Jake Heggie
Encyclopedia
Jake Heggie is an American composer
and pianist
.
Jake Heggie is the composer of the opera
s Dead Man Walking
(2000), The End of the Affair
(2004), At The Statue of Venus (2005), To Hell and Back (2006), and Moby-Dick
(2010), as well as the stage work For a Look or a Touch. He has composed more than 200 art songs as well as chamber and concert works. His operas and songs are championed internationally by singers who include Isabel Bayrakdarian
, Renée Fleming
, Susan Graham
, Frederica von Stade
, Audra McDonald
, Patti LuPone
, Joyce DiDonato
, Jennifer Larmore
, Bryn Terfel
and many others. He also accompanies many of these artists in recitals.
, with the pianist Johana Harris
(1912–1995), widow of the composer Roy Harris
. They married in 1982 and separated in 1993.
In 1998 he was appointed composer in residence to the San Francisco Opera
, where his first opera, Dead Man Walking, was first performed in 2000. With a libretto
by Terrence McNally
and a production by director Joe Mantello
, the opera was extensively acclaimed and it ran for two extra performances due to popularity. It has since been seen in 15 international productions, including performances at New York City Opera
, Cincinnati Opera
, Opera Pacific
, Baltimore Opera
, Pittsburgh Opera, Union Avenue Opera of Saint Louis, Calgary Opera
, Dresden State Opera
, State Opera of South Australia
, with future performances in Vienna and Sydney. In 2007 alone, Dead Man Walking received more than 50 performances. Directors of subsequent productions have included Leonard Foglia and Nikolaus Lehnhoff. His second opera, The End of the Affair, was premiered in 2004 at the Houston Grand Opera
. It has since been produced by Madison Opera
, Seattle Opera
and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City.
In 2005, Heggie collaborated again with Terrence McNally to create At the Statue of Venus, which opened the Ellie Caulkins Opera House
in Denver. His most recent opera was To Hell and Back (libretto by Gene Scheer), commissioned by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
and featuring soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian
and Patti LuPone
, conducted by Nicholas McGegan
in November 2006.
On 29 February 2008, his opera Last Acts
, with a libretto by Gene Scheer based on a play by Terrence McNally, opened at the Houston Grand Opera, which commissioned the work in association with the San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances. Last Acts was its working title; it will in future be known as Three Decembers.
On April 30, 2010, Heggie premiered his most recent opera, Moby-Dick
at The Dallas Opera
, with tenors Ben Heppner
as Captain Ahab and Stephen Costello
as Greenhorn (Ishmael).
Heggie married his partner of eight years, singer Curt Branom, in October 2008.
); The Starry Night (poetry by Anne Sexton
, van Gogh
and Emily Dickinson
); Statuesque (poetry by Gene Scheer); Rise and Fall (poetry by Gene Scheer); Here and Gone (poetry by Vachel Lindsay
and A. E. Housman
); and Winter Roses (poetry by Raymond Carver
, Charlene Baldridge, Frederica von Stade and Emily Dickinson).
Heggie's list of current commissions includes works for the Metropolitan Opera
, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera
, San Francisco Opera, Music of Remembrance, Ravinia Festival, and Wigmore Hall
.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and pianist
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
.
Jake Heggie is the composer of the opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s Dead Man Walking
Dead Man Walking (opera)
Dead Man Walking is the first opera by Jake Heggie, with a libretto by Terrence McNally; it premiered on October 7, 2000 at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco Opera.-Roles:...
(2000), The End of the Affair
The End of the Affair (opera)
The End of the Affair is a chamber opera with music by Jake Heggie and a libretto by Heggie and Leonard Foglia.Based on the Graham Greene novel of the same title, it is set in London in 1944 and 1946 and focuses on Maurice and Sarah, who vows to end their illicit affair if his life is spared in a...
(2004), At The Statue of Venus (2005), To Hell and Back (2006), and Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick (opera)
Moby-Dick is an opera in two acts by Jake Heggie to an English libretto by Gene Scheer from Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. It premiered at the Dallas Opera in Dallas, Texas on April 30, 2010.-Background:...
(2010), as well as the stage work For a Look or a Touch. He has composed more than 200 art songs as well as chamber and concert works. His operas and songs are championed internationally by singers who include Isabel Bayrakdarian
Isabel Bayrakdarian
Isabel Bayrakdarian is a Grammy Award-nominated Armenian Canadian opera singer.-Early life:Born in Lebanon in 1974, she moved to Canada as a teenager. Bayrakdarian graduated in 1997 from the University of Toronto with an honours B.A.Sc...
, Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...
, Susan Graham
Susan Graham
Susan Graham is an American mezzo-soprano.Raised in Midland, Texas, she is a graduate of Texas Tech University and the Manhattan School of Music. She studied the piano for 13 years...
, Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade is an American mezzo-soprano. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, she acquired the nickname "Flicka" in her childhood. Von Stade attended the Mannes College of Music in New York City. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1970 and in 1971 appeared as Cherubino in The...
, Audra McDonald
Audra McDonald
Audra Ann McDonald is an American actress and singer. She currently stars in the ABC television drama Private Practice as Dr. Naomi Bennett. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as Ragtime and A Raisin in the Sun...
, Patti LuPone
Patti LuPone
Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...
, Joyce DiDonato
Joyce DiDonato
Joyce DiDonato is an award-winning American operatic mezzo-soprano particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of Handel, Mozart, and Rossini...
, Jennifer Larmore
Jennifer Larmore
Jennifer Larmore is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer, noted for coloratura and bel canto.- Career :Jennifer Larmore is an American mezzo-soprano, well known for her versatility, natural beauty and stage craft...
, Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel Jones CBE is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro and Leporello, but has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Wagner....
and many others. He also accompanies many of these artists in recitals.
Life
Heggie started learning the piano when he was five years old. After spending two years in Paris, he continued his studies at the age of 20 at the University of California, Los AngelesUniversity of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, with the pianist Johana Harris
Johana Harris
Johana Harris was a Canadian pianist, composer, and music educator. She had highly successful career as a concert pianist, making numerous recordings and appearing as a soloist with almost every major American symphony orchestra. She made over 100 solo recordings, working with such labels as...
(1912–1995), widow of the composer Roy Harris
Roy Harris
Roy Ellsworth Harris , was an American composer. He wrote much music on American subjects, becoming best known for his Symphony No...
. They married in 1982 and separated in 1993.
In 1998 he was appointed composer in residence to the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
, where his first opera, Dead Man Walking, was first performed in 2000. With a libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...
and a production by director Joe Mantello
Joe Mantello
Joseph Mantello is an American actor and director best known for his work on Broadway productions of Wicked, Take Me Out and Assassins, as well as earlier in his career being one of the original Broadway cast of Angels in America...
, the opera was extensively acclaimed and it ran for two extra performances due to popularity. It has since been seen in 15 international productions, including performances at New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
, Cincinnati Opera
Cincinnati Opera
Cincinnati Opera is an American opera company based in Cincinnati, Ohio and the second oldest opera company in the United States .-History:...
, Opera Pacific
Opera Pacific
Opera Pacific was an opera company located in the Orange County, California, United States city of Santa Ana. It operated for 22 seasons before closing in 2008 after several seasons of deepening financial difficulties.-History:...
, Baltimore Opera
Baltimore Opera Company
The Baltimore Opera Company was an opera company in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., based at the Baltimore Lyric Opera House. On March 12, 2009, the 58-year-old opera company announced plans to pursue Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation....
, Pittsburgh Opera, Union Avenue Opera of Saint Louis, Calgary Opera
Calgary Opera
The Calgary Opera is a Canadian professional opera company in Calgary, Alberta, originally known as the Southern Alberta Opera Association. It performs in the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, accompanied by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Calgary Opera Chorus...
, Dresden State Opera
Semperoper
The Semperoper is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden and the concert hall of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden . It is located near the Elbe River in the historic center of Dresden, Germany.The opera house was originally built by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841...
, State Opera of South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
, with future performances in Vienna and Sydney. In 2007 alone, Dead Man Walking received more than 50 performances. Directors of subsequent productions have included Leonard Foglia and Nikolaus Lehnhoff. His second opera, The End of the Affair, was premiered in 2004 at the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
. It has since been produced by Madison Opera
Madison Opera
Madison Opera is a regional opera company based in Madison, Wisconsin. It was founded in 1961 as an extension of the and came to national prominence with the commissioning and premiering of Shining Brow, the opera about Frank Lloyd Wright by composer Daron Hagen and librettist Paul Muldoon. The...
