Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Adamo's 'Little Women'
Boffo in Cleveland

© Martin Gram

The dream of many opera composers is to direct a production of their own work. For Mark Adamo, that deam is coming true as he made his operatic directorial debut last week
with Lyric Opera Cleveland’s production
of his own brilliant re-imagining of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women." (Final performance will be Thursday night, June 24.)

“Directing is the only thing I enjoy nearly as much as composing,” Adamo says. “One can argue that the score of an opera relates to its libretto the same way a director’s choices relate to a spoken script.”

Like most audiences and critics who have seen "Little Women," Cleveland audiences are thoroughly charmed. Donald Rosenberg,
Plain Dealer Music Critic, writes: "It is a brilliant, touching variation on Alcott. Adamo has shaped a libretto of dramatic truth, full of heart and humor, and his score functions deftly on many levels...Hazy Modernism dissolves into gorgeous Romanticism, and back again, according to mood and motivation."

Since its premiere in 1998 by the Houston Grand Opera Studio, "Little Women" has had more than 25 productions.

“I’m fortunate in that the vast majority of
productions I’ve seen have been correct to the writing," Adamo says. "But, the one major aspect of the opera that I think has been overlooked or resisted is its surrealism. This isn’t a naturalistic 19th-century piece that happens to begin with a flashback: it’s the fever-dream of a 19th-century character that happens to have a 21st-century sensibility. In my production, "Little Women" meets Lewis Carroll’s "Through the Looking Glass.”

Adamo is currently developing two new operas for HGO over the next four seasons. "Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess," the first, will premiere in Houston on March 4, 2005 and play seven additional performances in Houston with subsequent performances planned by co-producer New York City Opera. Directed by Michael Kahn, Adamo's new opera features Emily Pulley in the title role, Chad Shelton as Niko, and Myrna Paris as Cleonike. Stefan Lano conducts.

Other upcoming projects for Mark Adamo include a new Harp Concerto, commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra for NSO principal harpist Dotian Levalier, and the Carnegie Hall premiere of Cantate Domino in December with the Collegiate Chorale under the direction of Robert Bass.

Born in Philadelphia, Adamo began his education at New York University, where he received the Paulette Goddard Remarque Scholarship for outstanding undergraduate achievement in playwriting. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Music Degree cum laude in composition in 1990 from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he was awarded the Theodore Presser prize for outstanding undergraduate achievement in composition. He is Composer-in-Residence at New York City Opera where he curates the contemporary opera workshop series VOX: Showcasing American Composers

Little Women
Composer: Mark Adamo
Conductor: Patrick Summers
Performer: Catherine Ciesinski, James Maddalena, et al.
Ondine - #988

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