You can now listen to America’s opera of the century
mainNo 21st century US opera has earned as much acclaim as Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves, premiered last September by Opera Philadelphia, which is making the most of its success.
From Wednesday, March 29, 2017 at 1 p.m. the world can listen to an audio stream of the opera right here.
Bookmark it.
I mean, Silent Night already won a Pulitzer Prize and has been produced at multiple companies. That’s more “acclaim” than this opera has received, whatever its quality.
Why the obsession with counting and documenting “acclaim”? It’s like this post was written by Mazzoli’s manager.
If you’re making comparisons, Silent Night premiered five years before Breaking the Waves did – that’s five more years to gather awards, productions, and good reviews. As far as I can tell, Breaking the Waves has generated a lot more excitement in its first six months than Silent Night did over the same time frame.
That’s if we’re making comparisons – which I doubt do much good and I suspect neither Puts nor Mazzoli nor Mark Campbell nor Royce Vavrek (the librettists) would care to make.
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It’s too bad the Opera Philadelphia stream will be audio-only. Even more than with most operas, I’m inclined to think that hearing the music without being able to see the acting and staging won’t give you the full effect of the opera.