Music and libretto by Herschel Garfein
Based on the play by Tom Stoppard
About Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Based on the 1967 play of the same title by Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead retells the story of Hamlet from the point-of-view of two minor characters in the Shakespeare play. Since the significant events of Hamlet are unfolding offstage, just out of view of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they are powerless to understand the implications of those events for their fate. When the characters from Hamlet do sweep onto stage, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can do nothing but play their assigned roles from Hamlet verbatim. Allowed only a highly restricted view of the tumultuous events of Hamlet unfolding around them, and deceived by nearly everyone, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern play games to pass the time and tirelessly devise strategies to make sense of their place in the grander scheme.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an opera-in-progress. When complete, it will be in two acts, lasting approximately two hours, ten minutes plus intermission. Featured are six principal roles (Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, The Player, Alfred, Hamlet, Ophelia), three smaller roles (Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius) and several comprimarii. All singers except those in the four largest roles also sing in the chorus of players.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is being developed in part with a generous grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.
WATCH
Filmed at the Mark Morris Dance Center, Brooklyn, New York - Jan 2008
Filmmaker: Greg Emetaz, minorapocalypse.com
Rosencrantz... Keith Phares
Guildenstern... Andrew Garland
Alfred... Monica Yunus
Hamlet... William Ferguson
Polonius... Matthew Burns
Allison Brewster Franzetti, piano
Directed by Mark Morris
View photos from
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
About the Creators
HERSCHEL GARFEIN (composer/librettist)
Herschel Garfein is the composer, writer and director of numerous music/theatre pieces. He has had the honor of collaborating with great theater artists including Mark Morris, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Mabou Mines, and Sir Peter Hall. He wrote the libretto for, and directed the workshop production of Robert Aldridge's opera Elmer Gantry. Elmer Gantry premiered at Nashville Opera in November, 2007 and at "Peak Performances @ Montclair" at the Kasser Theater in Montclair, NJ in January, 2008. When excerpts were performed as part of New York City Opera's VOX 2007, The New York Times raved, "...an unabashedly populist piece...steeped in American vernacular idioms; the storytelling is urgent."
Mr. Garfein emerged as a theatrical composer and writer with his landmark dance triptych Mythologies for choreographer Mark Morris. The first section, Championship Wrestling After Roland Barthes, was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music "Next Wave" Festival in 1985. The complete trilogy, Mythologies, comprising ...Wrestling..., Striptease and Soap-Powders & Detergents has been performed to acclaim and controversy in Brussels, Boston and New York (the latter performances conducted by Mr. Garfein.)
Mr. Garfein collaborated with famed experimental theatre group Mabou Mines and noted mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, writing both music and lyrics for Sueños ("First-rate theater music" -The Boston Herald) which opened at the Hasty Pudding Theater in Boston and ran Off-Off- Broadway at the Manhattan Triplex Theater. In 2001, he composed incidental music for a new Off-Broadway production of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, directed by Sir Peter Hall (Theatre for a New Audience). READ MORE...
TOM STOPPARD (playwright)
Tom Stoppard is widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading dramatists. His first major success came with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which catapulted him into the front ranks of modern playwrights overnight when it opened in London in 1967. The Broadway production won the Tony Award for Best Play.
Stoppard's trilogy The Coast of Utopia recently completed a critically lauded, sold-out run at the Lincoln Center Theater. It won a record-breaking seven Tony Awards, including Best Play. His latest play, Rock 'n Roll, opened on Broadway in November, 2007, transferring from a highly successful run in London's West End. Among Stoppard's best-known plays are Jumpers (1972) Travesties (1974) The Real Thing (1982) Arcadia (1993) and The Invention of Love (1997). His works have won numerous awards, including nine Evening Standard Awards, the Italia Prize for radio plays, four Tony Awards and the Shakespeare Prize.
In addition to his work for the stage, Stoppard has written a number of screenplays including The Human Factor (1979), Empire of the Sun (1987), and Billy Bathgate (1991). He co-authored the screenplay for Brazil (1985), which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1985, and in 1999, he won an Oscar for "Best Screenplay" (with Marc Norman) for Shakespeare in Love.
Garfein's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is the first operatic adaptation of a Stoppard play.
AOP Presentations
April 10-11, 2010 Coproduction with Boston Classical Orchestra
Faneuil Hall, Boston, MA Concert reading of scenes MUSIC DIRECTION: Steven Lipsitt
PERFORMANCES BY: Krista River, Chad Sloan, David Kravitz, and Lindsay Conrad, Ashley Kozak, Abigail Krawson, Lila Palmer, Sean Lair and Brock Johnson. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
November 20-21, 2009 Mark Morris Dance Center, Brooklyn, NY Concert reading of scenes MUSIC DIRECTION: Steven Osgood
STAGE DIRECTION: Mark Morris
PERFORMANCES BY: Keith Phares, Matthew Burns, Matt Morgan, Lucy Schaufer
PIANO: Kelly Horsted
Other Presentations
January, 2008 Mark Morris Dance Center, Brooklyn, NY Staged reading of scenes STAGE DIRECTION: Mark Morris
PERFORMANCES BY: Keith Phares, Andrew Garland, Monica Yunus, William Ferguson, Matthew Burns.
Many of American Opera Projects' past works are ideal for production by other companies. If you are a producer and see something that is of interest to you, please contact us. We will be happy to send materials, or put you in direct contact with the creators.
HERSCHEL GARFEIN (composer/librettist)
