WELCOME TO THE MADNESS | Music by Leanna Kirchoff, Libretto by Rachel J. Peters
Welcome to the Madness, a multidisciplinary site-specific opera, presents a robust history of artistic innovation at Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. (This slogan is printed on its handbooks.) Actress/musician Charlotte Perry and dancer/ filmmaker Portia Mansfield met at Smith College and ventured west in 1913, transforming vacant acres into a vital hub of early modern dance and experimental theatre. An incubator for performing artists at the 20th century’s vanguard including Julie Harris, Merce Cunningham and John Cage, Agnes de Mille, Dustin Hoffman, and many more, Perry-Mansfield became the heart of an American cultural circulatory system. Much of the libretto is adapted from primary sources in the Perry-Mansfield archives.
CAST: 8 principals, all based on real people. For that reason, of these, Portia must be an excellent singer (soprano) and dancer. José (Latino, tenor) and Hariette (soprano) must be excellent dancers (minimal singing). America (mezzo) must be a Black woman. Ideally, Louis (baritone) plays the piano well. Please consult existing resources for casting inspiration. The Marjorie Margery is our chorus, a motley group of all genders, voice types, shapes, sizes, and colors.
INSTRUMENTATION: flute (doubling alto and picc.), saxophone (soprano/alto/tenor/bari) piano, percussion, guitar, violin, cello
DURATION: 1 hour 30 minutes
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY: Workshops, Opera Steamboat, 2022 and 2023; Upcoming world premiere, 2024, Opera Steamboat in collaboration with Perry-Mansfield.
THREE AMPUTATORS | Music by Rachel J. Peters, Libretto by Royce Vavrek
Three Amputators is an opera-in-progress after the story “The Three Army Surgeons” by the Brothers Grimm. The opera tells of three travelling doctors who seek lodging for a night, offering the establishment’s innkeeper a demonstration of their unbelievable skills: they can cut out parts of their own bodies only to reattach them later with the aid of a proprietary salve. After one removes a hand, another their heart, and the third their eyeballs, an enigmatic cat appears on the scene to dine on the flesh and throw the course of the story into disarray. This is a contemporary interpretation of one of the Grimm’s most eccentric of tales.
CAST: 1 coloratura soprano, 1 lyric soprano, 1 dramatic soprano, 1 tenor, 1 baritone, 1 bass-baritone
INSTRUMENTATION: 1 (+picc.).1.1.1/1.1.1.0/perc (1)/pno/1.1.1.1.1
DURATION: 45 minutes
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY: Concert presentation of excerpts, Voksenåsen Summer Academy, Oslo, Norway, August 2023. Concert performance of scenes with orchestra, Arctic Chamber Music Festival, February 2024.
MANOR OF SPEAKING: Blythely Oratonio's Glam-Operetta Reenactment of Oscar Wilde's 1882 Tour across the Barely United States | Music by Rachel J. Peters, Libretto by Kevin Thomas Townley, Jr.
Manor of Speaking is an operatic glam rock fever dream with music by composer Rachel J. Peters and libretto by Kevin Thomas Townley, Jr. When disembarking from the SS Arizona in 1882, customs asked Oscar Wilde, hitherto unknown in America, whether he had anything to declare. “Nothing…except my genius,” he replied. Thus began a hilarious 12-month lecture tour across a barely United States. A personality first and poet later, his flair for self-promotion inspired ads, fashion and music, amassing friends and foes alike. His greatest triumph was in Leadville, Colorado, where he won over an audience of miners by lecturing on home decor, proving that art can bridge any divide. While others have portrayed his tragic end, we’re fixated on the meticulous crafting of persona preceding Wilde’s literary notoriety. His strategy succeeded long before modern media platforms existed, and his loss of control over his own narrative resonates today. In our show, the Manor of Speaking is a physical amalgam of Wilde’s lodging accommodations throughout the tour and a metaphorical holding space for his lecture about the decorative arts, which evolves parallel to the proliferation and eventual devolution of his image. Opera legend Stephanie Blythe steps into his iconic patent leather pumps via her tenor drag alter ego, Blythely Oratonio. Manor of Speaking works with Stephanie-as-Blythely-as-Wilde to obliterate unhelpful binaries of class, gender, and musical taste. Influences include: Gilbert and Sullivan; the era’s popular songs; Irish folk song; and Wilde’s glam rock heirs apparent, such as Queen, Meat Loaf, and David Bowie, all of whom are mainstays of Blythely Oratonio’s existing set lists.
