Charon by
A 20 minute opera about the weary boatman of the River Styx, and how his job changes after the world ends. Commissioned by The Kennedy Center/Washington National Opera. Written with composer Scott Perkins and inspired by the story fragment by Lord Dunsany.
******PRESS:
"Charon was the strongest [work of the evening]. Cassidy's libretto is spare and telling, and gave his partner...
******PRESS:
"Charon was the strongest [work of the evening]. Cassidy's libretto is spare and telling, and gave his partner...
A 20 minute opera about the weary boatman of the River Styx, and how his job changes after the world ends. Commissioned by The Kennedy Center/Washington National Opera. Written with composer Scott Perkins and inspired by the story fragment by Lord Dunsany.
******PRESS:
"Charon was the strongest [work of the evening]. Cassidy's libretto is spare and telling, and gave his partner repetitive and clear material for musical treatment. The piece works effectively because it establishes and maintains a single mood, intensifying to a dramatic conclusion." - Philip Kennicott, The Washington Post.
“Perkins’ and Cassidy’s Charon was, as Monty Python might have put it, 'something completely different.' ... Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Charon was the free-flowing imagination of librettist Nat Cassidy ... Mr. Cassidy grabbed [Lord Dunsany's] idea and ran with it in his libretto, gradually revealing the growing horde of souls—by implication and suggestion—is actually the mass casualty of a human Armageddon. ... It’s a brief, intense setting for this quietly apocalyptic libretto that expands in a truly unsettling way the idea-kernel that Mr. Cassidy brilliantly extracted from Dunsany’s fictional speculation. ... Mr. Cassidy’s libretto is what any composer could want: a good, tight story; a compelling major character; a text loaded with rhythmic metrics, sing-able vowels; and the whole driven with choruses in a 'dies irae' funereal chant style, perfectly orchestrated by Mr. Perkins. The sum of its many parts provides a haunting atmosphere for the composer’s haunting music. ... In Charon, both the composer and librettist have an uncanny ability to [do] what a great composer like Verdi once did and what so many modern classical composers fail to do—make a visceral connection to their own times. And that’s what makes Charon a remarkable and welcome musical surprise." - Terry Ponick, The Washington Times.
“Of the three presented, only one stood out and that was Charon. The libretto about the weary boatman ferrying newly deceased to Hades and the richly textured percussive music made the entire evening worth dashing from DC's Union Station.” - Karen LaLonde Alenier, The Dressing.
“The best effort of the night [was] Charon, with music by Scott Perkins and libretto by Nat Cassidy. ... With its echoes of Sartre's Huis clos (‘L'enfer, c'est les autres’), juxtaposition of grim humor and hellscape, and the most evocative use of the limited instrumentation by a long shot, it was a work not without shortcomings but which I would gladly hear again and take the chance to study the score.” - Charles T. Downey, Ion Arts.
******PRESS:
"Charon was the strongest [work of the evening]. Cassidy's libretto is spare and telling, and gave his partner repetitive and clear material for musical treatment. The piece works effectively because it establishes and maintains a single mood, intensifying to a dramatic conclusion." - Philip Kennicott, The Washington Post.
“Perkins’ and Cassidy’s Charon was, as Monty Python might have put it, 'something completely different.' ... Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Charon was the free-flowing imagination of librettist Nat Cassidy ... Mr. Cassidy grabbed [Lord Dunsany's] idea and ran with it in his libretto, gradually revealing the growing horde of souls—by implication and suggestion—is actually the mass casualty of a human Armageddon. ... It’s a brief, intense setting for this quietly apocalyptic libretto that expands in a truly unsettling way the idea-kernel that Mr. Cassidy brilliantly extracted from Dunsany’s fictional speculation. ... Mr. Cassidy’s libretto is what any composer could want: a good, tight story; a compelling major character; a text loaded with rhythmic metrics, sing-able vowels; and the whole driven with choruses in a 'dies irae' funereal chant style, perfectly orchestrated by Mr. Perkins. The sum of its many parts provides a haunting atmosphere for the composer’s haunting music. ... In Charon, both the composer and librettist have an uncanny ability to [do] what a great composer like Verdi once did and what so many modern classical composers fail to do—make a visceral connection to their own times. And that’s what makes Charon a remarkable and welcome musical surprise." - Terry Ponick, The Washington Times.
“Of the three presented, only one stood out and that was Charon. The libretto about the weary boatman ferrying newly deceased to Hades and the richly textured percussive music made the entire evening worth dashing from DC's Union Station.” - Karen LaLonde Alenier, The Dressing.
“The best effort of the night [was] Charon, with music by Scott Perkins and libretto by Nat Cassidy. ... With its echoes of Sartre's Huis clos (‘L'enfer, c'est les autres’), juxtaposition of grim humor and hellscape, and the most evocative use of the limited instrumentation by a long shot, it was a work not without shortcomings but which I would gladly hear again and take the chance to study the score.” - Charles T. Downey, Ion Arts.