Commissioned by Das Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden

  • 2222/4221/timp/perc/synth/pn/str
  • soprano/mezz/alto/barithon/tenore/basso
  • 1 hr 40 min

Programme Note

Oryx and Crake“ tells the story of the only human survivor on Earth. In flash-backs, revealing only bit by bit, we must ourselves put together the pieces of the drama that lead to the apocalypse. The opera unfolds within 24 hours, beginning at dawn and finishing the next morning.

Atwood’s love-triangle offers plenty of classic music drama, her dystopia is painted in complex, industrial soundscapes and the post-armageddon solitude in contemporary-contemplative open spaces. Electronics extend and augment the orchestral colours and help achieving the unreal „haunted“ atmosphere and the different reality levels of the protagonist’s memory.

Scores

Full Score
Excerpt (Vocal Score)

Features

  • Opera Highlights Summer Fall 2024
    • Opera Highlights Summer Fall 2024
    • Ahead of Opera America’s 2024 Opera Conference and the World Opera Forum, Wise Music Classical invites you to explore new highlights from our opera catalogue. Across major premieres, new productions, and first recordings, our composers and their collaborators explore both timely issues and the timeless themes of love, desire, and belonging.
  • New Opera Highlights from Wise Music Classical
    • New Opera Highlights from Wise Music Classical
    • Wise Music Classical invites you to explore new highlights from our opera catalogue. In these recent and upcoming premieres, new productions, and premiere recordings, our composers and their creative collaborators explore subjects ranging from the historical (Hadrian, X: The Life and Times of Malcom X, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) to the futuristic (Oryx and Crake), the fantastic (El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego, Florencia en el Amazonas, Die Kinder des Sultans) to the thoroughly contemporary (Grounded, Blue, Innocence, The Shell Trial). Threaded throughout these works are perennial themes of loss, longing, magic, art-making, and community.
  • Margaret Atwood inspires
    • Margaret Atwood inspires
    • Known for her powerful stories and her piercing depictions of the world, award-winning novelist Margaret Atwood has gone on to inspire the operatic world.

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