Daron Hagen's Orson Rehearsed is termed an "operafilm," the audio portion of which was here recorded live at a 2018 performance in Chicago. The libretto, by Hagen himself, has boxes within boxes, and boxes within boxes within boxes, and the lack of the visual component is not really any more deleterious to the listener experience than it is with any other opera. Hagen's concept is unique: film director Orson Welles (the creator of Citizen Kane), at home in Los Angeles in 1985, has just suffered a fatal heart attack. Scenes ...
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Daron Hagen's Orson Rehearsed is termed an "operafilm," the audio portion of which was here recorded live at a 2018 performance in Chicago. The libretto, by Hagen himself, has boxes within boxes, and boxes within boxes within boxes, and the lack of the visual component is not really any more deleterious to the listener experience than it is with any other opera. Hagen's concept is unique: film director Orson Welles (the creator of Citizen Kane), at home in Los Angeles in 1985, has just suffered a fatal heart attack. Scenes from his life run through his mind, not sequentially, and are realized musically by three Orson Welles characters, one the youthful genius, one the mid-career figure, and one, to use Hagen's words, "Welles' spirit, 'out of time' -- what Heidegger calls and 'ecstace.'" The last of these moves through time, up to the present day (including the Internet), and back to the ragtime era, so Hagen's trademark stylistic mixtures are given free rein. The episodes feature Welles' characters in...
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