DANIEL JOHN KELLEY

This weekend I went to NYC opera’s VOX showcase- which is a series of concert presentations of excerpts from new operas.

The most successful piece was an opera version of the 1983 novel, Eleni. It’s set in 1945, in a mountain village in Greece. The German’s have left, but the Communists are coming. One woman and her family struggle with these new oppressors, trying to escape to America, and dreams of freedom. The pieces from it I saw were truly powerful- operatic in scope and music. If someone told me this was going to be done somewhere, I would go.

Another interesting piece was this opera about a Giraffe. In it, one of the pieces (an aria?) is for the giraffe itself. However, the giraffe doesn’t sing words- or like people- the composer makes the compelling choice to make the giraffe sing as though it is actually the giraffe singing. I thought that was brilliant!

All in all, an interesting afternoon.