Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Mazzoli & Vavrek: Proving Up; Gordon: Acquanetta

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Lyric theater programming for the Fourth of July holiday weekend certainly calls for American opera. The two twenty-first century American operas featured this Sunday cast a shadow upon the American dream. Proving Up (2018) is the product of the collaboration between Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980), NYC-based composer-in-residence at the Mannes College of Music, and Canadian librettist Royce Vavrek. You could say Proving Up is a "sodbusters' opera" about a German immigrant family of homesteaders trying to eke out a living on the plainsland of Nebraska in the 1860s. In Karen Russell's original short story, as in its operatic treatment, the Zegner family's homesteading dream turns into a living nightmare.

Proving Up was co-commissioned by Washington National Opera and Opera Omaha (Nebraska). It was first produced at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC during the 2017-18 season. The original cast recording of Proving Up is derived from the Opera Omaha production of 2018. Christopher Rountree conducts the International Contemporary Ensemble with a cast of six singing characters. Proving Up was issued on a single CD in 2020 through the German Pentatone Music label.

Michael Gordon's Acquanetta (2005) deals with the beautiful Hollywood B-movie actress of the 1940s who went by that name. When she died in obscurity in 2004 her New York Times obit never gave her real name: Mildred Davenport. She was a woman of mystery to begin with. She lived the Hollywood dream, then suddenly disappeared from the Hollywood scene, leaving behind a cult classic, Captive Wild Woman. Acquanetta, the opera, focuses on a scene from that flick. Michael Gordon (b. 1956) is one of the founders of the Bang on a Can music collective based in NYC. Hartford's own double bass player, Robert Black, is a longtime member of this innovative contemporary music ensemble, but he's not playing among the six fellow members who recorded Acquanetta, along with the Choir of Trinity Wall Street. Acquanetta herself is Mikaela Bennett, one of four vocalists involved in the live recording of the chamber version of the opera made during the 2018 Prototype Festival. Daniela Candalleri directs the ensemble and singing cast. Acquanetta was released in 2019 on a single CD by Cantaloupe Music.