Il sogno di Scipione

Ten years ago, Gotham Chamber Opera burst onto New York’s opera scene with Mozart’s Il sogno di Scipione (Scipio’s Dream). To commemorate the anniversary of that debut production, Gotham Chamber Opera will revive Il sogno di Scipione in April 2012, reuniting its original creative team of director Christopher Alden, scenic designer Andrew Cavanaugh Holland, costume designer Fabio Toblini, and lighting designer Allen Hahn. The production will be conducted by Gotham Chamber Opera’s Founding Artistic Director Neal Goren. The cast will include Michele Angelini, Marie-Ève Munger, Susannah Biller, Rachel Willis-Sørenson, Arthur Espiritu, and Chad A. Johnson.

The highly-virtuosic one-act opera tells the story of the Roman Emperor Scipio Africanus, who, in a dream, awakens to find two goddesses before him: Fortune and Constancy. He must choose one or the other to guide him through life. Dazed by their enticements and threats, Scipio calls up his dead forebears for guidance in making this important and dangerous choice.