Adapted from Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, Peter Eötvös' 1998 opera Tri sestry is a modernist interpretation of the 1901 drama, set to a libretto by Eötvös and Claus H. Henneberg. This opera has been performed to critical praise in Lyon, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and Vienna, among other opera capitals, and it is now firmly established in major European houses, despite its absence from stages in the United States, where avant-garde music has had far less support. Beyond the usual difficulties of securing a place in the ...
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Adapted from Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, Peter Eötvös' 1998 opera Tri sestry is a modernist interpretation of the 1901 drama, set to a libretto by Eötvös and Claus H. Henneberg. This opera has been performed to critical praise in Lyon, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and Vienna, among other opera capitals, and it is now firmly established in major European houses, despite its absence from stages in the United States, where avant-garde music has had far less support. Beyond the usual difficulties of securing a place in the repertoire, Tri sestry presents challenges that show that Eötvös' work is as uncompromising as it ever was. The scenes of the original four-act play have been re-arranged into three "sequences" associated with the characters Irina, Andrei, and Mascha, so this basic alteration of the story may be off-putting to some Chekhov purists. Also somewhat controversial is Eötvös' use of an all-male cast, assigning the sisters' parts to three countertenors, a gender swap that is sure to...
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