The PETER JAY SHARP SOLO PROJECT:
The monodrama revealed
is a new initiative launched by American Opera Projects at the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process Series in January, 2009. The SOLO PROJECT aims to champion an operatic form that has been largely overlooked and that has the potential to capture and to captivate new and old opera audiences.
AOP will be commissioning and developing new monodramas by American composers, existing works newly translated/adapted into staged works in English, and reductions of existing monodrama scores to make them more viable for today’s audiences and performable in a variety of locations.
The AOP Monodramas
L’abbe Agathon
Estonian composer Arvo Pärt's 2004 composition L'abbé Agathon has been transformed by AOP, with Pärt's supervision, into a chamber opera with a commissioned English translation by Cori Ellison. L'abbé Agathon tells the tale of a gentle and patient abbot who agrees to carry a leper to and from market on several occassions. When the leper reveals himself to be an angel, the abbot's kindness is rewarded.
AOP Presentations
Jan 11-12, 2009
Monodrama world premiere
Peter B. Lewis Theater - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Performed by Caroline Worra
Directed by Sophie Calle; English translation by Cori Ellison; Film installation by Sophie Calle; Featuring AOP string ensemble; J. David Jackson, conductor
The Woven Child
Grammy-nominated composer
Tarik O'Regan (
Heart of Darkness) brings to the stage a poem
The Woven Child by
Anna Rabinowitz (
Darkling) as an AOP-commissioned song.
The Wanton Sublime, a new commission from O’Regan and Rabinowitz, is an exploration of Mary, mother of Jesus, as she struggles to reconcile the mythic and human aspects of her identity.
Pictured left: The Wanton Sublime (Tupelo Press 2007)
AOP Presentations
Jan 11-12, 2009
Song excerpt
Peter B. Lewis Theater - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Performed by Caroline Worra
Featuring AOP string ensemble; J. David Jackson, conductor
April 16, 2010
Staged opera workshop
Opera Grows in Brooklyn
Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
Performed by Abigail Fischer
Also featuring Mateo Moreno, Erin Posanti, and Craig Kelton Peterson
Directed by Matt Gray
MORE INFO
AOP Presentations
Absynth is a futuristic monodrama made up of newly-commissioned songs for electronics and voice from some of today's hottest young composers.
Conceived and performed by AOP star mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer (This is the Rill Speaking, Semmelweis, Judgment of Midas, Composers & the Voice), the experimental work AbSynth follows the journey of a robot that becomes a woman and desperately tries to return to the machine world.
AbSynth was commissioned by Abigail Fischer with support from the Howard Hanson Commissioning Fund .
Featuring:
"Mothertongue"
Music and text by Nico Muhly
listen
"The Machine Awakes"
Music by Stephen Andrew Taylor
Text by Richard Powers, from the novel Galatea 2.2
"Patatra"
Music by Florent Ghys
watch
"Blue"
Music by Andrew Staniland
Text by Walt Whitman
"No"
Music by Caleb Burhans
"Salvinorum B"
Music and text by Kevin McFarland
AbSynth
Nora in the Great Outdoors
Composers & the Voice alum
Daniel Felsenfeld teams with award-winning playwright
Will Eno (
THOM PAIN based on nothing) in this new monodrama that imagines the continuation of one the greatest plays of all time.
At the end of Henrik Ibsen's classic drama "A Doll's House" Nora Helmer has made decision to leave her husband and children and abandon her life of selflessness. Nora in the Great Outdoors imagines what happens the moment after this famous heroine slams the iconic door.
AOP Presentations
Other Presentations
September 26, 2007
"Patatra"
The Stone, New York, NY
Performed by Abigail Fischer
