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]

The Wake World
Opera by David Hertzberg
LanguageEnglish
Based onThe Wake World
by Aleister Crowley
Premiere
18 September 2017 (2017-09-18)
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

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 track "Is that you, my love?" from the opera's debut recording among 'The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020'.[7]

Roles
Roles, voice types, premiere cast
Role Voice type Premiere cast, 18 September 2017
Conductor: Elizabeth Braden[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.

Instrumentation

Recording
  • 2020: Elizabeth Braden, conductor; Jessica Beebe, Andrew Bogard, Samantha Hankey, Maeve Hoglund. Tzadik (TZ 4030-2)[8]

References
  1. "The Wake World". www.operanews.com. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  2. "The Wake World". Opera Philadelphia. September 9, 2017. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  3. "Tzadik Records to Release its First Opera: David Hertzberg's Hallucinatory The Wake World". BroadwayWorld. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
  4. Tommasini, Anthony (September 20, 2017). "5 Operas in 72 Hours: A Philadelphia Festival Is a Test of Survival". The New York Times. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  5. Dobrin, Peter. "O17 hits the Barnes with a hallucinatory fairy tale". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  6. "Hertzberg Wins New Opera Honor For Wake World". classicalvoiceamerica.org. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  7. Tommasini, Anthony (December 17, 2020). "The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 21, 2021. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
  8. David Hertzberg – The Wake World (2020, CD) at Discogs
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