Monodramas March 25, 2011

This triple bill of cutting-edge mini-opera features three virtuoso sopranos taking on tour-de-force roles that showcase the work of vital innovators of modern music.

La Machine de l’être by New York composer John Zorn takes the soprano on a bravura collision course of elemental sound. Inspired by drawings of seminal theater artist Antonin Artaud, this textless piece receives its world stage premiere.

Arnold Schoenberg’s groundbreaking Erwartung or Expectation uses fragmented text and freely atonal language to explore perception and the subconscious. This modernist piece has been linked to Freud’s study of the famous hysteric Anna O., who was the sister of librettist Marie Pappenheim.

Also included in the triptych is the U.S. stage premiere of Morton Feldman’s Neither, a poetic investigation of altered states of mind and awareness. Featuring a libretto by playwright Samuel Beckett, Feldman’s haunting, glacial composition challenges the highest extremes of the soprano range, evoking hypnotic visions and creating an unsettling sense of time and place.

Friday, March 25, 2011 at 8pm
Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 1:30pm
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 7:30pm
Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 8pm
Saturday, April 2, 2011 at 1:30pm
Friday, April 8, 2011 at 8pm

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes with 2 intermissons (following each opera)
Erwartung - 30 minutes
Neither - 1 hour
La Machine de l’être - 10 minutes

Erwartung is performed in German with English supertitles
Neither is performed in English with English supertitles
La Machine de l’être is performed without text

Official Website: http://www.nycopera.com/calendar/view.aspx?id=12524