Welcome to the Voice is a bilingual 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...

 (French and English) based on an original story and libretto by Muriel Teodori with music composed by Steve Nieve

Steve Nieve

Steve Nieve is an English keyboardist, best known for his work with Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Elvis Costello and the Imposters.-Musical career:...

. A first draft was given a workshop performance at the Atlantic Bell Jazz Festival in 2000. The performance cast was Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...

, Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith

Ronald Eldon "Ron" Sexsmith is a Canadian singer-songwriter from St. Catharines, Ontario, currently based in Toronto. He started his own band when he was fourteen years old, and released the first recordings of his own material seven years later, in 1985...

, John Flansburgh

John Flansburgh

John Conant Flansburgh is an American musician. He is half of the longstanding Brooklyn, New York-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants, for which he writes, sings and plays rhythm guitar...

 and students of the Juilliard School of Music. Musicians were Brodsky Quartet

Brodsky Quartet

The Brodsky Quartet is a British string quartet, in existence since 1972, though only Ian Belton and Jacqueline Thomas are original members.In addition to performing classical music, and in particular the classic string quartet repertoire of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Bartók and Shostakovich,...

, Steve Nieve

Steve Nieve

Steve Nieve is an English keyboardist, best known for his work with Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Elvis Costello and the Imposters.-Musical career:...

, and Ned Rothenberg

Ned Rothenberg

Ned Rothenberg is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer. He specializes in woodwind instruments, including the alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, and shakuhachi...

. Following this exploratory first attempt, Welcome to the Voice was expanded.

Synopsis

The story concerns a Greek immigrant steelworker Dionysos, who discovers the music of classical opera. It becomes an obsession, when he falls in love with the voice of a young opera singer. His workmates try to persuade him to return to work, but he is determined to live on the steps of the opera house, and meet the woman whose voice has enraptured him. In the night he is visited by ghosts of opera's past Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

, Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...

, and Norma

Norma (opera)

Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...

. They tell him he is too much like a character from an opera, that he should kill himself to join them in opera heaven. Dionysos, is not convinced by them. The following morning he sees the Opera Singer in the street, she is shopping for some rare perfume. He cannot stop himself to grab her arm. He tries to embrace her. The police stop him, and want to make an example of him.

Recording

In 2007 a studio recording of the work, produced by Nieve/Teodori, was released by Deutsche Grammophon

Deutsche Grammophon

Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...

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