Cabildo
Music by Amy Beach · libretto by Nan Bagby Stephens · premiered 1945
Cabildo is the only opera by the American composer Amy Beach, her opus 149. This chamber opera is in one act and has a libretto by Nan Bagby Stephens. Beach composed the music in 1932 and made use of folksong and Creole tunes.
However, the work was not performed in her lifetime and received its first performance in 1947. Subsequent performances were in 1981, at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and in 1982, at the American Musicological Society meeting and the Sonneck Society.
The first fully professional production was on May 13, 1995, as part of the "Great Performers at Lincoln Center" series, led by Ransom Wilson and directed by Hans Nieuwenhuis. The Texas premiere of Cabildo was performed by Houston's Opera Vista on September 22, 2007 at the Museum of Fine Arts' Bayou Bend, conducted by Opera Vista's Artistic Director, Viswa Subbaraman and stage directed by Chuck Winkler.
This performance led to Opera Vista being invited to perform Cabildo at the actual Cabildo in New Orleans on April 18, 2009. The performance was again conducted by Viswa Subbaraman with stage direction by Joe Carl White. In 2017 Central City Opera produced a fully stage version as part of their summer festival.
Cabildo was performed at the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre, Dalston, London in August 2019, directed by Emma Jude Harris with piano trio accompaniment conducted by John Warner.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Cabildo (opera)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (September 5, 1867 – December 27, 1944) was an American composer and pianist. She was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896, was the first symphony composed and published by an American woman. She was one of the first American composers of her era to succeed without the benefit of European training, and was known as one of the most respected American composers. She was acclaimed for piano concerts she gave, featuring her own music, in the United States and Europe.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Amy Beach", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.