Any Opera Queens out there...?
Entry posted by AC Benus
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I'm almost counting on plenty of opera-watcher to be on this forum!! Because I may soon be breaking another GA glass ceiling by posting the site's first Libretto (I could be wrong, so please let me know....).
My short two-act work is a Gay Rights celebratory piece called Il Sogno di Henry Hay. It follows the sleepless night of the founder of the first successful LGBT equal rights group in America, The Mattachine Society. The events surrounding the opera are true: Hay was being called up before Joe McCarthy's witch hunt committee the following day. If the man were asked if he was a communist, and he said yes, he had not committed a crime for belonging to a legal political party, despite all the hell it might mean. If asked on the other hand if Hay was Gay, a 'yes' answer could mean arrest on the spot. This is the crux of this brave man's dilemma. From here fiction takes over and he is helped in his decision-making process by Ethel Merman and J. Edgar Hoover!
For you true opera buffs out there, you will have instantly noticed the title of my piece is a riff on Il sogno di Scipione, by Mozart. You can catch the whole opera here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7JzTVf5LCA
And if you are interested, I am going to make a companion post on another Mozart opera, Zaïde, and when I think it was actually composed.
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