Ann Patchett's novel, Bel Canto, was given to me by my partner's mother, probably because of the musical interest. It concerns the incident in Lima, Peru in 1996/7 when a group of young revolutionaries held people hostage for 3 months in the Japanese ambassador's house. The novel uses a young operatic soprano as one of its focuses and music is a key element, partly because the soprano is defined in her relationships by people's reaction to her singing, also as some of the hostages are Japanese there is a language barrier and music become a key element in communication.
Not surprisingly, the book is being turned into an opera. The Lyric Opera of Chicago will be premiering the work in their 2015/16 season, with Danielle de Niese in the lead role of Roxanne Coss. The book seems to have been the starting point, with Renee Fleming, who is creative consultant at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, selecting it as a good subject for an opera. The composer will be the Peruvian composer Jimmy Lopez; Lopez studied in his native Peru as well as in Finland and in California and seems to be based in Finland. It looks like it will be his first opera, there is an interesting post on his blog here.
Of course, with any new opera an important part of the process is the libretto, this is being written by the Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz. Cruz seems to have strong musical credentials having written the book to at least one musical and collaborated with Gabriela Lena Frank on several operas and a set of orchestral songs.
So the auguries look promising.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts this month
-
Costume design for Asteria in Handel's Tamerlano by Rachel Szmukler When Cambridge Handel Opera Company 's production of Handel'...
-
Luke Styles On 4 July 2021 at Cheltenham Music Festival , conductor George Vass and Nova Music Opera will premiere composer Luke Styles ...
-
Purcell: Dido & Aeneas - Katey Rylands, Sonny Fielding - HGO (Photo Laurent Compagnon) Blow: Venus & Adonis , Purcell: Dido &...
-
1984 - New European Ensemble, Mihkel Kerem George Orwell, Mihkel Kerem 1984 ; Edward Snowden, Joseph Thompson, Willem Stam, New European...
-
Smyth: The Wreckers - Karis Tucker - Glyndebourne (Photo Richard Hubert Smith) Ethel Smyth: The Wreckers ; Karis Tucker, Rodrigo Porras Gar...
-
Fretwork & SANSARA at St John's Smith Square's Easter Festival (Photo Nick Rutter) Pärt: Fratres , Solfeggio , Summa , Stabat Ma...
-
Mark Vuorinen & the Elora Singers performing in the Barn at the Elora Festival The Elora Singers might be described as one of Canada...
-
Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra I get all sorts of mail, people sending my information on concerts and recordings. Everything gets gl...
-
Feodor Akimenko [Fedir Yakymenko] With his Voices from the East series at Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO), conductor Kirill Karabits h...
-
Noemi Gyori and Gergely Madaras (Photo Benjamin Ealovega) Gergely Madaras is best known as a conductor (he is music director of Orchestre P...
No comments:
Post a Comment