WINGATE: THE ADVENTURES OF JANET
An Opera in an Uncertain Number of Acts

(THIS PROJECT IS A WORK IN PROGRESS)

Duration:
Variable

Text:
Libretto by the composer.

Notes:
The Adventures of Janet is a diverse collection of extremely short surrealist operas, which together form a dramatic cycle of absurdist operatic joie de vivre. Wingate’s original libretto (inspired by the poet Kenneth Koch’s enchanting 1988 work, One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays) features an Everywoman-esque titular character running around strange operatic landscapes like a plucky heroine from some imaginary 1940s film. Her adventures largely consist of juxtaposed encounters with a dramatis personæ of allegorical entities, mythological beings, phantom philosophical or literary figures, and even the odd pop-culture personage, all miming the tropes of Opera seria with ironic pathos. The opera’s music is often terribly serious as well, with overdramatic gestures and offstage choral flourishes at every turn, frequently in contrast to the dense word play and scholarly references overflowing the texts. Likewise, the arias and recitatives tend to meander without consequence between overblown, quasi-Shakespearean verse and flat philosophical prose, but the presence of recurring characters and repeated musical motifs adds touches of inevitability and coherence to the scintillating proceedings. Yet this set of operetti assurdi may also be performed in varying order for diverse dramatic effect, at the discretion (or perhaps the whim) of the impresario. And The Adventures of Janet also has three overtures to choose from, evoking the many iterations of Beethoven's Leonore overture, but here adding a rather more purposeful assortment of performance possibilities.