The Wake World

The Wake World is an opera with music and libretto by David Hertzberg. It premiered September 18, 2017, at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.[1][2] The Wake World was a co-presentation of Opera Philadelphia and the Barnes Foundation, directed by R. B. Schlather and conducted by Elizabeth Braden.[1][2] The opera is based on the story "The Wake World" by Aleister Crowley.[1] The opera's debut recording was released April 24, 2020 on Tzadik Records.[3]

Critical reception

"The whole evening felt celebratory", Opera News wrote of The Wake World.[1] The New York Times called the music engrossing. "Just five instrumentalists produce wondrous colors and sonorities. The score, spiked with modernist elements, makes Mr. Hertzberg seem a 21st-century Ravel", wrote Anthony Tommasini.[4]

"The prose was purple, and so was the music, so thoroughly an antique musical language that it sounded like a half-remembered dream", wrote Peter Dobrin in The Philadelphia Inquirer.[5]

In 2018, The Wake World was awarded the Music Critics Association of North America Award for Best New Opera.[6]

The New York Times listed the opera's debut recording among 'The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020'.[7]

Roles
Role Voice type Premiere cast[2]
Lola soprano Maeve Höglund
The Fairy Prince mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb
Parthenope soprano Rebecca Myers
Ligeia soprano Veronica Chapman-Smith
Leucosia mezzo-soprano Joanna Gates
Luna/Hecate soprano Jessica Beebe
Morbus tenor George Ross Somerville
Pestilitas bass John David Miles
Giant/Bone Man/Man in the Azure Coat/Man of the Blue House bass James Osby Gwathney, Jr.

References
  1. "The Wake World". www.operanews.com. Retrieved 2018-10-29.
  2. "The Wake World". Opera Philadelphia. September 9, 2017. Retrieved 2018-10-29.
  3. Desk, BWW News. "Tzadik Records to Release its First Opera: David Hertzberg's Hallucinatory THE WAKE WORLD". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  4. Anthony Tommasini. "5 Operas in 72 Hours: A Philadelphia Festival Is a Test of Survival". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-10-29.
  5. Dobrin, Peter. "O17 hits the Barnes with a hallucinatory fairy tale". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 2018-10-29.
  6. "Hertzberg Wins New Opera Honor For Wake World". Retrieved 2018-10-29.
  7. Tommasini, Anthony; Woolfe, Zachary; Barone, Joshua; Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna da; Allen, David; Walls, Seth Colter (2020-12-17). "The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-01-05.
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