CAST: Blythely Oratonio and seven additional singers playing multiple roles
INSTRUMENTATION: 1.1.1.1/1.1.1.0/Drum Kit, Piano, Banjo, Harp/Electric Guitar/1.1.1.1.1
DURATION: 90 minutes
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY: 2022 OPERA America Female Composer Discovery Grant. Private piano/vocal concert reading, Fall 2023. Residency, Drama Club Camp, 2024.
STRETCH (A FANTASIA) | Play by Susan Bernfield, Music by Rachel J. Peters
The “fantasia” part of Susan’s 2008 play STRETCH (a fantasia) — in which Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods observes the 2004 presidential election from her swing-state nursing home — is an imagined slate of dreams and memories that alternate with scenes of life in the nursing home. scored the fantasy bits for a small band including IBM Electric typewriter. All these years on, we are reimaginging the work: skip the nursing home, revisit the scored monologues and presto! A concert suite for this delightful and alas-still-relevant character. Please contact us to bring this new version to life.
CAST: 1 nonsinging actor
INSTRUMENTATION: trumpet, 2 violins, bass, and IBM Selectric (additional instruments to be determined)
DURATION: TBD
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY: World Premiere of Original Version, The Living Theatre, 2008
PUBLIC ACCESS: THE MARVELOUS WORLD OF YOUR SINGING HOSTESS, MARI LYN | Music by Evan Mack, Libretto by Arlene Hutton, Rachel J. Peters, and Jonathan West
Public Access, The Marvelous World of Your Singing Hostess, Mari Lyn is an opera-adjacent fantasia about the final episode of Mari Lyn, tone-deaf cult goddess of 1980s New York public access TV, who warbled opera and classic Americana on The Golden Treasury of Song. PUBLIC ACCESS is a wildly askew bridge between traditional operas and modern musicals. Our leading lady clings to her delusions against the changing cultural/media landscape of 1980s NYC. Our musical vocabulary comes from and riffs on Mari Lyn’s own repertoire.
CAST: 1 soprano and an ensemble playing multiple roles
INSTRUMENTATION: TBD
DURATION: TBD
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY: Team writing residency, Millay Arts, 2022.
GOOD SHABBOS | Music by Rachel J. Peters, Libretto by Danielle Durchslag
Good Shabbos is a short musical film directed by Danielle Durchslag that tells the story of the relationship between a wealthy Jewish doyenne and her queer, progressive, adult daughter, dissolving over the course of one Jewish calendar year due to conflict over Zionism and homophobia. The audience learns of their dynamic and separation exclusively through the sung Shabbos voicemails the mother leaves to her child.
CAST: 1 mezzo-soprano
INSTRUMENTATION: piano, clarinet, cello
DURATION: 15 minutes
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY: Danielle developed the libretto as part of the most recent New Jewish Culture Fellowship cohort. Private live concert reading, September 2023. That performance led us to consider the possibility of a hybrid live performance/film work moving forward!
THE INSTIGATORS | Music by Lisa DeSpain, Libretto by Rachel J. Peters
The Instigators will be adapted from a comedic children’s book we cannot currently name] about alligators in Florida whose misadventures in the big city lead them back to their natural habitat. Two alligator hunters in a Florida swamp catch young Silas. They smuggle him to New York City, where an aristocratic family buys him. The children quickly grow bored and flush him down the toilet. In a Manhattan sewer, Silas meets fellow alligators with a similar fate who teach him how to manage life in the urban underground. Together they execute an outrageous plan to return to the swamp and reunite with their families. This little known, out-of-print gem’s hilarious, anarchic charm contains a touching message we’ll convey with a score capturing the scrappy, funky 1970s vibe of its illustrations. (The photo to the left is not from the book; it’s from my neighborhood fire department!) We envision this adaptation as either a fully staged work or a concert performance with some production elements. It could be programmed on its own or as a double bill with another one-act opera or longer orchestral work on a Young People’s Concert.
CAST: 12 principals (some doubling possible) and a children’s chorus of flexible size
INSTRUMENTATION: 1 (picc).0.1 (double tenor sax).0/0.1.1.0/perc. (drum kit/mallets).pno (doubling Fender Rhodes and Organ).elec. gtr./1.1.1.1.elec. bass
DURATION: 1 act, 45 minutes
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY: None yet! We had something cooking, but alas, the pandemic had other plans, and Silas and friends are now seeking a new habitat!
