Twelfth Night

[Watch video of complete performance]

Composer’s Introduction

Like all myths, Twelfth Night seems to have existed long before Shakespeare’s play, and certainly before any of us first saw or read it. I, for one, have long been enchanted by the heady perfume of Illyria, where “journeys end in lovers meeting” as the wise fool sings. In adapting the play as an opera libretto, I was naturally forced to recombine the scenes in various ways, and above all to cut out much of the dialogue, leaving only a scaffolding on which to base the opera. Above all, I was fascinated by Shakespeare’s presentation of the extraordinary varieties of love, and the various ways in which we all yearn for our “true love’s coming, that can sing both high and low.” The play opens with a primal scene: in the midst of a raging storm, two identical twins, Viola and Sebastian, are swept up on the shores of Illyria. Separated by the wreck of their ship, each believes that the other has drowned. Twelfth Night is based on a biological impossibility: a sister and brother cannot possibly be identical twins, but in Illyria Sebastian and Viola prove indistinguishable. When Viola decides to disguise herself as the pageboy, Cesario, the stage is set for endless complications and misunderstandings, resolved only when Sebastian reappears as if by magic. In the meantime gender and sexual identity have dissolved into a magical flux of lyricism and poetry. Finally, there is nothing left but to sing with the Fool:

A great while ago the world begun,
With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.

Instrumentation

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