Rappahonack County,
- Ana De Archuleta
- Jan 21, 2022
- 2 min read
Music by: Ricky Ian Gordon
Libretto by: Mark Campbell
Duration: 85 minutes
Originally Commissioned by the Virginia Arts Festival,Virginia Opera, the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, and Texas Performing Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Premiered at Harrison Opera House, Norfolk, Virginia 2011
Personal Statment
A theatrical song cycle grouped into five parts, Rappahannock County captures key emotional, sociological, and historical moments in the Civil War, focusing on more than two dozen fictional people who experience the consequences of the conflict, their stories told through both solo and ensemble numbers. Much of the text was inspired by actual events and drawn from diaries, letters, and other accounts. The narrative follows the lines of history, from secession by Southern states in 1861 to their defeat by the Union Army in 1865. Although the story is geographically centered in Virginia, its themes–including the struggle to create new beginnings from the ashes of a previous way of life–are universal to the Civil War.
FORCES
Singers:
5 principal singers (doubling various roles)
1 Soprano (African American)
1 Mezzo-soprano (Caucasian)
1 Tenor (Caucasian)
1 Baritone (African American)
1 Baritone (Caucasian)
Orchestration:
1(dbl. Picc.)
1(dbl. E.H.)
2(2nd dbl. B.Cl.)
1 - 1 1(dbl. Flglhn.)
1 0; Timp
Perc
Pno.(dbl. Cel.) Str.
Reviews
Rappahannock County is a work of great economy, but immense emotional breadth — and depth. -Wes Blomster, Opera Today
It is to the credit of composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Mark Campbell that their "Rappahannock County" succeeds so remarkably both musically and emotionally: it is not unlike Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in that, in a relatively brief time, it gets at the heart of an aspect of the collective American experience that has shaped all that has come after and, at its core, is both unique to America and unmistakably universal. –Joseph Newsome, Voix des Arts
MEDIA
Photos by Colin Howe, Nic Minetor, Jim Caldwell
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