MAZZOLI'S 'PROVING UP' DEBUT RECORDING (AUG '20)
Then come along, come along, make no delay;
Come from every nation, come from every way.
Our lands, they are broad enough - don't be alarmed,
For Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm.
- Jesse Hutchinson, Jr.
It opens with a Prologue, gritty as the dirt beneath a dead man's fingernails: Baritone John Moore sings the old, golden promises of America's West while the musical landscape eerily betrays him. Proving Up, Missy Mazzoli’s third operatic collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek, is adapted from a dark and surreal short story of the same name by Karen Russell and follows a post-Civil War family’s grueling pursuit of the American Dream during Nebraska’s land rush.
The debut recording of this acclaimed chamber opera will be released worldwide, August 21, 2020, on the Pentatone label. The 80-minute album features the original Opera Omaha cast recording of director James Darrah’s production, as premiered in the company’s first annual ONE Festival (April 2018).
Links:
Mazzoli is currently at work on her fourth opera, The Listeners, a collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek and playwright Jordan Tannahill, to be directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz; commissioned by the Norwegian National Opera, Opera Philadelphia and Lyric Opera of Chicago.
ABOUT PROVING UP
Photo Credit: James Daniel, courtesy of Opera Omaha
L-R: John Moore, Abigail Nims, Cree Carrico, Sam Shapiro, Talise Trevigne
Co-commissioned by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha, and Miller Theatre at Columbia University, Proving Up landed on several end-of-year lists via its triptych of premieres, including Washington National Review’s “Best New Work of 2018,” WQXR’s “New York’s Most Memorable Moments of 2018,” and the New York Times “Best Classical Music in 2018,” as well as landing as a finalist for the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA) Best New Opera Award (2019).
For the New York Times, Zachary Woolfe wrote: “Brooding on the impossibility of the American dream, Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s tense, creepy new opera, which came to the Miller Theater at Columbia University in September [2018], shows the fracturing of a homestead family suffering on the brutal Nebraska plains. The setting is the middle of the 19th century, but the lessons — about prosperity, virility, patriotism and cycles of violence — are crushingly contemporary. And Ms. Mazzoli’s score, for just a dozen or so players, is a landscape of shimmering aridity.”
Harry Rose, reviewing for Parterre Box, proclaimed: “…the most convincing case I have ever seen for modern American opera; the medium has been fitted to our sensibilities, using our sonic mediums and poetically and musically evoking our soundscape, and telling a uniquely American story by two of the most persuasive voices in American new opera.”
Of the world premiere directed by Alison Moritz for Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist Program (January 2018), Anne Midgette wrote for the Washington Post, “It’s a work for its time: Its subject, at bottom, is the promises politicians make to the American people, and the staggering human cost to those who don’t realize that their efforts go against their own self-interest. Hard to watch on stage, yes, but even harder to live…Mazzoli, certainly and happily, continues to show herself a natural opera composer: Her music responds keenly to the story’s time and place as well as to its characters’ respective journeys.”
ALBUM INFORMATION
TRACK LISTING
1. Prologue (Uncle Sam’s Farm)
2. Part I: The Settler’s Scar
3. Part II: Miles Will Prove Up
4. Part III: How Pa Obtained the Glass
5. Part IV: Strange Dreams
6. Part V: Nore at a Soft Canter
7. Part VI: Sodbuster
8. Epilogue (All That’s Required)
Total playing time: 79. 48
PERSONNEL
Proving Up (2018)
composed by Missy Mazzoli
to a libretto by Royce Vavrek
after the short story by Karen Russell
Co-commissioned by the Washington National Opera, by Opera Omaha, and by Miller Theatre at Columbia University and first produced at the Kennedy Center during the 2017-18 Season.
Miles Zegner Michael Slattery (tenor)
Mr. Johannes “Pa” Zegner John Moore (baritone)
Mrs. Johannes “Ma” Zegner Talise Trevigne (soprano)
Taller Zegner Daughter Abigail Nims (mezzo-soprano)
Littler Zegner Daughter Cree Carrico (soprano)
The Sodbuster Andrew Harris (bass)
International Contemporary Ensemble:
Flute & Piccolo Isabel Lepanto Gleicher
Clarinet & Bass Clarinet Curt Miller
Bassoon & Contrabassoon Rebekah Heller
Trumpet Sam Jones
French Horn Rachel Drehmann
Harp Nuiko Wadden
Piano & Harpsichord Karl Larson Percussion Clara Warnaar
Violin I Leah Asher
Violin II Marina Kifferstein
Viola Wendy Richman
Cello Katinka Kleijn
Double Bass Brian Ellingsen
Conducted by Christopher Rountree
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Executive Producer: Missy Mazzoli
Producer: Jesse Lewis
Recording Engineer: Shauna Barravecchio
Assistant Engineer: Tom Ware
Editing: Shauna Barravecchio, Brett Leonard
Mixing: Jesse Lewis
Mastering: Kyle Pyke, Jesse Lewis
Recorded at: Warehouse Productions, Omaha, NE
Recording dates: April 17, 18, 20, 201
RESOURCES
For interviews and appearances contact: sarah@calliopePR.com | 646.907.8062.
Mazzoli's music can be heard on New Amsterdam Records.
Mazzoli is published by G. Schirmer.