Amy Scurria
Operas
The operas I create are paradigm-shifting, collaborative, other-identity centered, cross-culturally informed, meaningful, structurally sound, emotionally accessible, and empowerment centered.
ALICE
Music by Amy Scurria
Libretto by Zane Corriher
A.L.I.C.E. invites audiences down the rabbit hole to experience a spellbinding world of wonder, laughter, and self-discovery. Journey with Alice through soaring arias, mad duets, and outlandish ensembles as she encounters curious and confounding creatures. Follow the path of the nervous but regal White Rabbit. Encounter a condescending and sleepy Caterpillar, a dismissive, vulgar Duchess, and a mysterious, mystical Cheshire Cat. Laugh until you fall apart with the silly, but tragic, Hatter and Hare. And join the royal court along with a sycophantic choir of cards, a covertly beneficent King, and finally, the cruel and vainglorious Queen of Hearts. This adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s beloved novel is a quest for identity, to answer the question that burns deep within the furnace of every human being: Who are you?
PEARL, the opera
Music by Amy Scurria
Libretto by Carol Gilligan and Jonathan Gilligan
Pearl draws on Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter but seeks to tell a different story, not Hawthorne's but one that uses Hawthorne's characters and circumstances, and is informed by a 21st-century feminist worldview. The feminist vision is not alien to Hawthorne. Although this novel is said to be the third most widely assigned novel in high schools, few people remember how radically feminist (for the mid-19th century) Hawthorne's language and ideas are.
DELIRIUM
Music by Amy Scurria
Libretto by Jeff Shankley
The overall format of the opera is presented in an abstract way.
Time isn't linear. But fragmented.
It explores a combination of the effects of blood memory, as well as the 'collective unconscious' as proposed by Jung. It suggests that man suffers from certain innate qualities that are inherited and surface instinctively through time. Violence, war, corruption, and desire, all appear to have their roots in fear, represented in the piece by Phobos. And desire by The Satyr. It uses Greek myths that are embedded in our deepest subconscious and also learned behaviours to present a suggestion that there are constantly repeating patterns for humanity.
We are never quite sure whether the piece is expressing reality or happening inside the warrior's mind after returning from Vietnam suffering from PTSD and experiencing electroconvulsive therapy. The circumstances of his life are shattered, fragmented and reassembled in a way that makes him doubt his sanity.
The parallel between Odysseus returning after the siege of Troy and the older Warrior returning from Vietnam highlights the similarity of the conflicts passed down through generations doomed to repeat patterns of behavior. It also shows the vulnerability and helplessness of families left behind while their sons and daughters, their husbands and lovers go to war, how their lives fall to pieces, how they cope with loss; how it challenges their faith and belief in authority.