POSTCARD FROM MOROCCO (1971)
Barbara Brandt, Barry Busse, Edward Michael Foreman
Janis Hardy, Yale Marshall, Sarita Roche, Vern Sutton
Center Opera of Minnesota
dir : Philip Brunelle
Desto DC-7137/7138 stereo LPs [P] 1972
This recording is not currently in-print in any format
Individual FLAC files, scans, booklet - no libretto
Imagine the characters from an Agatha Christie novel entangled in an Ionesco play... Anne Midgette
''Postcard From Morocco,'' which Mr. Argento set to a libretto by John Donahue, belongs to a proud American tradition: It is an opera, like ''Four Saints in Three Acts'' by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein, or ''Einstein on the Beach'' by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, that has no clearly discernible plot but makes its effect through a powerful series of images and inferences. It is difficult to say exactly what ''happens'' in ''Postcard From Morocco'' but over the course of the opera's hour-and- a-half duration, Mr. Argento addresses several subjects, among them confusion, human cruelty, a clash of cultures and the mixture of pain and perception that go into the making of an artist.
Mr. Argento's idiom is largely tonal, conservative yet distinctly his own, and borrows from ragtime and other strains of popular music. He writes sympathetically for the voice; there are few of the jagged, angular leaps and bounds that so often typify modern opera. He is also a deft parodist - a ballet sequence entitled ''Souvenirs de Bayreuth'' provides one of the funniest send-ups of Wagner since Emmanuel Chabrier turned ''Tristan und Isolde'' into a galop for two pianos.
The action of ''Postcard From Morocco'' takes place in an outdoor railway station where a disparate group of passengers are, apparently, waiting for a train. Photographs are snapped, a child watches the world with innocent eyes, puppets and marionettes act out the battle of the sexes, a woman sings the praises of her compact mirror, while another delivers an odd torch song entitled ''I Keep My Beloved in a Box.'' Connections are made, and a train snorts into the station... Talking heads pop up from the sand, and toward the end of the opera, the passengers suddenly turn on the gentle Mr. Owen, the man with a paint box, as he is described in the libretto. It makes for a strange, admittedly stylized, but often beautiful evening of theater...
''Postcard From Morocco'' has its weaknesses: It is often arch, rather self-consciously clever at times, and may prove, for those who demand linear continuity from theatrical events, somewhat befuddling. But it is rich in ideas, dares to take some chances, and finally, as was once said of modern poetry, adds to our stock of available reality. The New York Times
Individual FLAC files, scans, booklet - no libretto
Imagine the characters from an Agatha Christie novel entangled in an Ionesco play... Anne Midgette
''Postcard From Morocco,'' which Mr. Argento set to a libretto by John Donahue, belongs to a proud American tradition: It is an opera, like ''Four Saints in Three Acts'' by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein, or ''Einstein on the Beach'' by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, that has no clearly discernible plot but makes its effect through a powerful series of images and inferences. It is difficult to say exactly what ''happens'' in ''Postcard From Morocco'' but over the course of the opera's hour-and- a-half duration, Mr. Argento addresses several subjects, among them confusion, human cruelty, a clash of cultures and the mixture of pain and perception that go into the making of an artist.
Mr. Argento's idiom is largely tonal, conservative yet distinctly his own, and borrows from ragtime and other strains of popular music. He writes sympathetically for the voice; there are few of the jagged, angular leaps and bounds that so often typify modern opera. He is also a deft parodist - a ballet sequence entitled ''Souvenirs de Bayreuth'' provides one of the funniest send-ups of Wagner since Emmanuel Chabrier turned ''Tristan und Isolde'' into a galop for two pianos.
The action of ''Postcard From Morocco'' takes place in an outdoor railway station where a disparate group of passengers are, apparently, waiting for a train. Photographs are snapped, a child watches the world with innocent eyes, puppets and marionettes act out the battle of the sexes, a woman sings the praises of her compact mirror, while another delivers an odd torch song entitled ''I Keep My Beloved in a Box.'' Connections are made, and a train snorts into the station... Talking heads pop up from the sand, and toward the end of the opera, the passengers suddenly turn on the gentle Mr. Owen, the man with a paint box, as he is described in the libretto. It makes for a strange, admittedly stylized, but often beautiful evening of theater...
''Postcard From Morocco'' has its weaknesses: It is often arch, rather self-consciously clever at times, and may prove, for those who demand linear continuity from theatrical events, somewhat befuddling. But it is rich in ideas, dares to take some chances, and finally, as was once said of modern poetry, adds to our stock of available reality. The New York Times