Osias Wilenski, born in 1933 in Argentina, trained at Juilliard, and settled finally in Barcelona, has had a varied career as a concert pianist, film and television director and producer, and opera coach. In his youth he composed, and turned again to composition late in life. Carmen's Revenge is a surreal reimagining of Carmen's life had she escaped Don José's knife and gone on to have a cozy house in Seville. In the opera she encounters three characters: Don Juan, Rudolph Valentino, and Oedipus. As the composer comments, ...
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Osias Wilenski, born in 1933 in Argentina, trained at Juilliard, and settled finally in Barcelona, has had a varied career as a concert pianist, film and television director and producer, and opera coach. In his youth he composed, and turned again to composition late in life. Carmen's Revenge is a surreal reimagining of Carmen's life had she escaped Don José's knife and gone on to have a cozy house in Seville. In the opera she encounters three characters: Don Juan, Rudolph Valentino, and Oedipus. As the composer comments, "Poor Carmen! It was preferable to die as in the original than to survive these three idiots." Besides the three brief and rather uneventful encounters, not much happens in the 30-minute opera. It serves primarily as a vehicle for Wilenski to construct an unselfconsciously whimsical and inventive riff on Bizet's music. Nothing much of it makes sense, but it's fun nonetheless. The CD also includes two short chamber works, Three Movements for flute and piano and Romances for clarinet...
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