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Synopsis
Gallo is an evening-long chamber opera that investigates how the landscape and man shape and transform each other. The main inspiration for the work is places where traces of human civilization, ancient and modern, have decayed over time and have transformed them into landscapes that now appear to be more natural than manmade. These spaces are repositories of human memory on one hand, but also confound man’s sense of agency and freedom, and his sense of mastery over nature. Examples of these spaces are: Monte Testaccio, a hill in Rome, now rife with discos, which was made into a hill as an ancient site where clay vases were deposited; the Disabitato, the region in Rome, within the Aurelian wall, where the landscape reclaimed uninhabited space during the 18th century; and Detroit. Throughout the chamber opera, arias comment on these spaces, and over the backdrop of a landscape, is a beach, made of Cheerios. From the beach a human protagonist is born. The beach itself serves as a repository of memory, and ultimately as a Zen garden of contemplation. Several arias intercut the various transformations of the beach. In one, a rooster, named Farinelli, sings a non-sense aria, in chicken-ese (with English supertitles), about the fundamental question of ontology – the chicken or the egg? In another aria, the female protagonist waxes admiringly about Bee-Eaters, beautiful birds that eat bees, but is afraid that their beauty might kill us all.
OPERA America/Opera.ca Grants Awarded
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| GRANT NAME | YEAR | New Works Exploration Grants | 2014 |
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Title Information
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Approximate Runtime (hh:mm)
1:30
Number of Acts
1
Musical Style
Contemporary
Original Cast
Douglas Dodson (Galante/Farinelli, the Gallo)
Aliana de la Guardia (Shopper/Mother)
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