, Seattle Opera
Seattle Opera
The Seattle Opera is an opera company located in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1963 by Glynn Ross, who served as the company's first general director through 1983, Seattle Opera's season runs from August to late May, with five or six operas offered and with eight to ten performances each, often...
and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City.
In 2005, Heggie collaborated again with Terrence McNally to create At the Statue of Venus, which opened the Ellie Caulkins Opera House
Ellie Caulkins Opera House
The Ellie Caulkins Opera House, which opened on September 10, 2005, is located in Denver, Colorado as part of the large Denver Performing Arts Complex. It seats 2,225...
in Denver. His most recent opera was To Hell and Back (libretto by Gene Scheer), commissioned by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra is an orchestra based in San Francisco, which is dedicated to historically informed performance of Baroque, Classical and early Romantic music on original instruments. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra was founded in 1981 by harpsichordist, teacher and early music...
and featuring soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian
Isabel Bayrakdarian
Isabel Bayrakdarian is a Grammy Award-nominated Armenian Canadian opera singer.-Early life:Born in Lebanon in 1974, she moved to Canada as a teenager. Bayrakdarian graduated in 1997 from the University of Toronto with an honours B.A.Sc...
and Patti LuPone
Patti LuPone
Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...
, conducted by Nicholas McGegan
Nicholas McGegan
Nicholas McGegan OBE is a British harpsichordist, flautist, conductor and early music expert....
in November 2006.
On 29 February 2008, his opera Last Acts
Last Acts
Last Acts is a chamber opera in two acts by Jake Heggie to a libretto by Gene Scheerwhich is based on the unpublished play Some Christmas Letters by Terrence McNally...
, with a libretto by Gene Scheer based on a play by Terrence McNally, opened at the Houston Grand Opera, which commissioned the work in association with the San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances. Last Acts was its working title; it will in future be known as Three Decembers.
On April 30, 2010, Heggie premiered his most recent opera, Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick (opera)
Moby-Dick is an opera in two acts by Jake Heggie to an English libretto by Gene Scheer from Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. It premiered at the Dallas Opera in Dallas, Texas on April 30, 2010.-Background:...
at The Dallas Opera
Dallas Opera
The Dallas Opera is an opera company located in Dallas, Texas . The company was founded in 1957 as the Dallas Civic Opera by Laurence Kelly and Nicolà Rescigno, both of whom had been active with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the first as administrator, the second as artistic director.-The company's...
, with tenors Ben Heppner
Ben Heppner
Ben Heppner, CC is a Canadian tenor, specializing in opera and other classical works for voice.Heppner was born in Murrayville, British Columbia, and lived in Dawson Creek...
as Captain Ahab and Stephen Costello
Stephen Costello
Stephen Costello is an American operatic tenor and a recipient of the 2009 Richard Tucker Award. Costello has performed in noted opera houses around the world including Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago...
as Greenhorn (Ishmael).
Heggie married his partner of eight years, singer Curt Branom, in October 2008.
Other works
Heggie's major works include a cello concerto (Holy The Firm), commissioned by the Oakland East Bay Symphony for cellist Emil Miland; and the song cycles The Deepest Desire (poetry by Sister Helen PrejeanHelen Prejean
Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., is a Roman Catholic religious sister, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, who has become a leading American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty.-Death row ministry:...
); The Starry Night (poetry by Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967...
, van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
and Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
); Statuesque (poetry by Gene Scheer); Rise and Fall (poetry by Gene Scheer); Here and Gone (poetry by Vachel Lindsay
Vachel Lindsay
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay was an American poet. He is considered the father of modern singing poetry, as he referred to it, in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted...
and A. E. Housman
A. E. Housman
Alfred Edward Housman , usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900...
); and Winter Roses (poetry by Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
, Charlene Baldridge, Frederica von Stade and Emily Dickinson).
Heggie's list of current commissions includes works for the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera
Dallas Opera
The Dallas Opera is an opera company located in Dallas, Texas . The company was founded in 1957 as the Dallas Civic Opera by Laurence Kelly and Nicolà Rescigno, both of whom had been active with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the first as administrator, the second as artistic director.-The company's...
, San Francisco Opera, Music of Remembrance, Ravinia Festival, and Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...
.
External links
- Official web site
- "Dead Man Walking: Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally" by Wes Phillips (May 2002)
- "Jake's Journey", interview by Robert Wilder Blue about Dead Man Walking and The End of the Affair