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Nigel Keay  

At the Hawk's Well

Duration: 55' 00" Year: 1991
opera in one act

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    2 sopranos playing percussion; 1 bass playing percussion; Bass; Tenor; Dancer; women's chorus; flute, alto flute, clarinet in A, bass clarinet, bassoon; horn, trombone, bass trombone; timpani, piano; strings (including solo electric violin); Percussion: Javanese drums, bass drum, tamtam and optional Javanese gong, gender, slentem, kempul.
  • Programme Note

    An operatic setting of the dance-play by W.B. Yeats which is also performable as a dramatic cantata in a concert version. This is a one-act work and is ritualistic in nature reflecting Yeats’ modeling of the text on the Japanese Noh play. The music is at times dark and atmospherlc, and the archetypal symbolism and metaphysical suggestion of the text, wlth its archaic language and bleak images, is a rich source of inspiration for this. The musical language is comprehensive with tonality and atonality used in conjunction with each other to express literary ideas. Written for five solo singers with the main roles being a tenor and a bass, and a dancer, the backing ii provided by a 30 or so piece orchestra including piano, solo electric violin, and gamelan instruments.
    (Programme note from composer’s website)

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Christopher Blake  

Bitter Calm

Duration: 1h 30' 00" Year: 1993
opera in two acts for soloists, chorus and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    2sop,1ten,2bari,SATB chorus and orchestra: (2)22(2)2(2); 2220; 2perc,timp,2keyb; strs.
  • Programme Note

    Bitter Calm is a full length opera for five principals, chorus and orchestra in two acts. It is based on an incident at Motuarohia Island in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand in the 1840s. It is a drama of human passions in the contexts of land alienation and tensions between Maori and new settlers. Premiered at the New Zealand International Festival for the Arts in 1994 and filmed for television.

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Helen Fisher  

Bone of Contention

Duration: 1h 20' 00" Year: 1993
a dance work for mezzo-soprano and ensemble

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Anthony Ritchie  

Concertina

Duration: 24' 00" Year: 1999
dance music for violin and piano

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  • Instrumentation
    violin and piano with parts for squeezebox
  • Programme Note

    Dance music for violin, piano, squeezebox and percussion

    It can be performed live as well, in part or in its entirety, though some effects are better achieved through the recording. The work is in nine sections which run continuously.

    This work was composed for violinist Paula Smart and pianist Terence Dennis, who first recorded the work in March 1999.

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David Farquhar  

Enchanted Island

Duration: 1h 40' 00" Year: 1997
an opera in three acts based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest"

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    3 sopranos; 2 mezzos; 4 tenors; 4 baritones; 1 bass; chorus Orchestra: 2121; 2100; 2 percussion; keyboards; strings
  • Programme Note

    The Tempest is Shakespeare’s most musical play; as Caliban says “…the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs….”. Its musical demands include many songs and many magic effects, storms and a celestial masque.

    Strangely, while many composers (including myself!) have written incidental music for the play, there have been very few operatic adaptations. Yet the fable contains all the operatic ingredients of romance, intrigue and comedy with lots of magic thrown in – is the happy ending a drawback!? There is also an important theme of freedom present, as the ‘tangata whenua’ of the island, Caliban and Ariel, struggle to get free from their slavery to Prospero. They finally succeed, and Prospero himself in the Epilogue asks the audience to “set him free” to leave magic and the stage, just as Shakespeare is also signalling his retirement from play-writing.

    My adaptation of Shakespeare has reduced his text to about a quarter of the original, and five acts to three.

    Act 1 starts with the storm, presents Prospero’s story so far and his relationships to Miranda, Ariel and Caliban, and ends with Ferdinand’s arrival and his falling in love with Miranda.
    Act 2 is in five symmetrical scenes – courtiers, “comics”, lovers, “comics”, courtiers -, and presents the intrigues aimed at killing King Alonso and Prospero, but thwarted by Ariel.
    Act 3 provides more magic ( Prospero’s masque of spirit godesses, celebrating the lovers’ betrothal), and leads to the denouement, where Prospero assembles everyone, forgives the would-be murderers, and announces the departure of all the the visitors to celebrate Miranda and Ferdinand’s wedding in Naples.
    The Epilogue (originally for Prospero alone), is adapted as a vaudeville finale for the entire cast, ending with the everyone adding clapping to their singing, and inviting the audience to join in.

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John Rimmer  

Galileo

Duration: 1h 30' 00" Year: 1998
a chamber opera using for 6 singers, small chorus and 8 players, also using electroacoustic music and DVD of visuals

Score Sample
Video Sample
  • Instrumentation
    Television newsreader (spoken voice), Nobelman (baritone), Castelli (tenor), Galileo (baritone), Boy/Angel (mezzo soprano), Three Priests (tenor/baritones), Heretic (baritone), Christina (soprano), Military Man (baritone), Sea Captain (baritone), Troubadour (mezzo soprano), Cardinal Bellarmino (tenor), Pope Urban VIII (bass baritone), Pope John Paul II (baritone), small chorus of townspeople; flute doubling piccolo, oboe, clarinet doubling bass clarinet, horn, piano, percussion, violin and cello. Electroacoustic music played through at least eight loudspeakers. DVD of visuals.
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Jonathan Besser  

Jean

Duration: 1h 30' 00" Year: 1990
ballet in three acts for full orchestra, based on the life of Jean Batten

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Dorothy Buchanan  

Miss Brill

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1998
an opera in one act

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Gillian Whitehead  

Outrageous Fortune

Duration: 1h 58' 00" Year: 1998
a chamber opera in two acts

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Philip Norman  

Peter Pan

Duration: 1h 27' 00" Year: 1999
music for orchestra for a 3-act ballet

  • Programme Note

    This work was commissioned and premiered by The Royal New Zealand Ballet at the Westpac Trust St James Theatre, Wellington on February 27, 1999.

    Through most of 1998, the commissioned creative team including composer Philip Norman, choreographer Russell Kerr and designer Kristian Fredrikson worked on the adaptation of James M Barrie’s enchanting story. “We ate, slept and dreamt crocodiles, pirates and mermaids.”

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