A Woman in Morocco
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Daron Hagen
- Barbara Grecki
| A Woman in Morocco | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Daron Hagen | |
 Daron Hagen, the opera's composer | |
| Librettist |
|
| Language | English |
| Premiere | |
A Woman in Morocco is an English language opera in two acts composed by Daron Hagen and based on an unperformed play by Barbara Grecki. It was premiered by Kentucky Opera in Louisville, Kentucky, June 23, 2015, in a production directed by the composer. The libretto is by Hagen and Grecki, who also co-wrote the treatment. The story, set in Tangier in October 1958, concerns the disappearance of an American investigative journalist named Lizzy Holmes working on an exposé of sex trafficking. The work received a complete workshop staging at the Butler Opera Center of the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at the University of Texas-Austin October 25, 2013.
"Anywhere humans interact one can find people capable of exploiting the weak, the powerless, and the vulnerable," explained the composer in a 2015 interview. "The scourge of human trafficking manifests in even more forms than immediately come to mind: any time someone is coerced or manipulated into doing something that they know is wrong out of fear for their own safety, or that of their loved ones, trafficking is occurring. I wrote this opera to raise peoples’ awareness of that face, to fight, in the way that I know best, for trafficking victims."[1]
Following a table read directed by Alan Hicks by actors at Center City Opera in Philadelphia,[2] the opera was given a staged workshop on October 25, 27 and November 1,3, 2013 by the Sarah and Ernest Butler Opera Center, Austin, Texas. The performances were conducted by Kelly Kuo with stage direction by Robert DeSimone. The world premiere production was performed on May 15, 16, and 17, 2015, by the Kentucky Opera[3][4] at the Jory Theater of the Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky as a centerpiece of the 20th Annual Festival of Faiths.[5] Roger Zahab conducted the 10-piece ensemble from the Kentucky Opera Orchestra; the production was directed by Daron Hagen who also designed the sets.
Daron Hagen's seven-episode video blog chronicling the development of the opera from first sketches through the final professional premiere over a four year period offers an intimate and extraordinary glimpse into the composer-librettist-director's process.[6]
Critical reaction
While in its college workshop production at the University of Texas, the characters were felt by one graduate student to "come across as flat and largely unsympathetic and so frustratingly spineless that it's hard to care about them,"[7] when the work was given its professional premiere by Kentucky Opera, professional critics noted that "[its] complex score works to underline issues with leitmotifs, musical cues assigned to different characters, and music that never settles or rests. When singers get soaring arias, they emerge naturally from this intricate texture. Hagen has a gift for writing sensually rich tunes and uses this skill to release the music at important moments."[3] Most of the universally positive reviews touched approvingly on the opera's subject matter:
Will [a new opera] find a connection with tradition while creating something fresh and timely? I believe that composer Daron Hagen and his co-librettist Barbara Grecki have [done this] with their new two-act opera. ... Hagen's score feelingly captures the deep contradictions of its story and its characters in music that evokes the beauty and mystery of an exotic landscape, the dangerous and deceptive sensuality of its inhabitants, and the intense violence that is always just beneath the surface of a culture that threatens and terrorizes women.[8]
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Workshop cast 25 October 2013 (Conductor: Kelly Kuo) |
World premiere cast 15 May 2015 (Conductor: Roger Zahab) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lizzy Holmes / Woman #4 | soprano | Natalie Cummings | Danielle Connelly |
| Asilah / Woman #1 | soprano | Samantha Leibowitz | Erin K. Bryan |
| Clare Holmes / Woman #3 | mezzo-soprano | Olivia Douglas | Mimi Melisa Bonetti |
| Ahmed | tenor | Soonchan Kwan | Joe Shadday |
| Teddy Forsythe | baritone | Austin Bradley | Joseph Flaxman |
| Harry Hopkins | bass-baritone | Chance Eakin | Brent Michael Smith |
| Habiba / Woman #2 | mute / soprano | Natasha Lynn Foley | |
| Trafficked Woman / Woman #5 | mute / mezzo-soprano | Krista Heckman | |