WINGATE: THE ISLE OF THE SINGERS
An Opera in Three Acts

(THIS PROJECT IS A WORK IN PROGRESS)

Duration:
Approx. 90-100 minutes

Text:
Libretto by the composer.

Notes:
Rather like an enormous choral fantasy of dramatic proportions, The Isle of the Singers tells the fable-like tale of a shipwrecked sailor on a mysterious island whose inhabitants ‘speak’ a language made entirely of wordless song, and whose culture seems like an insular remnant or a fantastical dream of the Classical World. The sailor’s developing friendship with one of the islanders is a friendship for the ages, and leads (inevitably, and in true operatic form) to poignant tragedy. Ostensibly set in the late 18th century, the original libretto by the composer explores the philosophy of language and meaning, as well as Aristotle’s concept of ‘virtue friendship’, and ideas from Cicero’s 44 B.C.E. treatise De Amicitia, with oblique references to many other philosophical and socioanthropological themes—all drawing upon Wingate’s long history of kaleidoscopic engagement with the humanities. But the music is the standout feature of the work, as it lavishly employs an elaborate, wordless double-mixed chorus throughout (rather like Wingate’s choral work, Amen), in pointed contrast to the sailor’s lyric tenor solo part—the only music with a text in this allegorical tableau. The lushly orchestrated score is infused with the decadent tonalities of grand impressionism tempered with a healthy dose of musical metamodernism. Based on one of the composer’s important recurring childhood dreams, The Isle of the Singers threatens to meld the oneiric with the operatic in a Neo-Romantic rhapsody for the dramatic stage.