Now available for streaming is Semmelweis, a work of music theater composed by Raymond J. Lustig on a libretto by Matthew Doherty about the Hungarian doctor Ignác Semmelweis, who pioneered the antiseptic response to infection during a Viennese epidemic in 1846.
I haven’t had a chance to view the piece yet and am unfamiliar with the composer, but it’s obviously a timely topic. The performance here is the 2018 world premiere co-produced by Budapest Operetta Theatre and the Bartók Plusz Opera Festival.
Lustig remarks: “There has never been a more urgent moment in history to reflect on the mystery of insight, the tension between truth and hubris, our deadly myopic inertia, and the clear truth that we as a society need our full human participation, our fresh perspectives and brave new ideas, literally to survive. My hope is that, by giving vocal expression to the Semmelweis story … we may all be inspired by his refusal to remain silent on a truth that was not merely inconvenient, but intolerable.”
Filed under: music news, new opera
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 