Acquanetta is an opera of sorts -- cantata might be a better, if less familiar, word -- based on a three-minute scene from a 1943 horror film, Captive Wild Woman . Acquanetta is an actress, an actual historical individual of murky origins, who plays a woman turned into a monster by a mad scientist. "I am your beautiful monster, lovely and shy," Acquanetta intones. "I can stop a lion in its tracks." And the film's director, accompanied by the chorus, sings, "I know you want everything to be clear and simple as black and ...
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Acquanetta is an opera of sorts -- cantata might be a better, if less familiar, word -- based on a three-minute scene from a 1943 horror film, Captive Wild Woman . Acquanetta is an actress, an actual historical individual of murky origins, who plays a woman turned into a monster by a mad scientist. "I am your beautiful monster, lovely and shy," Acquanetta intones. "I can stop a lion in its tracks." And the film's director, accompanied by the chorus, sings, "I know you want everything to be clear and simple as black and white." The opera was designed for multimedia presentation, and it's a bit obscure when heard on CD without the visual elements. On the other hand, it was commissioned and first performed as a full-scale opera in 2005 by a company in Aachen, Germany; this 2018 chamber version featuring the Bang on a Can Opera Ensemble is a studio version (from the Power Station) of a production mounted at Bard College in upstate New York. The scenes are compact, and this smaller version may well...
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