World Premiere Event of Kurt Vonnegut's New Opera at Indianapolis Opera
World Premiere Event of "Happy Birthday, Wanda June"-a new opera written by iconic American author and legendary Hoosier Kurt Vonnegut and composed by Richard Auldon Clark-kicks off the new season at Indianapolis Opera.
The duo met for years in Vonnegut's NYC brownstone to collaborate on the piece, and he completed the libretto just weeks before his death in 2007. The work includes a surprise ending, which will be revealed Opening Night.
"Happy Birthday, Wanda June" is Vonnegut's first attempt at stage work and the only play published during his lifetime. It became a Broadway production (1970) and a film adaptation (1971)-but Vonnegut always felt the dramatic music and theatrical staging of an operatic experience would amplify the villains in a way that words alone could not achieve. Written to protest the Vietnam War, the play blends the sacred and the profane to produce off-the-wall and strangely funny satires in a plot loosely based on the Greek legends of Odysseus and Penelope.
The work coincides with the state's 200th anniversary and has received the endorsement of the Indiana Bicentennial Commission as a Legacy Project.
For tickets, visit http://indyopera.org/.
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