The Sacred in Opera Initiative

February 2020 Newsletter

In This Issue

Welcome from SIO Chair, Isai Jess Muñoz

From the SIO Editorial Team: Call for Submissions

Remembrance: Jewish Opera and The 75th Anniversary of the Auschwitz Liberation

Spotlight: Equality and Faith-Integration in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte? A New Edition Welcomed

Works In Progress: The New Motive Power, a new opera by composer Elizabeth Gartman and librettist Susan Bywaters

Welcome

Isaí Jess Muñoz, SIO Chair

Greetings and welcome to this latest issue of the Sacred in Opera Initiative Newsletter, where we take time to commemorate the 75^th Anniversary of the Auschwitz Liberation, highlighting three sacred operas written after the Holocaust by American-Jewish composers Abraham Ellstein, Hugo Weisgall and Leonard Lehrman. We also welcome Jon Truitt, Director of Opera at Ball State University, who walks us through ways in which he’s re-worked dialogue and other elements in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, eliminating racist and misogynist references in the work, and focusing greater attention on the spiritual journeys of Tamino, Pamina and Papageno. Lastly, we introduce you to The New Motive Power, a work in progress by composer Elizabeth Gartman and librettist Susan Bywaters, which tells the story of John Murray Spear, the nineteenth-century American spiritualist who was told by his daughter to build a mechanical Messiah.

We invite you to read our call for submissions, and we encourage you to let your students and colleagues at all levels know, that we are here to support their scholarly-creative endeavors with opportunities to present their work through sessions at the NOA National Conference, our multiple regional events, and through publication in our newsletter. Should you have any questions or ideas, please contact me or any members of the SIO Committee and we will be happy to help. We’re always eager to hear from you!
 
Dr. Isai Jess Muñoz
The Sacred in Opera Initiative of the NOA
Chair and Senior Editor
www.JessMunoz.com

From the Editorial Board

Article Submission and the Peer Review Process

Although traditional print journal and monograph publishing is still alive and well, non-traditional forms of publishing such as the Sacred in Opera Web and Blog based format can serve as wonderful supplements or alternatives to traditional scholarship.  Web based publications such as ours can enable the broadest possible readership of your research outputs and become an important way to maximize the dissemination and impact of your findings. In order to better serve our community members, the SIO committee continues working diligently to refine its formalized peer review process for the vetting of article submissions and materials to our newsletter. We welcome you to visit our updated submission criteria found in the SIO pages of the NOA website. We are always interested in hearing from potential contributors and supporting the good work you are doing in the field of Sacred in Opera. Let us hear from you.

The current list of the SIO Committee and Editorial Board includes:

Remembrance: Jewish Opera and the 75th Anniversary of the Auschwitz Liberation

By SIO Committee

Spotlight: Equality and Faith-Integration in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte? A New Edition Welcomed

By Jon Truitt

Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte is replete with Enlightenment ideals, including the celebration of reason, knowledge, freedom, and the quest for individual happiness. The pursuit of these goals within the opera is seen through the lens of the society of Freemasons, of which both Mozart and librettist Emanuel Schikaneder were both members. Continue...

Works in Progress: The New Motive Power, a new opera by composer Elizabeth Gartman and librettist Susan Bywaters

By Casey Robards

In development since 2017, the opera has received workshop performances with piano reduction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as well as in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Elizabeth and Susan hope to premiere a 65-minute complete production in late 2020 or early 2021. They are looking for future workshop and performance venues who can produce the staged work with orchestra. Continue...