March 19-20, 2004

The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music

at The Catholic University of America

presented the Concert Workshop production of

a new American opera:

The Libation Bearers

opera in one act

based on the ancient Greek tragedy by Aeschylus

Music by Andrew Earle Simpson

Libretto by Sarah Brown Ferrario

translated directly from the ancient Greek

Concert Workshop Performances:

Friday, March 19, 2004, 8:00 PM

Saturday, March 20, 2004, 8:00 PM

Click here to watch and listen to either performance online.

The Libation Bearers, an intimate and terrifying family drama with cosmic repercussions, is the second Greek tragedy of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy.  Set in Argos some ten years after the death of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers stages the return home of the exiled prince Orestes, son of the murdered king, and the bloody vengeance he exacts upon his mother, Queen Klytemnestra, for his father's death.  An echo and transformation of Agamemnon's story, The Libation Bearers introduces the theme of redemption into the Oresteia's larger tale through Orestes' touching and joyful reunion with his sister Elektra, then questions that redemption when Klytemnestra's vengeful Furies pursue and madden Orestes at the drama's conclusion. 

The Libation Bearers now ascends the modern stage in a vivid operatic setting by composer Andrew Earle Simpson and librettist Sarah Brown Ferrario.  The opera, created with the utmost possible fidelity to the ancient model's language and plot, introduces Balkan and Eastern musical resonances into its choruses, sung by Elektra's Trojan slave-women.  Students and alumni of The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, The Catholic University of America, join with Sibylla, one of Washington, DC's most talented and exciting new chamber choral groups, to perform the concert workshop production of this second of Andrew Simpson's one-act operas on Aeschylus' Oresteia.

Dedicated to the exploration and performance of music for treble voices, Sibylla has been singing in the Metropolitan DC area for almost three years. With a debut in March 2000 at Georgetown University’s Dahlgren Chapel, the group’s engagements have included Tenebrae services and a guest appearance at The Suspicious Cheese Lords Christmas concert (2002) at the Franciscan Monastery and Christmas concerts at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in 2001 and 2002.  Sibylla was appointed Artist-in-Residence at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Potomac, Maryland for August 2002 and most recently gave a spring concert of motets and madrigals at the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, DC.

For information about Agamemnon, the first opera of The Oresteia Project and the prequel to The Libation Bearers, click here or on its logo below:

For further inquiries about Agamemnon or The Libation Bearers, you may e-mail the composer directly at simpson@cua.edu.