Say It Ain't So, Joe is a chamber opera

Chamber opera

Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small...

 in two acts by Curtis K. Hughes inspired by text drawn from the public record of the 2008 United States vice-presidential debate

United States vice-presidential debate, 2008

The 2008 United States vice-presidential debate, took place on October 2, 2008, between U.S. vice-presidential candidates Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, and Joe Biden, the senior Senator for Delaware, at Washington University in St. Louis, and was moderated by Public Broadcasting Service...

. Commissioned and produced by Guerilla Opera

Guerilla Opera

Guerilla Opera is an opera company in Boston, Massachusetts specializing in accessible contemporary chamber operas, several of which have been commissioned by the company. As of 2010 its Artistic Directors are Mike Williams and Rudolf Rojahn, its General Manager is Aliana de la Guardia and its...

, Say It Ain't So, Joe premiered in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 on September 19, 2009 at the Boston Conservatory

Boston Conservatory

The Boston Conservatory is a performing arts conservatory located in the Fenway-Kenmore region of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in music, dance and musical theater...

 Zack Box Theater.

Cast

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, September 19, 2009
Sarah Palin Sarah Palin Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...  1	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Jennifer Ashe
Sarah Palin 2 / Diane Sawyer Diane Sawyer Lila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....	soprano	Aliana de la Guardia
Gwen Ifill Gwen Ifill Gwendolyn L. "Gwen" Ifill is an American journalist, television newscaster and author. She is the managing editor and moderator of Washington Week and a senior correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, both of which air on PBS. She is a political analyst, and moderated the 2004 and 2008 Vice...  / Hillary Clinton / Interviewer	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Amanda Keil
Joe Biden Joe Biden Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...  / Joe the Plumber Joe the Plumber Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher , is a conservative activist, author, and commentator. A resident of Holland, Ohio, United States, he gained significant attention during the 2008 U.S. presidential election after he was videotaped questioning then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama about his small...	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Brian Church

Instrumentalists

• Kent O’Doherty, saxophone
  Saxophone
  The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
  
  s
• Rane Moore, clarinet
  Clarinet
  The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
  
  s
• Javier Caballero, cello
  Cello
  The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
  
  
• Mike Williams, percussion
  Percussion instrument
  A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
  
  .

Production staff

• Nathan Troup, director
• Julia Noulin-Merat, scenic designer
• Corey Rancourt, lighting designer
• Rudolf Rojahn
  Rudolf Rojahn
  Rudolf Rojahn is a Boston-based composer of classical music.Rojahn was awarded the Roger Sessions Award for composition upon graduation from Boston Conservatory with a Master of Music in Composition in 2004. His music has been featured at The Boston Conservatory's New Music Week. He has been the...
  
  , production manager
• Brendan P. Buckley, stage manager
• Anthony Scibilia, production cameraman.

Composer's view

"When watching the US Vice Presidential debate in 2008, I was struck by the extraordinary musical contrasts between the voices of Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, as well as the convergence of two such fascinating life stories, both containing tragic, heroic, and comic elements. The audience for my opera Say it ain't so, Joe will experience a surreal and fractured vision of that remarkable encounter, as well as brief glimpses of other contemporaneous events and political figures, with some fantastical digressions." – Curtis K. Hughes

Act 1

Prelude

Scene One: January 2009: The Palin Residence. Wasilla, Alaska

Wasilla, Alaska

Wasilla is a city in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, United States and the sixth-largest city in Alaska. It is located on the northern point of Cook Inlet in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of the southcentral part of the state. The city's population was 7,831 at the 2010 census...

Interlude

Scene Two: October 2, 2008: United States vice-presidential debate, 2008

United States vice-presidential debate, 2008

The 2008 United States vice-presidential debate, took place on October 2, 2008, between U.S. vice-presidential candidates Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, and Joe Biden, the senior Senator for Delaware, at Washington University in St. Louis, and was moderated by Public Broadcasting Service...

, Washington University in St. Louis

Washington University in St. Louis

Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853, and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than 110 nations...

, Missouri

Scene Three: August 28, 2008

Interlude

Scene Four: October 2, 2008

Scene Five: October 2008: Good Morning America

Good Morning America

Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

 television interview

Scene Six: October 2, 2008

Act 2

Prelude

Scene One: Late 2008: Television Interview

Scene Two: October 2, 2008

Interlude

Scene Three: Late October 2008: Republican campaign rally

Scene Four: October 2, 2008

Scene Five: in illo tempore

Scene Six: October 2, 2008