An opera in development for six voices and orchestra

Faustine is an opera in development with playwright Lucy Thurber after the novella by Emma Tennant, with support from New York City Opera VOX, ROH2 at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Aldeburgh Young Artist Residencies. It is the story of an older woman, Muriel, who sells her soul to the devil for eternal youth because she is in love with her daughter's lover. The project has received support from Center for Contemporary Opera, NY City Opera VOX, New Music USA CAP Performance program, ROH2 at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Aldeburgh Young Artist Residencies.

Click here to download the first page of the score

Listen to excerpts from Faustine:

Introduction and Scene 1: Muriel and Her Devil


The scene opens with Muriel, alone, gazing at herself in a mirror late at night. Muriel looks around the apartment she shares with her daughter, Anna and her granddaughter, Ella. She is lonely and unsatisfied. The Devil enters and watches Muriel as she thinks about all her unfulfilled desire. The Devil feeds Muriel’s longing and loneliness.

Scene 3: Family Morning

The next morning, Muriel and Anna get Ella ready for school. Muriel and Anna fight over how a young lady should present herself to the world. Muriel believes it’s more important to be pretty and dress well so Ella can get herself a “good man.” Anna wants her daughter to develop her mind and her belief system. The Devil enters and adds his voice to Muriel’s supporting the idea that image is more important than substance.

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Review of the New York City Opera VOX showcase performance

...Artistic Director George Steel was on hand to assure us that, while the works of some Vox participants (John Zorn and Stephen Schwartz among them), have indeed been produced by the company, VOX is no mere scouting endeavor.

Still, if one were to handicap what Steel might next select for a full production from these readings, a good bet would be “Faustine,” a retelling of the Faust story with a female protagonist by Arlene Sierra. Paired with librettist Lucy Thurber -- a recent opera convert but already a sure hand at crafting memorable and singable lines – it was the most musically adventurous, tightly constructed and dramatically sound of the works-in-progress on offer.

Sierra’s musical language encompasses both acerbic dissonance where the plot requires it and, elsewhere, supple melodies of considerable sweep. Particularly riveting were her duets for the devil -- here unctuously played and vividly sung by countertenor Jason Abrams -- and the leading role, sung with earthy resonance by mezzo-soprano Jennifer Roderer. ...the Vox reading suggested that Thurber and Sierra are well on the way toward crafting a memorable new opera.

Musical America

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WQXR’s Jeff Spurgeon interviews Arlene Sierra and Lucy Thurber, photos from the VOX performance, and an interview from New York City Opera

	Below: New York City Opera Orchestra, Conductor: Ryan McAdams, Musical Preparation: Lynn Baker Devil: Jason Abrams, Muriel: Jennifer Roderer, Ella: Deanna Breiwick, Anna: Amanda Pabyan, Harry: Ian Greenlaw Photography © Liz Thornton

"Arlene Sierra’s work Urban Birds for three pianos, sampled birdsong and percussion was intriguing – she’s a name to watch"
- Helen Wallace, BBC Music Magazine

 

New York Philharmonic commission for chamber orchestra:

Ms. Sierra has long been fascinated by game theory and Darwinian evolution, and this piece is an attempt to evoke the process of attrition, as in natural selection. Throughout the bustling work, instruments engage and tussle with one another as if struggling to prevail and move up the musical/evolutionary ladder. Yet, as the title suggests, Ms. Sierra makes a game of it. Little cells of tightly confined pitches knock about with others, grow into larger gestures and then cut loose into skittish flights.
The New York Times

Listen to an excerpt from the debut recording on Bridge Records, Game of Attrition: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 2, performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac Van Steen, conductor:

Programme Note:

A game of attrition gradually reduces the strengths of the opponents through sustained attack or pressure; in game theory, it is when two contestants compete for a resource while accumulating costs and losses over time. Natural selection as described in Darwin’s Origin of Species was probably the first description of this game in nature: When two species share the same place in the same environment, they will compete all the more to survive.

An important feature of the work is the competitive duo, where two solo instruments of similar tessitura compete for dominance or territory within the overall sound. The musical environment in which these competitions take place is made up of small cellular figurations that replicate, grow and evolve throughout the body of the piece.

In this Darwin bicentenary year, the sense of Game of Attrition is a contemporary and scientific wonder of the pastoral, leaving behind the old, somewhat naive romantic ideal. Through a modern understanding and appreciation, we have the means to account not just for nature's beauty, but also its complexity, violence and vulnerability.

Further Reviews:

The new age of classical music in New York couldn’t be more aptly heralded than with Arlene Sierra’s Game of Attrition. ... At turns spry, savage, sly and seductive, Game of Attrition is a Stravinskian play among brass and strings, piano and percussion ... so enrapturing.

Time Out New York

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Sierra’s piece is described by its title; an exercise in conflict and entropy that she described as using “organic, small musical cells, transitions,” written for chamber orchestra. It has a bright opening, followed quickly by a slow, repeated note. From that point, it becomes a work where instruments chatter with and against each other, one group developing a coherent phrase before falling back against the pressures of another. There are bursts of chords, sharp rhythmic attacks and ostinati layered over a subtle, consistent medium tempo pulse. A lyrical cello melody rises from the ensemble and leads to a contrasting contemplative section, before it too falls apart against the interjections of other instruments. As the texture slowly thins out, there are bursts of individual voices fighting against the tide – harp, piano, flutter-tongued flute, long tones in the brass – before the piece comes to a brief, final sense of coherence and then ends with a single attack. It’s a contemporary answer to Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony, and consistently interesting. The ear is involved and the organic developments and transitions move the music along to points that are both unexpected and natural, and as music propagates itself through time, the concept of attrition is a natural.

Seen and Heard International

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Photos:

1. Arlene Sierra discusses her score with Magnus Lindberg, conductor and NYPO Composer-in-Residence
2. Pre-concert interview at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
3. The world premiere of Game of Attrition at Symphony Space
4. Post-concert Composer Panel at Symphony Space: (l to r) Kampela, Sierra, Liang, Dalbavie, & Lindberg

Photography © Chris Lee and Liz Thornton