Poetry by Frank O'Hara

Karim Sulayman, tenor; Shannon McGinnis, piano

Complete audio: http://bit.ly/SC-more-beautiful

More Beautiful Than Night, for tenor and piano (excerpts)

Love triangles are never easy, but Joyce isn’t concerned. She knows exactly how to handle the situation. But when she learns the “other woman” is a goddess, she begins to unravel.

Presented by Boston Opera Collaborative
Celeste Godin, Joyce
Sirgourney Tanner, The Other Woman
Fran Rogers, Arthur

Tony Solitro, composer
Based on the play by Jane Martin
Tian Hui Ng conducts the Boston New Music Initiative Ensemble
Brendon Shapiro, music director
Greg Smucker, stage director

Watch the complete video: http://bit.ly/triangle-vimeo

Boston Opera Collaborative: Triangle (excerpts)

Orchestral interlude from Tony Solitro's 
Unclasped, for Soprano and Orchestra.

Reading with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. 

Maestro David Hayes, conductor
Libretto by Jason Lahman and Tony Solitro.

Melinda's website: www.melindawhittington.com
Tony's website: www.tonysolitrocomposer.com

Danse Macabre, orchestral interlude from Unclasped (excerpt)

Synopsis: During intermission, two divas exchange critiques of the performance. Both had auditioned for the opera, but their dear friend (and greatest rival) landed the lead role. After a moment of polite hesitation, they unleash their uncensored opinions.

She's Fabulous
a vignette for two female voices and piano
Based on a play by Jack Neary

Clarice: Ashley Robillard, soprano
Bethel: Heather Stebbins, soprano
Piano: Reese Revak

Commissioned by Boston Opera Collaborative and Longy School of Music of Bard College
Premiere: November 11-13, 2016

She's Fabulous

She's Fabulous — a vignette for two female voices and piano

Poetry by Frank O'Hara

Karim Sulayman, tenor;  Shannon McGinnis, piano

IV. To You — from More Beautiful Than Night, for tenor and piano

Poetry by Frank O'Hara

Karim Sulayman, tenor;  Shannon McGinnis, piano

Complete audio: http://bit.ly/SC-more-beautiful

II. LEBNAAN                                     لبنان

يمكن بتاريخ ما بشبه أي تاريخ
رح حس شفافو عم تلمس شفافي
بهاك التاريخ في الجليل
هلق لما حسيت فيها بلدغة شفافو

غبرة نفسو اللذيذ رح تبقى على شفافي
كانو وعيي تخربط
كانو العشق وغرور الروح استولو للحظة على شفافي
وتسللو ممن ل زرقة المعبد

بلش الحكي وكان الضو عم يوعا وقلي
رح روح معك للبلد التاني ”
ما بهم اذا تركت حالي هون
تركت طفولتي عم تلعب على السفوح العنبية

تركت منديل بيي وقبر امي
وذكريات العابي لليا عم تتمايل بالملعب متل الشفاف
كل الحكي اللي طالع من شفافي البيض
”رح يسهلك رحلتك ال مش كتير ضرورية

و هيك لالا النهار على شفافو
بالرغم من الشبابيك الوسخة والجو البارد
هوي هونيك بالجبال
وانا ناطرا على هاك الشفاف الخشبية المنحدرة
حتى إذا شافتو عيوني عم يصطاد
بيركض نفسي يتخبا على مذبح شفافو

II. LEBANON

Perhaps he will press his warm lips
to mine in a phrase exceptionally historic,
which seemed to have lived on lips
in Galilee now that I have already felt

its sting. The sweet fetid dust
of his breath will linger upon my lips
as if my understanding were affected and a soul
of passion and arrogant surmise had my lips

for a moment and then passed through my lips
into the rendering azure of the temple.
It was coolly dawning and his lips
opened, “I'll go with you to the other country,

no matter that my all is here,
my childhood on the plains' grapelike lips,
my father's handkerchief, my mother's tomb,
my memory of games; they go up like lips

in a stadium; all that comes from my white lips
and shall ease you on the unnecessary journey.”
And thus the day did blanch upon his lips
despite the dirty windowpanes and cold air.

He did go to the mountains and perhaps I
shall be daily upon those wooded sloping lips,
so that as he is fleetly hunting goats
my breath will find its altar in those lips.

II. Lebnaan لبنان (excerpt)

Poetry by Frank O'Hara

Karim Sulayman, tenor;  Shannon McGinnis, piano

Complete audio: http://bit.ly/SC-more-beautiful

I. Liebeslied (excerpt)

IV. To You (excerpt)

Aphrodite Seduces — Triangle (excerpt 2)

Joyce Unravels — Triangle (excerpt 1)

No More in Darkness | Meditations on the life of Alexandra David-Neel
Poetry by Corinne Elysse Adams

illumine
Kaitlyn Waterson, mezzo-soprano
David Brown, violin
Jodie Brown, piano

illumine: http://www.illuminemusic.org

Text (excerpt):
The white teeth of the fence cannot keep you in,
cannot swallow you in another convulsive fight
dark throated halls of the house you loathe

Program Note: Alexandra David-Neel (1868–1969) was a conservatory-trained soprano in her youth. She sang La Traviata, Lakmé, Carmen, and Thaïs. But the life of a socialite wasn't enough for her. She longed for something more. She searched for it—in India, China, and Tibet—and wrote books recording her adventures. She is best known for her daring journey to Lhasa over the Trans-Himalayas in midwinter 1924. She disguised herself as a beggar and her adopted son, Lama Yongden, accompanied her. David-Neel became the first European woman to reach Tibet’s forbidden capital. She remains the most accurate source on Buddhist practices of a nearly-vanished world.

