Tobias Picker: Opera Without Words & The Encantadas

Featuring

Tobias Picker
Giancarlo Guerrero
Nashville Symphony

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Picker's Opera Without Words was conceived as an actual opera from which voices and text were withdrawn, with the music intended to communicate the deeper emotional life.

Composer Biography

Tobias Picker is a lifetime member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been the artistic director of the Tulsa Opera since 2016.

Composer Biography

Tobias Picker, the composer, has written operas for major companies including Santa Fe Opera, LA Opera, Dallas Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and the Metropolitan Opera.

Composition History

The Encantadas was commissioned to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the Albany Academy, with the suggestion to use a text by Herman Melville, who briefly attended the school.

Recording & Production

This album features the world premiere recordings of both The Encantadas and Opera Without Words.

Compositional Technique

The Encantadas uses the melodrama genre, where a text is recited dramatically alongside a score, but with emphasis on the character of the islands rather than a clear plot.

Composer's Artistic Vision

For The Encantadas, Picker sought a text with a narrative arc that also existed in the 'border zone between poetry and prose,' finding it in Herman Melville's work.