From the opera Criseyde: Criseyde's Dream

This piano fantasy, played back here on MIDI instrument, is based on my electronic opera Apocalypse on New World Records, especially the Apocalypse Song, which you can hear on my YouTube site at https://youtu.be/SPK8eCkNs8k?si=fO0PFLblSZtkWLSN

Fantasy For Piano (2024) on themes from the electronic opera Apocalypse

Premiered by the Aurora Ensemble In 1987 in Ridgewood, NJ.
Music publisher: The American Composers Alliance,  https://composers.com/alice-shields

Aurora –duo for violin and oboe

Criseyde is my feminist revenge opera in which I re-wrote Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.

I used Chaucer's own Middle English and twisted it around to give the female character Criseyde a way out of the control and abuse.  

A chamber opera for 5 solo singers, ensemble of 3 singers, and 14 instruments, Criseyde was performed in concert by the New York City Opera VOX festival of contemporary American operas, and recorded by The American Virtuosi in 2008.  On this recording soprano Kerri Marcinko is the heroine Criseyde, baritone Richard Byrne is Troilus and bass Larry Long is Pandar, with conductor Kenneth Hamrick and the musicians of The American Virtuosi.  

They are singing in Middle English.  

The action: Troilus is in bed pretending to be sick.  Pandar tricks Criseyde into coming to see him. The Ladies watch.  Criseyde maintains her composure, but finds herself trapped into accepting Troilus as her lover.  

Published by The American Composers Alliance, Inc. (BMI)
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© copyright 2006 Alice Shields All Rights Reserved

Engagement Scene from the opera Criseyde

In this scene, Pandar, who controls his neice Criseyde's estate, tells Criseyde he will kill himself if she doesn’t let Troilus communicate with her.  After vehemently objecting, he plays upon her fear, and she submits. 

The opera Criseyde, a 2 hour long chamber opera with music and libretto by Alice Shields, is a feminist reworking of Chaucer’s romance“Troilus and Criseyde” for 5 solo singers, ensemble of 3 singers, and 14 solo instruments.

From the opera Criseyde: Pandar forces Criseyde to let Troilus visit her

In this scene from the opera Criseyde, Pandar, Troilus, and the Three Ladies  come out of the bushes and set up lawn chairs outside Criseyde’s bedroom window. Cassandra is rolled out on a dolly by Pandar and Troilus and trundled downstage. She steps off the dolly manacled and covered in blood as she was when she was murdered by Clytemnestra as Agamemnon’s enslaved concubine. The men then join the Three Ladies, settle down on their lawn chairs, and make themselves comfortable as they wait for Cassandra to interpret Criseyde’s dream. 

A glass-like bubble, containing rising smoke and beautifully-colored lights, rises over Criseyde as she sleeps. After putting on sunglasses to shield her eyes from the light, Cassandra scrys into the bubble. 

The assembled faces are dimly lit, waiting to hear what dream Cassandra sees. Cassandra tells them it’s a dream of love. They are pleased.

The opera Criseyde, a 2 hour long chamber opera with music and libretto by Alice Shields, is a feminist reworking of Chaucer’s romance“Troilus and Criseyde” for 5 solo singers, ensemble of 3 singers, and 14 solo instruments.

This recording is from the April 2008 performances of “Criseyde’s Dream” from the opera Criseyde, with music and libretto by Alice Shields in Chaucer's Middle English from his "Troilus and Criseyde".  The soloists in this scene by American Virtuosi, conducted by Kenneth Hamrick, are contralto Heidi Skok as Cassandra, and soprano Kerri Marcinko as Criseyde, with the rest of the cast as Chorus.

The opera Criseyde: Criseyde's Dream (2010)

This is the Koch International Classics recording with Dora Ohrenstein, soprano; Judith Pearce, alto flute and Masayo Ishigure, koto.  The photo by Seth Tillett is from the Dec.1, 2015 performance at Opera America with Martha Cluver, soprano; Sarah Carrier, alto flute and Mayuko Matsuda, koto.  You can see the video of this performance by the Aviva Ensemble on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOkke6F6lis&list=PLYEPrmRM36Vtubr5ibqwOucPm5ycZGToo

Komachi at Sekidera is a mini-opera for soprano, alto flute and koto based on the Japanese Noh play "Sekidera Komachi" by Kanze Motokiyo Zeame (1363-1443).  

