JAKE
HEGGIE: composer/pianist America's
most popular young composer of opera and song
On the WORLD PREMIERE OF "TO HELL AND BACK"
-
a one-act opera for two singers and baroque orchestra
If
you've always thought, as we are all inclined to think, that a
Baroque Orchestra's mission is to play music of the 17th and early
18th century to the exclusion of all others, Nicholas McGegan
and his Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra made it a point, on the
Orchestra's 25th year, to prove you wrong. Instead of resurrecting
yet other pieces by composers long dead to celebrate the occasion,
he went contemporary, breaking tradition by turning to Jake Heggie,
a star among America's young composers of opera for a commissioned
work.
Heggie
gladly obliged - with a 40-minute long, one-act opera for two
singers (libretto written by his friend Gene Scheer) entitled
To Hell and Back, that explores the
issue of spousal abuse. Seemingly very contemporary, the
theme is in fact age-old, and as Heggie notes in this interview,
was actually inspired by the Greek myth of Persephone (an offshoot
of his and Scheer's decision to retain an element of antiquity
as a concession to the orchestra's baroque tradition).
The
piece world-premiered in the Bay Area in November 2006 as a semi-staged
production, with acclaimed soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and Broadway
legend Patti Lupone in the lead roles, and received a second performance
at the Ravinia Festival in June 2007. Obviously successful, the production
validated McGegan's proposition: that a baroque orchestra's lifeline
is not necessarily dependent on composers of centuries past and that
the baroque sound of period instruments can co-exist, indeed, breathe
life into and splash colors across the aural canvas of a contemporary
work. No question about it, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra has broken
new ground.
TO HELL AND BACK is now available as an MP3
DOWNLOAD.
