“Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek were together in the Di Bruno Bros. Italian grocery in Philadelphia when they got a Google alert about an early review of their opera Breaking the Waves, not long after its Sept. 22, 2016, premiere that opened the season at Opera Philadelphia,” writes John Fleming in Tuesday’s (6/20) Classical Voice North America. “The rave review, posted online by Opera News, called the work ‘among the best twenty-first-century American operas yet produced.’ ‘That was our first inkling that people were really responding to it,’ … said [composer] Mazzoli…. The Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA) has named Breaking the Waves winner of its first Award for Best New Opera in North America. The award, which recognizes musical and theatrical excellence, will be given annually to a fully staged work that received its world premiere in the preceding calendar year. ‘Of the new operas that I saw in 2016,’ said Heidi Waleson, opera critic of the Wall Street Journal, ‘I would say that Breaking the Waves was the most original, the most harrowing, and the most moving.’ … Mazzoli and [librettist] Vavrek will receive the award on July 19 … in Santa Fe, N.M.”
Posted June 20, 2017
