The American composer Kevin Puts is developing a rarely encountered kind of career, that of a successful opera composer. His first opera Silent Night won the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 and it is wracking up productions around the world. Last year his opera on The Manchurian Candidate opened and this election season certainly has made it timely and topical. I wish it were possible to post a full video of a production but the Minnesota Opera, which commissioned both of his operas has a Youtube feed of excerpts which has left me extremely enthusiastic about his work. Both of his currently produced operas have librettos by Mark Campbell, I hope they compose many successful operas together. There is a third opera by Campbell and Puts in the works scheduled for premier in November, The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia. It is rare for an American opera or a new opera to have such immediate success, especially as the success is based on high quality and inspiration, not on facile and familiar sounds or ties to musical comedy.
Kevin Puts has also composed a lot of concert music for instruments which is more than merely beautiful, it is deep and exhilarating. I will post some of that in the near future.
You can hear Silent Night and see pictures from the Minnesota Opera production here.
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