Dorit
Paul A. Epstein
About this work:
Please contact the composer directly for performance materials.
A chamber opera in ten scenes with libretto by Toby Olson based on his novel Dorit in Lesbos.
First production: Temple University Opera Theater, Apr., 1994
Available on request: Score, compact disk, videocassette
Dorit is a lyrical work rendering in poetic form a network of relationships among the six characters, who form an unconventional extended family. Jack Church has been called home by his Aunt Waverly to be executor of his Uncle Edward’s estate. Edward, a painter, left Waverly twenty years ago, traveling to the Aegean, then to London, where he entered into a relationship with his young model, Dorit. Now Edward is dead, but the years of his estrangement are captured in letters. Jack reads them, and in the reading the story of a family’s tortured past is evoked.
Critical response:
…a moving work of music-drama that, at an hour and 15 minutes long, makes a valuable contribution to the chamber opera repertoire.
-Peter Dobrin, The Philadelphia Inquirer
A "history of letters" stitches together a tale of art, passion, and family matters in Dorit, a delicate chamber opera which had its two premiere performances at Temple University Opera Theater last week. It deserves more. …[T]he opera's examination of the essential conflict between art and domesticity, passion and responsibility, came fairly close to explaining the unexplainable.
-Elizabeth Finkler, Philadelphia Gay New
Year composed: 1993
Duration: 01:10:40
Ensemble type: Opera/Theater:Chamber Opera, Two or More Singers
Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Oboe, 1 Clarinet, 1 Alto Saxophone, 1 Electric/Electronic Keyboard, 1 Viola, 1 Cello, 1 Double bass, 3 Soprano, 1 Mezzo-Soprano, 1 Tenor, 1 Bass-Baritone
Instrumentation notes: doublings: fl/alt fl, ob/eh, sop/alt sax, cl/bcl