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The Picture of Dorian Gray
Lowell Liebermann
The Picture of Dorian Gray
By Lowell Liebermann
Based on the novel by Oscar Wilde
A semi-staged opera in collaboration with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project
Sung in English
Wilde Opera Nights season sponsored by Randolph J. Fuller
A handsome, naïve young man is offered perpetual youth and immunity to life’s cruelty, for a price…
Join us in a shadowy world of debauchery and deals with the devil as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera team up for a semi-staged production of Lowell Liebermann’s opera The Picture of Dorian Gray. Based on Oscar Wilde’s immortal novel of the same name, this performance marks the first installment of Odyssey Opera’s 2016-17 season of “Wilde opera nights,” channeling the dynamic work and world of the famous Irish author, playwright, and wit.
Liebermann’s taut and evocative score provides the perfect setting for a venture into the dark corners of the human psyche. The virtuosic musicians of BMOP and a host of top-notch singers provide the action.
“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.”
– Lord Henry to Dorian in The Picture of Dorian Gray
Cast and Creative
Gil RoseConductor
Jon JurgensDorian Gray
Matthew CurranBasil Hallward
Thomas MeglioranzaLord Henry Wotton
Deborah SeligSibyl Vane
David KravitzJames Vane
Claudia WaiteWhore
Frank KelleyLord Geoffrey
Jeremy Ayres FisherGamekeeper
Background
I first read Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray when I was about thirteen years old. The book made an impression on me as no other book had yet done—I was haunted by it, by the richness of its characters and story, the poetry of its language, the fragrance of decadence that clung to its pages, and by its vision of art and aestheticism as ends unto themselves. I had by that time decided upon a career as a composer and was determined to one day turn the novel into an opera.
Read the program notes
