LAURA HARRINGTON
OPERA
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COUNTDOWN, 1987
The world’s first computer-assisted opera was commissioned by the Boston Lyric Opera Company and composed as part of an intensive composer/librettist collaboration program entitled “Opera in Process,” sponsored by “Opera in the Eighties and Beyond” under the auspices of Opera America and The National Endowment for the Arts.
Synopsis: Countdown takes place beneath the surface of the earth, but not in the realm of the Nibelungen. The libretto, by award-winning playwright Laura Harrington, places the principle characters, Jenna and Charlie, in charge of an underground NORAD nuclear missile command silo. Jenna has just revealed that she is pregnant when the order to begin the countdown arrives.
Countdown went on to win first prize in the Virginia Opera Society’s “New One-Act Operas” competition. The society mounted a full production of the opera; however, the on-line recording is of the premiere by the Boston Lyric Opera under the direction of John Balme.
Countdown : The First On-line Opera |
THE SONG OF THE SILKIE, 2000
Rockport Chamber Festival
Synopsis: Based on the folk tale about a seal who sheds her skin and becomes a woman and her ensuing desire to return to the wild. |