The protagonist of the play, Ono no Komachi, was a woman of great literary gifts and beauty who lived at the Heian court in ninth-century Japan.  She became a legend after her death, and many apocryphal stories surround the few known biographical facts concerning her life.  In the present piece Komachi has lived into old age, beyond her beauty and her literary fame, and has been forgotten.  Confronted with age and mortality, she alternates between crying out for the days that are gone, and quieter sections in which she contemplates the bittersweet delight of still being alive.  

The structure of this little opera was influenced by the dramatic monologues of Monteverdi’s operas and 18th-century Japanese Kumiuta songs. The modal character of the melody, which often returns to the unstable interval of the tritone, mirrors Komachi’s existential state, as does the alto flute, which shadows her feelings with sounds reminiscent of the shakuhachi, the Japanese bamboo flute.  The koto reflects Komachi's passionate nature.

-- Alice Shields

Komachi at Sekidera (monodrama)

Kyrielle is based on several Gregorian melodies from the Liber Usualis of the Roman Catholic Church, chants that are associated with Mary: an Agnus Dei, a Magnificat, and the Ave Maris Stella, with an Alleluia.  The three main chants form the three sections of the piece.  I put each chant in violin range, and then surrounded fragments of the chants with ornamental passages, thinking of the violin as if it were a voice that can easily make wide skips from note to note.  The resulting violin part consists of wide-ranging, shaped melismas surrounding phrases of chant.   In the score I include the words of the chants to help guide the violinist play these phrases as if she or he were a singer capable of singing in the enormous range of the violin.  The chants are translated below.   

1. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.  Dona nobis pacem. 
“Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.  Give us peace.”  

2. Magnificat anima mea Dominum, Et exultavit spiritus meus, in Deo salutari meo, Alleluia.  
“My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour, Alleluia.”

3. Ave Maris stella, Dei Mater alma, Atque semper Virgo, Felix caeli porta.  Alleluia.
“Hail, star of the sea, blessed Mother of God, always-pure Virgin, gate of hapiness.  Alleluia.”  
		
The tape part forms a backdrop for the rising melodies of the violin.   I created the tape part on a Macintosh G4 computer, using C-Sound and ProTools.  

Kyrielle was commissioned and recorded by violinist Airi Yoshioka, and is   
available for purchase on Albany Records: http://www.albanyrecords.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=TROY1305

Kyrielle for violin & electronic music (2006)

MASS FOR THE DEAD is an electronic opera with music and libretto by Alice Shields, for 3 singers, prerecorded electronic music and electronic voices, 4 optional live instruments, and optional live chorus.  It was premiered by the American Chamber Opera Company in New York City in 1992. Bass-baritone Stephan Kirchgraber sang the role of the Ghost; mezzo-soprano Alice Shields sang the role of the Medium and the Narrator.  The stage director was Andrew Joffe.  In the photo Bharata Natyam master Swati Bhise dances the role of the Medium; in the background the soprano Steffanie Piece sings the role of the Virgin.  

In August, 1987, I had an experience with an eighteenth-century ghost at an old farmhouse in the Rhode Island countryside owned by the composer Vladimir Ussachevsky and his wife Elizabeth Kray. The plot of Mass for the Dead centers around this ghost and the desire of people like me to help him.

A medium tries to free the ghost by evoking the power of female spirits, from the Greek Artemis, Demeter and Hekate, to the Christian Mary. Eventually, the medium succeeds, and the many-faced goddess leads the ghost into the world beyond.

In the opera I use Latin texts and Gregorian chants of the Requiem Mass, and   
ancient Greek texts from Sappho, Archilochos and Aeschylus, taking a phrase here, a noun there, and combining them crudely together, creating ruins of language similar to the ruins of temples and religions and human beings.

Mass for the Dead is meant to provide solace for the audience and myself,
as well as for John Kramer (d.1780), the ghost for whom I wrote it.

