Today, the new chamber opera composed by Iain Bell,
A Christmas Carol, with a libretto by Simon Callow after Charles Dickens, will be performed in Houston.
The libretto is in fact based on the one-man version Dickens himself prepared for public readings and performed more than a 100 times.
Near
the end of the workday on Christmas Eve, Scrooge, a penurious
businessman, grudgingly gives his clerk Bob Cratchit the next day off
for the holiday. When Scrooge returns home, he is visited by the ghost
of his former partner, Jacob Marley, who died on Christmas Eve seven
years previously. Marley wears a long, heavy chain and warns Scrooge
that he faces the same fate unless he mends his selfish ways. Marley
warns that Scrooge will be visited by three spirits. Scrooge is visited
in turn by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and
Christmas Yet to Come. At the end of the final visit, Scrooge implores
the spirit to reverse his fate, promising to be a new man. (reproduced from
Houston Grand Opera website)
The tenor Jay Hunter Morris will be the Narrator, accompanied by a 15-player chamber orchestra. Warren Jones conducts and Simon Callow directs. The opera will be performed at the Cullen Theater in the Wortham Theater Center.
It is Bell's second opera. His first,
A Harlot's Progress, based on William Hogarth's engravings, was first performed in Vienna in October 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment