Rappahonack County,

Music by: Ricky Ian Gordon

Libretto by: Mark Campbell

Duration: 85 minutes

Commissioned: 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: Harrison Opera House, Norfolk, Virginia 2011

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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

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MEDIA

Photos by Colin Howe, Nic Minetor, Jim Caldwell

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