University of Hartford "H" Magazine - Winter 2019

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Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Hammill: The Fall of the House of Usher; Moran: The Dracula Diar

10/30/2022 1:30 pm
10/30/2022 4:30 pm

 

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

For Halloweentide programming this year, I will again feature two operatic chillers by progressive figures in the music world at the end of the twentieth century. I last aired these recordings back-to-back on Sunday, October 27, 1996. Lovers of progressive rock will remember the name Peter Hammill (b. 1948), the founder of the British prog rock band Van der Graf Generator. He is not the only one to have written an opera based on Edgar Allen Poe's short story, The Fall of the House of Usher. Philip Glass gave the same subject his own minimalist musical treatment in 1988. In Hammill's opera, Andy Bell, lead vocalist with the synthipop group Erasure, is heard as Montressor, and punk rock singer, Lena Lovich, portrays Madelaine Usher. Hammill himself sings the role of her brother, Roderick. Some Bizarre, Ltd. of the UK released The Fall of the House of Usher in 1991 on a single silver disc.

Topping that first feature in sheer operatic horror is The Dracula Diary (1994) by American composer Robert Moran (b. 1937), to a libretto by James Skofield, who turned his own vampire story, drawing upon traditional vampire lore, into a shadowy baroque theater work. The Dracula Diary is styled "an opera macabre" set in eighteenth century Italy, in which the primary vampire, Angela, is a charismatic diva. She has turned the entire opera company, from the leading tenor on down, into fellow vampires through drinking their blood. The impressario is Angela's last victim. Moran and Skofield crafted their macabre chamber opera for the Houston Opera Studio of Houston Grand Opera. It was recorded live in performance for release on a single CD by Catalyst, a division of BMG Classics.