Classics Today and Thirteen/WNET discuss Pärt / O'Regan at the Guggenheim
Music critics were in the house at AOP's two sold-out performances of Pärt / O'Regan at the Guggenheim Museum. Read their comments below.
Robert Levine, Classics Today:
WORKS-IN-PROCESS BY PÄRT AND O'REGAN Guggenheim Museum, New York; Jan 11, 2008
"The Guggenheim Museum's Peter B. Lewis Theater was host to American Opera Projects' and Works & Process' presentation of four works: three by the Estonian minimalist Arvo Pärt and one by the British-born, New York based Tarik O'Regan (who named Pärt as one of his inspirations). The 75 minute show was sometimes puzzling, sometimes riveting and always interesting. As always, AOP's experiments require attention...."
Susan Yung, Sunday Arts Blog at Thirteen/WNET:
Tarik O’Regan, a British composer born in 1978, presented The Woven Child, with libretto by Anna Rabinowitz. It might be daunting for a young composer to be juxtaposed with a master like Pärt (born in 1935 in Estonia), but his composition definitely felt aurally akin – the notes arranged spaciously for miles, and then pooling into a dense symphonic chord. Soprano Caroline Worra’s vocal line paralleled the cello’s, wavering, blending, teasing; violin notes darted rapidly. Then came a hymn-like section, imbued with hope, patience, yearning.