The Wake World is an opera with music and libretto by David Hertzberg. It premiered September 18, 2017, at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. The Wake World was a co-presentation of Opera Philadelphia and the Barnes Foundation, directed by R. B. Schlather and conducted by Elizabeth Braden. The opera is based on the story "The Wake World" by Aleister Crowley. The opera's debut recording was released April 24, 2020 on Tzadik Records.
Critical reception
"The whole evening felt celebratory", Opera News wrote of The Wake World. The New York Times called the music engrossing. "Just five instrumentalists produce wondrous colors and sonorities. The score, spiked with modernist elements, makes Mr. Hertzberg seem a 21st-century Ravel", wrote Anthony Tommasini.
"The prose was purple, and so was the music, so thoroughly an antique musical language that it sounded like a half-remembered dream", wrote Peter Dobrin in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
In 2018, The Wake World was awarded the Music Critics Association of North America Award for Best New Opera.
The New York Times listed the track "Is that you, my love?" from the opera's debut recording among 'The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020'.
Roles
+ Role Voice type Premiere cast, 18 September 2017Conductor: Elizabeth Braden Lola soprano Maeve Höglund The Fairy Prince mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb Parthenope soprano Rebecca Myers Ligeia soprano Veronica Chapman-Smith Leucosia mezzo-soprano Joanna Gates Luna/Hecate soprano Jessica Beebe Morbus tenor George Ross Somerville Pestilitas bass John David Miles Giant/Bone Man/Man in the Azure Coat/Man of the Blue House bass James Osby Gwathney, Jr.
Instrumentation Violin, trumpet, horn, piano, Rhodes piano, percussion.
Recording 2020: Elizabeth Braden, conductor; Jessica Beebe, Andrew Bogard, Samantha Hankey, Maeve Hoglund. Tzadik (TZ 4030-2)
References