed the course of its creator's life.

He divides it up: half the year conducting on the road and half the year composing in Budapest. But he'd already undergone a previous upheaval: "The Soviet Union just disappeared, from one day to the next. After seventy years! A power like that!" This inspired him to an apocalyptic pandemonium with brass combo, synthesizers and electric pianos, two string quintets, dulcimer and singers: Atlantis. The audience is surrounded by outposts of percussion and speakers. It begins with a rusty rankling and by the end the air is sliced through with electro bombings casting craters in the air with a cinematic effect somewhere between Mad Max and Matrix and yet the effect is of a fragile, disintegrating and deeply moving composition. Here Eötvös explores threat, angst, memory and hope, and incorporates the "mean" sounds of the world into his work which, despite their destructive power, engender a certain harmony among the scattered pieces of our lives.

EÖTVÖS MAKES AN OPERA OUT OF TELPHONE RINGS, SIRENS AND ELECTRIC GUITARS

Whoever has heard it does not leave the hall in a sharper state of reality, he leaves having discovered our own time under water. As far removed as the noises of Atlantis are from the sound world of Three Sisters, so deceptively harmless appears the opera Le Balcon. But here too Eötvös integrates stark contrasts. The grotesque brothel drama based on Jean Genet transports the France of 2002 back into the fifties. Chansons were once for Eötvös "the only form of Western music available to us uncensored." Shimmery, smoky bar music is now treated with Baroque recitative chords, serial coloratura and minimal music patterns, with the lightest of touches and none of the condescending tight-lipped smile with which others occasionally cite "light music". Correspondingly, Genet's characters playing out their fantasies in the brothel are caricatures, to be sure, but are not put on trial. We understand them. The fringes of society appear here in the foreground in all their vivid color. And like one walking through a wall, Peter Eötvös leaves behind all notions of separation between high and low brow music. With uncharacteristic wrath, he says that these distinctions only ever mattered "because people are dumb."

The man who loves chansons, jazz and the Beatles just as much as "the whole Monteverdi neighborhood" and the electronic avant-garde, this gentle destroyer of sectarianism is always moving on to something else. As the Théâtre du Châtelet commissioned him for an opera he started looking for material that would be fitting for Paris, something suitably urbane. Eötvös read through thirty plays. With two or three of these he experienced what he calls a "small explosion. Suddenly there's an entire concept of sound, like a nucleus. The whole sound world is to be found in that one instant. It's just the same with writers and painters-the instant when you establish contact." The most intense of these "instants" was experienced while reading Tony Kushner's brilliant Angels in America, an attempt to come to terms with the AIDS shock of the nineteen eighties. Eötvös immediately sensed a Broadway-influenced aesthetic framework, went to New York and spent a week going to musicals. After this crash course he composed an unusually discreet score that borders on a radio play. Telephone rings, sirens, electric guitars all form a sharply cut marquetry in a filigreed, digitally- manipulated continuum out of which language arises in differing guises, from simple speech to the shimmering song of angels appearing before the pained protagonists. In this context one experiences how in fear and hope language assumes a particular contour. "If one listens carefully," says Eötvös, then repeats the sentence, his right hand drawing a curve through the air that floats emphasis on the word "carefully." By the third time he repeats the sentence, it has developed its own melodic shape: "If one listens carefully, then the world sets itself to music."

Translated by Benjamin Schwartz
Reprinted with permission from Hamburg Opera

Back to Top


Press Contact

Joyce Linehan
Ashmont Media/Ashmont Records
(617) 282-2510
joyce@ashmontmedia.com
Current press releases:www.ashmontmedia.com
Digital images are available on request.

Back to Top


About Opera Unlimited

Founded in 2003 by Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Opera Boston, Opera Unlimited has produced six operas, including the world premiere of Elena Ruehr’s Toussaint Before the Spirits, the New England premiere of Thomas Adès’s controversial opera Powder Her Face, and the first new production of Nixon in China since the original Peter Sellers production. Every Opera Unlimited production has played to sold-out audiences, and The Boston Globe cited Opera Unlimited as the Best Opera of 2003 and 2004. The collaboration was awarded a grant for innovation by the City of Boston, and has been widely acclaimed by local, national, and international publications including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times.

Back To Top


About Angels in America

A Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play and a multi-Emmy-winning film for television, Tony Kushner’s epic Angels in America has also become a major event in the world of contemporary opera. In June 2006 Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Opera Boston will present the highly anticipated North American premiere of Peter Eötvös’s opera Angels in America under the umbrella of Opera Unlimited, an ongoing exploration of new chamber opera. Closely based on Kushner’s work, Peter Eötvös’s opera has received rave reviews since its European debut in November 2004. Dramatic, hallucinatory, poetically beautiful, and hauntingly real, Angels in America is set against the backdrop of New York City in 1985, and addresses issues ranging from sexual orientation, to issues surrounding isolation, as well as the AIDS epidemic. Taking a fresh new look at the play, composer Eötvös concentrated on “the relationship of the main protagonists, and the changing state between illusion and reality.” The New York Times exclaims, “The angels are singing now… Eötvös has produced from [Angels in America] a slippery and musically delightful combination of opera and musical.”

Back to Top


Links

Boston Modern Orchestra Project

Opera Boston

AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts

Back to Top


Sponsors

The Boston Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
Randolph J. Fuller
The Gregory E. Bulger Foundation



Back to Top