--- Alice Shields

“… no spookier piece has been heard in New York this year.” 
                              --- THE NEW YORK TIMES
“..so luxurient yet eerily supernatural, it convulsed the senses.”                            --- SRUTI, India

The electronic opera Mass for the Dead - the Final Scenes (1992)

This is the Koch International Classics recording with Dora Ohrenstein, soprano; Judith Pearce, alto flute and Masayo Ishigure, koto.  The photo by Seth Tillett is from the Dec.1, 2015 performance at Opera America with Martha Cluver, soprano; Sarah Carrier, alto flute and Mayuko Matsuda, koto.  You can see the video of this performance on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOkke6F6lis&list=PLYEPrmRM36Vtubr5ibqwOucPm5ycZGToo

Komachi at Sekidera is a mini-opera for soprano, alto flute and koto based on the Japanese Noh play "Sekidera Komachi" by Kanze Motokiyo Zeame (1363-1443).  

The protagonist of the play, Ono no Komachi, was a woman of great literary gifts and beauty who lived at the Heian court in ninth-century Japan.  She became a legend after her death, and many apocryphal stories surround the few known biographical facts concerning her life.  In the opera Komachi has lived into old age, beyond her beauty and her literary fame, and has been forgotten.  Confronted with age and mortality, she alternates between crying out for the days that are gone, and quieter sections in which she contemplates the bittersweet delight of still being alive.  

The structure of this little opera was influenced by the dramatic monologues of Monteverdi’s operas and 18th-century Japanese Kumiuta songs. The modal character of the melody, which often returns to the unstable interval of the tritone, mirrors Komachi’s existential state, as does the alto flute, which shadows her feelings with sounds reminiscent of the shakuhachi, the Japanese bamboo flute.  The koto reflects Komachi's passionate nature.

-- Alice Shields

Komachi At Sekidera (excerpt from a monodrama)

Recorded on New World Records, with soprano Alice Shields and baritone Michael Willson.  All other voices, music and text by Alice Shields.

From the electronic opera Apocalypse - excerpts

ZHAOJÜN - The Woman Who Saved The World (2018) is a one-act chamber opera for soprano, baritone and 7 instruments: flute, oboe, percussion, piano, violin, viola and cello.  The opera was performed in unstaged concert format on Nov.20, 2018 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center by The Association for the Promotion of New Music, with soprano Sharon Harms as Zhaojün, baritone Jeremy Huw Williams as The Emperor, conductor Carl Bettendorf, director Ashley Tata and the musicians of Ensemble Pi, with actress Kirsty Woodward reading the stage directions.  

Outraged by the ongoing destruction of the world by industry and governments, and the obliviousness of those who could stop it, I chose the figure of Zhaojün, a woman, to be the protagonist.  A woman of that name existed, c. 33 B.C.E. in imperial China, a concubine of the Chinese Emperor whom he gave away to raiding nomadic tribes so they would stop their incursions on his empire. She is still celebrated in China today as "having brought peace" to China, at the expense of her own sexual abuse. In my opera she symbolizes the opposition to the military power of patriarchy and its environmental destruction. She is the vulnerable embodiment of all that lives on earth – humans, animals, plants, the land itself. 

To stop environmental destruction and create universal peace, in my opera the sex slave Zhaojün steps out of ancient times into the 21st century to confront the Emperor, the modern ruler of the world. Twice she tries to rip away his guns and money, but he escapes. The third time he stumbles, falls into his toxic environmental garbage, smothers and dies. Not allowing him to escape from her into death, he brings him back to life and immerses him in Indra’s Net, the connective tissue binding together all cells in the universe: he's overwhelmed by the beauty and profundity of the universe until there's no narcissism left in him. Nearer to enlightenment and almost happy, he dances together with her.

From the opera Zhaojün - The Woman Who Saved The World: Scene 3 & 4

One of the pioneers of electronic music, Alice Shields creates cross-cultural electronic and acoustic operas and music for voice, dance, theater and video. Her work is influenced by Japanese Noh Theater and Indian Bharata Natyam dance-drama, and has been performed by the New York City Opera Vox Festival, Academie der Künste (Berlin), Venice Biennale, Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, Arangham Dance Theater (India), Dance Alloy (Pittsburgh), NYC-Electroacoustic Music Festival, Santa Fe Opera Gallery Concerts, Association for the Promotion of New Music, American Composers Alliance, Ensemble Pi, Iktus Percussion and other groups. 

Her work is recorded on New World, Koch International Classics, Albany, CRI, Atlantic Records, American Composers Alliance Recordings, Opus One and Tellus, and is published by the American Composers Alliance: https://composers.com/alice-shields

Alice Shields

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