painting by Vera Gutkina
Jonathan Berger
Visitations
Two chamber operas for five voices, flute, clarinet, percussion, piano and string quintet.
Libretti by Dan O’Brien
The stories of two people, each haunted by inner voices. Visitations transforms the hall into the interior world of the mind in a pair of tender and powerful dramas.
Theotokia takes the audience inside the mind of a man possessed by ritualistic and religious hallucinatory voices. These delusions portray the inner struggle of mental illness in a rich musical, dramatic, and philosophical counterpoint.
The War Reporter is based on the true story of Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist Paul Watson. Convinced that he is haunted by the ghost of an American soldier he photographed in Mogadishu in 1993, Watson seeks to rid himself of this curse.
Visitations was commissioned by The National Endowment for the Arts and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for Stanford Live. It was performed at the 2014 Prototype Festival in New York City under the direction of Rinde Eckert.
Composer’s notes: Hearing Voicees (Blackbird, 2015)
Further information: http://visitations.stanford.edu/
Original production touring producer: Beth Morrison
Score and Performance materials available upon request
The soprano arias from Theotokia can be done as a song cycle in arrangements for soprano, ‘Pierrot ensemble’ with percussion (no electronics), or soprano and piano quintet. Performance materials available upon request.
see also: Fantasy on Themes from the War Reporter (2014), for violin and piano.