Catapult Opera: La Ville Morte

Nadia Boulanger is widely considered one of the most important women in the history of music, having taught iconic 20th-century composers including Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Astor Piazzolla, Philip Glass, and Quincy Jones. Her only opera, La ville morte, with a libretto by Gabriele D’Annunzio, is a twisted love story that explores the destructive power of obsession and desire within a quartet of characters. The work was scheduled to premiere at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1914, but with the outbreak of World War I, it never did. Nearly a century later, Catapult Opera has commissioned David Conte, one of Boulanger’s last protégés, to compose a full score based on Boulanger’s recently discovered piano reduction of the orchestra, for a new production helmed by acclaimed opera and film director Robin Guarino, conducted by Catapult founder and artistic director Neal Goren, and featuring the Talea Ensemble.