Groundbreaking Vireo Opera Released on CD and DVD
Vireo, the groundbreaking made-for-TV opera, is now available for streaming. Watch the 12 full episodes and dive into the world of Vireo through librettos, essays and production notes. Find more bonus content on KCET.org and LinkTV.org.
The medium-hopping multi-part opera, "Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser," has once again shifted its form. With a libretto by Erik Ehn and directed by Charles Otte, the 12-part made-for-television opera is now available in CD and DVD by Orange Mountain Music, as well as on iTunes and Amazon. "The CDs are actually a brand new 'Vireo!' says Lisa Bielawa, who composed and conceived the opera. "It is amazing how differently we listen when we are not also watching. When we created the episodes we wanted to bring it into the worlds that we were creating on the screen as much as possible, but in the CD version we were embracing the placelessness of musical experience, enhancing the listener’s imagination of scenarios rather than drawing them into something they are seeing."
"Vireo" first broadcast on KCET's Artbound June 2017. Both Bielewa and Otte were nominated for 2018 Los Angeles area Emmys, and the opera won the 2015 ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Multimedia Award. Bielawa has since then been named the inaugural composer-in-residence and chief curator for The New School’s Philip Glass Institute. She is now working on a hybrid film and opera experience of Vireo at the school, which will be workshopped March 2020.
Learn more about Vireo here.
Start watching the 12-part series below:
"Vireo: Episode One" The Blow
Top Image: Circus, Vireo - Episode 11 at Oakland Station | David Soderlund