THE MAIDEN TOWER

chamber opera

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Program notes cont'd:



After a number of upwards expansions, the daughter, finally satisfied with the height of the structure, climbs to the top of the tower and throws herself to her death.
The compactness of this story reminded me of both Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.  Because of my work with computer electronics and my dissertation topic (the electro-acoustic Synchronisms series by Mario Davidovsky), I wanted to incorporate the use of electronics into the opera.  Because I wanted the use of electronics to be organic to the story, I revamped the tale to incorporate a computer into the drama.  The main influences for this work include the ruthlessly efficient works Britten’s operatic masterpiece Turn of the Screw and Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, and the stunning and glorious sound-world of Georges Aperghis’ Machinations.

Justine F. Chen
September 2005

New York, NY

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