NIGHTTOWN

Opera Description

A married couple in bed: one asleep, the other awake and thinking—and as she thinks, her imagination runs wild. This daring, visceral new opera accessibly retells one of the most monumental novels in the English language through the consciousness of women and nonbinary characters still finding their voices 100 years after its publication. The narrative of Homer’s Odyssey— as retold through James Joyce’s earthy modernist portrayal of a single day in Dublin, Ulysses—is infused into the interior lives of interconnected characters rocked by grief. NIGHTTOWN presents the raucous “Circe” chapter of Joyce’s book through the perspective of opera singer Molly Bloom’s (Joyce’s “Penelope” character) famous closing soliloquy. The opera portrays the events of this episode as Molly’s own odyssey—rife with contemporary angles and themes that resonate strongly in our present world—launching from dreamy musings in bed next to her sleeping husband into a wild world of her own imagination. Through dramatic forays into sexuality, sedition, collision, confrontation, transgression, and ultimately, profound loss, NIGHTTOWN shows us how to lose, and then once again find, a sense of home—not where, but who, that is.

Informational Details

• Commissioned by Lowell House Opera, New England’s oldest opera company; Adrienne Boris, Stage Director & Executive Producer / Edward Elwyn Jones, Music Director

• Music & Libretto: Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg

• Advisers: Jonathan Dove (composer), Russell Rymer (Harvard University), Michael Gandolfi (Tanglewood; New England Conservatory), Louis Menand (The New Yorker; Harvard University)

• Dramaturg: Sara Rodriguez (Lit & Chill)

• Awards: Winner, The American Prize in Opera Composition (2023); ASCAP Morton Gould Composer Award (2023); Thomas T. Hoopes Prize for Excellent Undergraduate Work (Harvard University; 2022); Captain Jonathan Fay Prize for Most Outstanding Imaginative Work (Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard; 2022)

• World Premiere: Lowell House Opera, March 2022; Sanders Theater, Cambridge, MA/Livestream [performer & production information available upon request]; Stage Directed & Executive Produced by Adrienne Boris; conducted by the composer

Role Summaries

Note: all characters should be cast according to voice type, irrespective of gender.

MOLLY BLOOM (PENELOPE): lyric mezzo-soprano. Range: E3-B5. Late 20s/Early 30s playing age
NYMPH: stratospheric soprano. Range: A3-D#6.
LEOPOLD BLOOM (ODYSSEUS): bass-baritone. Range: G2-E4. Late 30s playing age
STEPHEN DEDALUS (TELEMACHUS): tenor. Range: C3 to Bb4. Early 20s playing age

BELL* COHEN (CIRCE) [possible * endings include –a, –o, –ix, –s; endings and character’s gender pronouns are to be determined by the performer]: gender expansive role, vocally fluid; originally written for
contralto/mezzo/countertenor. Range: Eb3-F#5 (flexible)

BUCK MULLIGAN: high tenor. Range: Eb3-C5. Early 20s playing age
MENTES/BLAZES BOYLAN: baritone. Range: A2-E4 (falsetto cues on G#4, A4, and C#5). CALYPSO/STEPHEN’S MOTHER’S GHOST: mezzo-soprano. Range: Ab3-Bb5. Late 40s playing age NAUSICAA: soprano. Range: Ab3-Bb5.
[RUDY’S GHOST: silent role. Boy around the age of 11.]
[MILLY: silent role. Girl around the age of 5.]

Orchestral Forces: 2 fl (2=picc), cl (=bass cl), hn, tbn, perc, hp, pno, elec/acous gtr, 2 vln, vla, 2 vc, db, electronics [pre-recorded/programmed]

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