Rosa – A Horse Drama

Rosa, A Horse Drama is an opera composed by Louis Andriessen to a libretto by Peter Greenaway. The libretto was the sixth in Greenaway's Death of a Composer series which explores the deaths of ten 20th-century composers, two real (Anton Webern and John Lennon), and the remaining eight fictional. It premiered at the Dutch National Opera on 2 November 1994 in a production co-directed by Greenaway and Saskia Boddeke.[1] A recording of the opera was released on the Nonesuch label in 1998.[2][3]

Background

This opera tells the story of Juan Manuel de Rosa, a fictitious Argentine composer who intended to emigrate to the United States to write film scores for Westerns, but was instead murdered in Uruguay. The most memorable aspect of the story is that Rosa falls in love with his horse. The opera is scored for 2 sopranos, tenor, 2 baritones, female speaker, 8 mixed voices, and orchestra.[4]

Greenaway made a film version in 1999, though it was not shown in the United States until a 2004 premiere at the Walter Reade Theater in New York City.[5]

References

1. Dutch National Opera. Rosa, A Horse Drama
2. Griffel, Margaret Ross (2012). Operas in English: A Dictionary, p. 422. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0810883252
3. Griffiths, Paul (9 July 2000). "A Horse Opera of a Different Sort". The New York Times
4. Boosey & Hawkes. Andriessen, Louis: Rosa, The Death of a Composer (1993-94)
5. Midgette, Anne (11 May 2004). "Challenging Opera Arrives In New York, Only on Film". New York Times]]