Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Glass: The Perfect American

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

The Sunday next to the Fourth of July holiday calls for an American opera, something that depicts on the lyric stage an iconic American figure. America's master of the minimalist style (a style he partly created), Philip Glass (b. 1937) has turned out to be a prolific composer of opera. I have been broadcasting recordings of his operas going all the way back to Sunday, January 12, 1986, when I presented the CBS Masterworks LP recording of Satyagraha (1980), his opera about the iconic figure of Mahatma Gandhi.

So who might "The Perfect American" of this Philip Glass opera be? Henry Ford would be a good guess, but no, it's Walt Disney! Rudolf Wurlitzer's libretto for The Perfect American is adapted from a work of biographical fiction with the same title by Peter Stephan Jungk. The novelist gives us his fantasy about the last days of the worldfamous creator of Mickey Mouse. Fantasy versions of various people in Walt's life parade through the operatic spectacle: Walt's brother Roy, his wife Lillian and even pop artist Andy Warhol. All of them plus an Abraham Lincoln robot (!).

The Perfect American was commissioned by the Teatro Real of Madrid and the English National Opera. Its world premiere staging took place at the Teatro Real, the Royal Opera Theater of Madrid in Spain, where it was recorded live in performance in February, 2013. Dennis Russell Davies conducted the Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real. Starring in the cast of singers is Christopher Purves as Walt Disney. The opera is sung in American English. The Perfect American was released in 2016 on two compact discs through Philp Glass' own Orange Mountain record label.