"A Note on Little Nemo" by librettist J.D. McClatchy

J.D. McClatchy, the librettist for Sarasota Youth Opera's newest commissioned opera, Little Nemo in Slumberland, is one of America's foremost librettists, authors and, poets.  His five collections of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize-shortlisted Hazmat, are widely acclaimed for their formal ingenuity, coupled with their fluency of thought and feeling.  His opera librettos have been performed in opera houses around the world including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and Covent Garden.  Mr. McClatchy has served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and is currently Professor of English at Yale where he edits The Yale Review.

We asked Mr. McClatchy to write a brief piece explaining how Little Nemo in Slumberland came to be as well as his thoughts on the upcoming performances of his work at Sarasota Opera.    



Librettist J.D. McClatchy
Photo by Geoff Spear

Little Nemo in Slumberland is the fifth commission in the Sarasota Youth Opera’s illustrious quarter-century history. The call for a competition went out in 2006, and when the nod finally went to composer Daron Hagen and myself, I had another project in mind altogether—something about Johnny Appleseed. It was then that my friend, the designer Chip Kidd, asked if I had thought about Little Nemo. Bingo!

           

Little Nemo in Slumerland was one of the first American comic strips, and  is still the most admired by connoisseurs. It started in the New York Herald on October 15, 1905, and ran until 1914. The genius behind it was Winsor McCay (1869 – 1934), a graphic artist of the first rank, whose sense of dream fantasy and whose exquisite draftsmanship helped bridge the divide between high art and the comics. (In fact, it was the first comic strip made into a Broadway musical, by Victor Herbert back in 1908, and in 1966 the Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted an entire exhibit to McCay’s work.)



The characters of Nemo (Katherine Powell), The Princess
(Adriana Fernandez) and Flip (Natalie Almeter)
Photo by Rod Millington

 

Reading through the Little Nemo series, I was struck at once by its marvelous format and possibilities. For a children’s opera, I was aiming to create what used to be called “magic opera”—a story dependent on fantastic theatrical effects—and Nemo’s exploits in Slumberland are just that. From among many different stories, I chose a few that I could make into a continuous dream-adventure, broken up by an “intermission” of daylight. I added or eliminated details, tried to give some depth to the characters, and shaped the story into a moral fable about courage and fairness and the wonders of the imagination. To intrigue the set designer, I stirred into the mix a parade of improbable sights and a scene in which the characters dramatically change size.

           

The composer and I hope we have given the Sarasota team and its remarkable cast of young singers an opera that will be a pleasure to perform and will give their audiences an experience that will thrill and charm them.

- J. D. McClatchy

Tickets are going fast for the world premiere performances of this glorious new opera.  Performance dates are Saturday, November 10, at 5:30pm and Sunday, November 11, at 12:30pm.  To secure your seats today, go online at www.sarasotaopera.org or call the box office at (941) 328-1300. 

Sarasota Opera 2012-2013 Season will feature Regional and World Premieres!

Sarasota Opera is pleased to announce its 2012 – 2013 Fall and Winter Seasons!

2012 Fall Season
The 2012 Fall Sarasota Opera Season will open with Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto [rih-go-leht-to], based off of Victor Hugo’s play “Le Roi s’Amuse” and the opera chosen to be the first performed in the newly renovated opera house when it re-opened in 2008. The story follows a hunchbacked jester as he tries to shield his daughter Gilda from the evils of the world only to have it unveiled that she is in love with the lascivious Duke of Mantua who has deceived her to win her heart. Rigoletto will open on October 26, 2012 and run through November 12, 2012.

In addition, the fall season will include the world premiere performance of Sarasota Youth Opera’s newest commission, Little Nemo in Slumberland, music by Daron Hagen and libretto by J.D. McClatchy.

Little Nemo in Slumberland will be a Co-Production with the University of Kentucky Opera Theater and will utilize a new leading edge, innovative theater technology, SCRIBE (Self-Contained Rapidly Integratable Background Environment), that was piloted at the University of Kentucky. This technology, which has been successfully used in productions at the University of Kentucky Opera Theater and The Atlanta Opera, will help meet the creative challenge presented by bringing such a fantasy based story to life. There will be two performances on November 10 and 11, 2012.

2013 Winter Festival
The 2013 Sarasota Opera Winter Festival will open with the Sarasota Opera premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s vocally extravagant final opera Turandot [too-ran-dough] which features some of the composers most glorious music including the famous tenor aria “Nessum Dorma” (None shall sleep). Set in Ancient China, Turandot is based off an ancient Persian fairy tale which tells the story of a beautiful princess who men travelled all over the world to win the heart of by solving three riddles. Answer incorrectly and lose your head. Answer correctly and melt the heart of the ice princess Turandot.

Following Turandot will be much in demand return of Georges Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers (Les Pêcheurs de perles [lay peh-share deh peh-rl]), a proven favorite of Sarasota Opera audiences. Last seen in 2003, The Pearl Fishers features the famously infectious Act I duet for tenor and baritone “Au fond du temple saint”, in which our two heroes, Nadir and Zurga, reaffirm their pact of eternal friendship despite their mutual love for the priestess Leila.

Sarasota Opera will present the world premiere of a new critical edition (transcribed directly from Verdi’s manuscript) of Giuseppe Verdi’s second opera A King for a Day (Un giorno di regno) [oon jor-no di ray-no]), Verdi’s first comic opera (his only other comedy was his final opera Falstaff). A King for a Day is based on the play Le faux Stanislas by Alexandre Vincent Pineu-Duval. A true Verdi rarity, A King for a Day will be the 29th installment in the company’s continuing Verdi Cycle.

Of this production, Maestro DeRenzi says, “It is part of our artistic vision to present all of Verdi’s rarely performed works along with the more mainstream pieces. Our audience has come to recognize and appreciate the artistic value of these early works, and we are proud to be one of the only opera companies in the United States to present them.” 2013 will also mark the 200th anniversary of Verdi’s birth.

Finally, Sarasota Opera will present Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men as a continuation of the American Classics Series. Premiered in 1969 at Seattle Opera, Floyd adapted the opera from the novella by John Steinbeck and wrote both the music and libretto himself. The opera stays faithful to Steinbeck’s story of two workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, struggling for work during the depression era as they pursue their hopes to achieve the American dream of owning their own farm one day. However, when a hard and cruel world forces them down a different path, George and Lennie are forced to say goodbye to the bright horizon they had envisioned for themselves.

As was done with the first two American Classics Series Operas, the 2011 production of The Crucible and the 2012 production of Vanessa, Sarasota Opera will design a series of education events around this production Of Mice and Men to help familiarize and educate the Sarasota Opera audience about this important work.

The four productions will run in rotation from February 9 through March 24, 2013.