Great Moments in Human History

This setting of this one act opera is contemporary, four singers coming to a first meeting with the conductor of a small opera company. The plot involves the surprise and reaction of the singers to the subject of the opera.

The libretto is in English.
 

The opera calls for five singers as follows:

coloratura soprano
mezzo
soprano or mezzo  (the conductor)
tenor
baritone

There is no chorus in this opera.

            The staging requirements of this opera are modest. The setting is contemporary. Everything takes place in a single room, a waiting room, with a door on each side of the room. There is no particular staging except for that of a waiting room and no particular costumes are required.
 
           As to the orchestra, this work is written for a chamber ensemble of five winds (fl, ob, cl, bsn and hn), a single instrumentalist on each part, and strings. Ideally, the strings would be 3,3,3,3,1. This would be 18 instrumentalists. Two or even one on each of the upper four string parts would work as well. In these cases, the opera could be performed with 14 or even 10 instrumentalists.
 
           The full score and Piano-Vocal scores are available at no cost. My only interest is in seeing this performed.
 
           I wish to add that I think it is quite suitable for production by a university opera program or a small opera company since there is a range of singers and the production requirements are quite modest.
 
           If interested, please contact me. I will gladly provide any further information needed.
 
           Thank you.

 
Gary Sunden
Phone: 212-925-4848
Email: gsunden@gmail.com
 
 

Notes about the video:
 
1. This work was given its first performances on March 10 and March 12, 2022 at the National Opera Center of Opera America in New York City. Two pianos were used instead of the chamber orchestra for these first performances. This is often done, I learned, for first performances of an opera. I was very pleasantly surprised at how well it worked with two pianos.
 
2. I made a few very small changes in the score after these first performances so the full score now available has these changes. As a result there are slight differences between the video and the current full score. 

3. One can get a very accurate idea of the opera in the video, although done with two pianos. I have a virtual recording of the orchestral score on a CD. The voices sound synthetic but the orchestral sound is very accurate. It is available at any time upon request.