AVNER FINBERG

Description

This new opera, composed by Avner Finberg with a libretto by Edward Einhorn, is inspired by the 1921 Russian novel WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin.  It unfolds in a stark dystopian future where individuality has been erased and human beings are reduced to numbers, living under the constant surveillance of a totalitarian state. It is a world full of glass buildings, creating a society forced to live in public.  Brief privacy is allowed by the state for procreation, provided one has the correct permission slip.  However, love attachments are not part of this practical arrangement.  Every aspect of life is regulated in the name of order and reason.

At the center of the drama is D-503, a brilliant but deeply troubled architect whose inner world begins to fracture as he encounters I-330, a magnetic and defiant figure who moves at the edges of the system. A rebel and emerging leader of a secret resistance movement, I-330 embodies everything the state seeks to suppress: desire, imagination, and freedom. Her presence ignites a dangerous transformation in D-503, igniting forbidden emotions that draw him into a conflict between his lifetime of obedience and his new treasonous awakening.  Following her might mean happiness, but it also might mean death by public execution under the Giant Bell, while the numbed populace sings a hollowed dirge of death.

Musically, the opera reflects this tension between rigid control and the soul of the characters. Each character is represented by a twelve-tone row, which evokes the flat, one-dimensional characters and mechanized precision of the regime. As the story develops, more fluid and expressive passages emerge as the characters begin to resist their constraints and to resist the control of the state. Free melody and uncontrollable harmony begin to accompany the character’s simple melodies and transform the characters as they rebel against the soulless mechanism of the state and the technology that controls their lives.

The cast consists of five singers.  Besides the two lead performers, the opera includes D-503’s friend R-13, who composes the deathly dirges; his state-assigned lover O-90; and S-47711, a member of the secret police force known as the Guardians.

At its core, WE is a story about who we are in public, who we are in private, and what it means to reclaim empathy and humanity in a world whose very structures erase it.

Roles

D-503, The Architect: Baritone

O-90, his state-assigned lover: Soprano

I-330, a rebel: Mezzo-Soprano

R-13, the state composer: Tenor

S-47711, a guardian: Bass

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