Geoffrey Alvarez: operas

 

 

 

 

Bastien and Bastienne

 

Arias (in German) - Mozart,

Recitatives (in English) -  Geoffrey Alvarez (1993)

 

excerpt • Duration: 70'

Commissioned in 1993 by English Country Opera

 

Review in The European

 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
BASTIENNE	a shepherdess	soprano
BASTIEN	her lover	mezzo soprano
COLAS	a quack magician	bass

 

 First four seasons:

 

(1) English Country Opera Peckover House (1993)

(2) Northlands Festival, Ackergill Tower (1994)

(3) Chelsea Arts Club

(4) Blackthorpe Barn (1995)

 

 

Material available for hire or purchase from Geoffrey Alvarez

 

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excerpt • recording •  duration 42′

 

INSTRUMENTATION

 

flute/piccolo oboe/cor anglais clarinet bassoon

horn trumpet tenor trombone with F attachment

pianoforte 5 violins 3 violas 4 violoncelli 2 double basses

 

Illustration of The Tell-Tale Heart by Harry Clarke originally printed in

Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 1919 London: Harrap

Composer’s note

 

I conducted the first staged performance at the Royal Academy of Music Opera Department 1984. The work's structure draws heavily on Lorenz’s Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard Wagner, an analysis of Wagner's late operas which finds a wealth of formal devices from Bar Form (AAB) to symphonic thinking providing the structural underpinning of these ostensibly flamboyantly Romantic works: there is a symphonic structure to the whole  and a structural parallelism between the first and second Acts. The musical language is one of my first excursions into the twelve-tone universe and the expressionist world of Berg and Schoenberg.

 

download licence: £3 each

printed copy Full Score £15 including postage

 

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excerpt

 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ALICE	soprano
THE DORMOUSE	mezzo soprano
THE MAD HATTER	tenor
THE MARCH HARE	bass
A CHORUS OF CHAIRS	S.A.T.B.

 

INSTRUMENTATION

 

flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, trombone ,

pianoforte, violin, viola, violoncello, double-bass

 

download licence £2 

printed copy postage included: £14  

Orchestral material available for hire or purchase from Geoffrey Alvarez

 

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La profecía última del rey

 

The King’s Last Prophecy

by Geoffrey Álvarez

 

a dream in five operas woven, in large part,

from the life and beliefs of the Kogi of Colombia. 

 

 

The Earth has been violated by her sons. She is barren.

The King is mad. Can the death of the sick King at the

innocent hand of his own mother atone for the sins of the sons?

No. It is not enough: dying, the King tells of the end of the world.

 

Can the sacrifice of Isla Bella, daughter of the sun,

drowning in her own blood, be sufficient to stop

the serpent of greed devouring her father?

Director Keith Warner:

This really is a piece that deserves great support

and MUST be furthered: fresh, original and exciting.

 

Listen to the death of Isla Bella and the serpents struggle with the sun here.

 

Orchestras, choirs, and opera companies interested in contributing to the development of the project should and have a glance here and contact

Geoffrey Alvarez for further details.

 

 

Hard copies of perusal scores and libretti of the entire nine hour cycle

are available from Geoffrey Alvarez or downloaded

from page six of the general catalogue.

 

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