The full story about the mono-opera
Fluffernutter
Fluffernutter began as a simple aria for the Mezzo voice written in 2022. Composer Spicer Carr and librettist Marianna Mott Newirth were paired on an assignment to write an aria about joy and Fluff ensued. As OPrak was seeking to create a program for 2024 they commissioned Fluff to become a 15-minute mono opera that would be paired with Bon Appetit! a work based on Julia Child's cooking show music by Lee Hoiby and text adapted by Mark Shulgasser. The result will be a one-hour presentation of There Will Be Cake! produced by Opera Praktikos in December 2024.
The Story
Sarah Karmichael is having a hard day.
Her mom's in the hospital and she's waiting for her brother to call back with details; there are a million things on her to do list to do at home; and from the hospital bed, her mom has charged her with making
THE Lasagna for the family party tonight so Sarah goes grocery shopping knowing she can't possibly replicate her mom's lasagna.
In a dissociative haze she buys the wrong ingredients but discovers - once she is home - that maybe
it's the right ingredients after all.
The Creative Team
Music by Spicer Carr
Libretto by Marianna Mott Newirth
featuring Zweisenfach Shanley Horvitz
Stage Direction by Gwynn MacDonald
Music Direction by Calvin Hitchcock
Commissioned by Opera Praktikos
There Will Be Cake!
A sweet pairing of two mono-operas
December 12,13 &14 2024 at
Asylum NYC
Workshop day gallery
The process of making a new opera involves a critical step - workshop.
Here the creative team hands over the libretto and score - which they have been pouring over for months -
to extraordinary musicians who make the work sing. It's an incredible moment when the piece takes on an expanded life.
There is always more work to be done and we now proceed forward with new knowledge.
