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Nadia Boulanger is widely considered one of the most important women in the history of music, having taught iconic 20th-Century composers including Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Astor Piazzolla, Philip Glass and Quincy Jones. Her only opera, La ville morte, with a libretto by Gabriele D’Annunzio, is a twisted love story that explores the destructive power of obsession and desire within a quartet of characters. The work was scheduled to premiere at the Opéra–Comique in Paris in 1914, but with the outbreak of World War I, it never did, and the music was lost. Nearly a century later, vital New York-based chamber company Catapult Opera has commissioned David Conte, one of Boulanger’s last protégés, to compose a full score based on Boulanger’s recently discovered piano reduction of the orchestra, for a new production helmed by acclaimed opera and film director Robin Guarino, conducted by Catapult founder and artistic director Neal Goren and featuring the Talea Ensemble. A co-production of Catapult and the Greek National Opera, La ville morte comes to NYU Skirball for its American premiere, after opening at Athens’ Stavros Niarchos Hall in January 2024.
Performance Schedule:
FRIDAY & SATURDAY @ 7:30 PM
SUNDAY @ 2 PM
