Lear (2015)

A chamber opera in two acts

Libretto adapted directly from Shakespeare's text by Michael Oberhauser

​Duration: 2 hours

Cast:
Lear - Spoken role - King of Britain
Goneril - Soprano - Lear's eldest daughter
Oswald - Mezzo-soprano - Goneril's steward
Regan, later in disguise as her husband Cornwall - Mezzo-soprano - Lear's second daughter
Cordelia, later in disguise as the Fool - Coloratura soprano - Lear's youngest daughter
Earl of Kent - Bass-baritone
Earl of Gloucester - Spoken role
Edgar - High baritone - Gloucester's elder son
Edmund - Baritone - Gloucester's younger and illegitimate son

Instrumentation: fl/al/picc, ob/eh, cl/bcl, bsn, hn
perc: one player (sus. cym, tamb, found metal object "anvil," snare, high tom, low tom)
pno, vln I, vlnII, vla, vcl, bs

Setting: Various places in Lear's kingdom

Recordings

Recordings from a concert reading, 12 April, 2015, in the Joseph & Alma Gildenhorn Recital Hall, the University of Maryland, College Park. Recordings by Arts Laureate.

Cast in the recordings:
Lear - Slice Hicks
Goneril - Hillary LaBonte
Oswald - Tanya Langlois
Regan - Kristina Riegle
Cordelia - Courtney Kalbacker
Kent - Mitchell Galloway-Edgar
Gloucester - Kyle McGruther
Edgar - Andrew Sauvageau
Edmund - Jeffrey Grayson Gates
Piano - Michael Langlois
Conductor - Michael Oberhauser