compositions

the CIVIL warS – Rome

A tree is best measured when it is down. Act V – Rome section

1983

120′

Music by Philip Glass.
Libretto by Maita di Nascemi and Robert Wilson.
Text in Latin, Italian, English.

CAST:
S, Mz, T, Bar, B; 2 speaking parts (M+F); SATB chorus; 2 (pic) .2.2(bcl).2/ 4.3.2 btbn.1/hp/ timp. 3 perc (SD, BD, cym, wdbl)/ str, fl, cl, bn, 4hn, 2 vln, va, vc, bass.

COMMISSION:
Commissioned by the Opera di Roma

PREMIERE:
March 1984, Opera di Roma, conducted by Marcello Panni

NOTES:
Part of Robert Wilson’s multi-composer epic for the Olympic Games of 1984, the Rome Section of “the CIVIL warS” is a unit all its own, non-narrative, and portrays the future, the present, the past (both near and distant), and the legendary – all existing simultaneously. The opera is symbolic, metephysical, realistic, metaphomical, and its stage ranges from ancient Athens to the spaceship-filled future of the human race.

PUBLISHER:
Dunvagen Music Publishers