Orlando - An Escapade (2021)

Chamber opera in two acts based on Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando. Libretto by the composer. 

Cast
Orlando – Countertenor/Mezzo
Virginia Woolf – Actress

Supers (playing multiple roles):
Soprano
Mezzo Soprano
Tenor
Baritone

Composer's Note

‘Virginia Woolf’s Orlando elaborates upon two very universal human goals: to find the right mate in life, and to find one’s life’s work – and to then balance them both. Although the novella covers many other elements and issues as well, I have chosen to focus my intimate opera primarily around those two goals, exploring the relationship between writer and subject and the struggle throughout one’s life to find actual fulfilment in one’s life through both love and work.

Virginia Woolf described her famous book as an ‘escapade’. I have adopted this nominer as a subtitle to this, my new chamber opera, in order to emphasize the fantasy and imagination that I would like to preserve in my musical presentation: a compact and intimate production based on the artistic and imaginative ingredients of the ‘escapade’. Woolf created Orlando as a vehicle for experiencing and understanding her own age, its legacy, education, customs, and culture – both as a man and as a woman, but also essentially as an artist.’