Music by Andy Vores, Libretto by Andy Vores, adapted from the play by Jean-Paul Sartre

Three self-absorbed people who don’t know each other and don’t like each other trapped together in one room for eternity – literally.

Title: No Exit, a chamber opera

Composer: Andy Vores

Libretto: Andy Vores, adapted from the play by Jean-Paul Sartre

Duration: 80min

Instrumentation: sop, mezzo, ten, bari, alto sax, vln, vc, perc

Status: Active, available for revival or co-production

PRESS

“Exceptional… There is no hiding the trio’s talents as singers and actors” THE BOSTON GLOBE (2013)

“Vores’s seductive and scary score is a wonder of musical invention” NEW YORK ARTS (2013)

“A gripping evening of music and theater” BOSTON CLASSICAL REVIEW (2013)

“The best new opera of 2008” The Boston Phoenix (2008)

“a signature event of the city’s 2007-2008 season” Richard Dyer, formerly of The Boston Globe, quoted in The Boston Conservatory’s STAGES (2008)

HISTORY

4/24/2008: World Premiere in The Zack Box at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Directed by Sally Stunkel. Four performances.

9/19/2013: New production in The Zack Box at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Directed by Nathan Troup. Four performances.

ABOUT THE OPERA

Three self-absorbed people who don’t know each other and don’t like each other trapped together in one room for eternity – literally. Perhaps not most people’s idea of a naturally operatic plot, but Sartre’s play is full of drama and sly comedy set in a tiny space packed with vast consequences. NO EXIT shows the first hour of their damnation; we see the veneer of civilized self-justification crack to reveal fear, spite, vanity, self-delusion. Imagine this same room in ten thousand years, twenty thousand, thirty thousand . . . — Andy Vores

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Andy Vores was born Wales and raised in England. He studied at Lancaster University with Edward Cowie. From 1982 working as Composer-in-Residence at The City University, London. In 1986 he was a Fellow in Composition at Tanglewood. He has lived in Boston since 1990. From 1999 to 2001 he was Composer-in-Residence to the BankBoston Celebrity Series, and 2002 to 2005 Composer-in-Residence to the New England Philharmonic. From 2001 until 2016 he taught at The Boston Conservatory where he was Chair of Composition, Theory, and Music History.

Commissions include Freshwater (The Boston University Opera Institute), Wetherby Nocturne for Kathleen Supové (The Barlow Endowment), Quartet No.3 for The Borromeo String Quartet (Chamber Music America), World Wheel for The Cantata Singers, Umberhulk for Boston Musica Viva, and Uncertainty Is Beautiful for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Awards include a Koussevitsky Fellowship, the Kucyna International Composition Competition, the Scottish National Orchestra Ian Whyte Award, the Tanglewood Prize for Composition, the Omaha Symphony Guild New Music Contest, and the Huddersfield Festival.