No More in Darkness is available for soprano or mezzo-soprano in 2 versions:
Version A: voice, viola, and piano
Version B: voice, violin, and piano

Illumine: No More in Darkness (excerpt 1)

No More in Darkness | Meditations on the life of Alexandra David-Neel
Poetry by Corinne Elysse Adams

illumine
Kaitlyn Waterson, mezzo-soprano
David Brown, violin
Jodie Brown, piano

illumine: www.illuminemusic.org

Text (excerpt):
At this, the unblossom, the gloaming, we cry
Lha Gyalo, Lha Gyalo! The gods have won!
and it’s true, if what’s won is mystery.

Program Note: Alexandra David-Neel (1868–1969) was a conservatory-trained soprano in her youth. She sang La Traviata, Lakmé, Carmen, and Thaïs. But the life of a socialite wasn't enough for her. She longed for something more. She searched for it—in India, China, and Tibet—and wrote books recording her adventures. She is best known for her daring journey to Lhasa over the Trans-Himalayas in midwinter 1924. She disguised herself as a beggar and her adopted son, Lama Yongden, accompanied her. David-Neel became the first European woman to reach Tibet’s forbidden capital. She remains the most accurate source on Buddhist practices of a nearly-vanished world.

No More in Darkness is available for soprano or mezzo-soprano in 2 versions:
Version A: voice, viola, and piano
Version B: voice, violin, and piano

Illumine: No More in Darkness (excerpt 2)

A Case of Anxiety 
an opera vignette

Music by Tony Solitro
Libretto by Mark Harvey Levine

Commissioned by Boston Opera Collaborative
Recorded live on October 28, 2018 in Cambridge, MA.

Robert: Ethan DePuy, tenor
Marissa: Celeste Godin, soprano
Inspector: Andrew Miller, baritone

Katie Barr, music director
Greg Smucker, stage director
Dan Ryan, conductor

Program Note:

Robert here—and I'm prepared for danger! Yes, I've planned for every likely scenario that could possibly kill me ... come to think of it, I've also planned for many unlikely hazards, too (can never be too careful—y'know what I'm sayin?) ... but how many times will I die before I finally decide to live? (Deep, CLEANSING breaths, Robert!) I might have a nervous breakdown just thinking about it.

Boston Opera Collaborative: A Case of Anxiety (excerpt)

sharp horizons — gentle plains (2019)
for clarinet, violin, & piano

Eric Schultz, clarinet
Elly Toyoda, violin
Han Chen, piano

Tony Solitro, composer

sharp horizons—gentle plains is inspired by Jeffery Beam's poem “Earth Gospel” (from Gospel Earth, Skysill Press, England, 2010). The text is used with the kind permission of the author.

EARTH GOSPEL

Expressive
                    the world’s hills
                    earth’s convincing boundaries
Now sharp horizons
Now gentle plains
Holy groves
                    abstract slender

Eye travels up
beyond dipping ridge
to dwarfed valley below
to our fated knowledge
heavy with cicada song
where strangers may pass &
dark hate dissipates forever

Reconcile hill
to valley

Reconcile intervening time

Fall into clarity completeness

sharp horizons — gentle plains | for clarinet, violin, & piano

Eve Gigliotti, mezzo-soprano
Mila Henry, piano

Music by Tony Solitro
Libretto by Alice Eve Cohen

Produced by The American Opera Project as part of their video tour, Working Women: Songs of Suffering and Suffrage, commemorating the women's suffrage centennial in the U.S.

Visit AOP OnDemand for Video Rentals and Purchases: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/workingwomen 

Program Note:

NYC, 1872. It’s the day before the election. Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president, delivers an impassioned speech on free love and equal rights to a standing-room crowd of her supporters. She hears a hostile mob outside chanting “Lock her up!” Refusing to be silenced, Victoria is arrested and jailed for obscenity.

“Revolution Begins in the Bedroom” is the opening aria of Mrs. Satan and the Nasty Woman, an opera-in-progress by librettist Alice Eve Cohen and composer Tony Solitro, adapted from Cohen's play.

Almost erased from the history books, Woodhull was a suffrage fighter, radical activist, stockbroker, clairvoyant, and free love advocate. Once hailed by Susan B. Anthony as “the new leader of our fight for Suffrage,” Woodhull fell out of favor with suffrage leaders when she had the audacity to run for president. She was jailed right before the 1872 election.

Opera Premise:

November 7, 2016. It’s the eve of another historic election. Hillary Clinton is having a hard time sleeping. Her mind is racing. Insomnia rules. She wakes up in Ludlow Street Jail circa 1872, sharing a cell with Victoria Woodhull. 

Will Hillary be radicalized by Victoria’s foresight and revolutionary politics? Based on Alice Eve Cohen’s play Mrs. Satan and the Nasty Woman, the opera examines two women's roles in the long path to a woman President.

Revolution Begins in the Bedroom

Read the bio, watch videos, and explore the composition catalogue at www.tonysolitro.com | honorific / pronouns: Dr. / he, him

tonysolitro

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