Wuornos-Opera
Wuornos-Opera, World Premiere.
Carla Lucero, Composer and Librettist
Friday, June 22, 8 pm
Saturday, June 23, 2 pm & 8 pm
Sunday, June 24, 4 pm
$30/$45/$60
Open dress Rehearsal on Thursday, June 21
Location: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard @ 3rd St
Tickets/Info: YBC Box Office: 415.978.2787, Wournos Website: www.wuornos.org,
Wuornos recounts the actual life story of Aileen Wuornos, the notorious serial killer and sex worker who is now on death row for the killings of seven men in Florida. It is a tragic love story of operatic proportions. Based on the surreal life of a real person, Aileen Wuornos is at once villain and heroine. Wuornos is a portrait of love, betrayal, and a woman who makes the ultimate sacrifice for the love of her life-another woman.
Incredibly, this opera becomes darkly humorous as it glares unflinchingly at the media, which has become our moral watermark in a tabloid society. The opera examines the painful journey of a woman subjected to incessant abuse at virtually every step of her life. It also explores the lure of the media, and to what extent the people seduced by its power will go to manipulate a story and exploit the subjects at the center. Provocative and controversial, the deepest, darkest roots of feminism are exposed as the rage of one woman speaks for centuries of pain.
Hailed as an important new opera, this full-scale original piece, by composer and lyricist Carla Lucero, is produced by the Jon Sims Center for the Arts. Unique in concept, Wuornos will make history for more than its subject matter. In the world of opera, female composers rarely receive the public attention they deserve. New York’s Metropolitan Opera last performed an opera by a woman in 1903! Wuornos will add Carla Lucero’s name to the small list of women who will see a full-scale production of their work.
Special thanks to The Charles Schwab Corporation Foundation.
For more info: www.wuornos.org
CARLA LUCERO
CARLA LUCERO (Composer/Librettist), a native of Los Angeles, received a BFA in music composition from California Institute of the Arts in 1986 where she studied with composers Leonard Rosenman, Morton Subotnik, Alan Chapman, and Rand Stieger. Drawing upon sources from Romantic and Neo-Classical music, Lucero has developed a highly melodic compositional style that puts soul into the cerebral. Before moving to the Bay Area, Lucero worked extensively with the Los Angeles-based Collage Dance Theater, including original compositions written for Most Wanted (presented in a city jail), LaBrea Woman (a site-specific dance performance), Life in the Lap Lane and Out of Circulation. Lucero won Los Angeles’s 1998 Lester Horton Outstanding Achievement in Dance Award. She has also written film and video scores for Cineplay International, Action International Pictures, and HBO. Her composition in Never Come Back (Hand Made Pictures by director Patrick Yu) received considerable acclaim at the 1996 Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles. Lucero has received awards for her work from Meet The Composer, Zellerbach Family Fund, and the San Francisco Art Commission. When she is not writing, Lucero teaches music at several institutions, most recently speaking to the Doctoral Music Program at UC Davis. Wuornos will mark her first opera world premiere.
Jon Sims Center for the Arts, Producing Organization
“The Jon Sims Center is thrilled to be the producing organization for the Wuornos opera,” says Charles Wilmoth, director of the Center. “Having supported Wuornos from its initial development when Carla Lucero was a Sims Center AIRspace artist-in-residence, we have committed our resources to this bold, artistically adventuresome opera because there is such scant institutional support for women in opera.”