Music & Libretto by Rudolf Rojahn

Directed by Copeland Woodruff & Giselle Ty

Ouroboros imagines Sally and her Mother from “Let’s Make A Sandwich” as captives who must perform in the instructional film every day of their lives.

Composer: Rudolf Rojahn

Libretto: Rudolf Rojahn, inspired by a short film from the American Gas Association (1950)

Duration: 21min

Instrumentation: sop, ten, bari, cl, sax, perc

Director: Copland Woodruff/Giselle Ty

Premiere: 2014

Status: Retired

PRESS

…full of surprises, richly lyrical one moment and a swirl of gnarly percussive grooves the next. Childlike rhymes sound with the ring of innocence through their tonal, hymn-like simplicity, while the pitch bends that follow are otherworldly. Throughout, each cozy, familiar sound is situated within an eerie frame.” BOSTON CLASSICAL REVIEW

HISTORY

World Premiere - September 25, 2014 by Guerilla Opera

ABOUT THE OPERA

Ouroboros imagines Sally and her Mother from “Let’s Make A Sandwich” as captives who must perform in the instructional film every day of their lives. This monotony is periodically broken when Mother is retired and replaced by her daughter, who gives birth to a new Sally, thus continuing the cycle. The Director (the narrator of the film) is an authority figure who, in addition to filming the women everyday, also oversees their lives.

A micro-opera with music and libretto by Rudolf Rojahn, Ouroboros was commissioned as a part of Guerilla Opera’s experimental production entitled Let’s Make a Sandwich. In Let’s Make a Sandwich two operas were presented twice, with separate stagings by two directors, Copeland Woodruff and Giselle Ty. The librettos were both freely adapted from the same source material, a 1950 short informational film called “Let’s Make a Sandwich.”

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Rudolf Rojahn (Co-Artistic Director emeritus) is a composer of contemporary art music. He was the composer-in-residence for Boston’s Ludovico Ensemble from 2005-2010, a collaboration that resulted in several pieces including Antikythera Mechanism for bass clarinet and ensemble. He has also been commissioned and performed by the Quincy Symphony Orchestra, Juventas New Music Ensemble, the Lorelei Ensemble, the Arbelos Trio, Gabriela Diaz, Kent O’Doherty, Rane Moore, and the Green Light Consortium among others. From 2004-2006 he ran the Proletariat Tanning Salon, an event series pairing young composers and visual artists such as Camille Wainer and Nicole Margaretten. He has written three opera for Guerilla Opera: Heart of a Dog (2007), We are Sons(2009), and Bovinus Rex (2012).

Originating Ensemble: Brian Church (baritone), Aliana de la Guardia (soprano), Patrick Massey (tenor), Amy Advocat (clarinets), Kent O’Doherty (saxophones), Mike Williams (percussion)

Production and Creative: Copeland Woodruff and Giselle Ty (stage directors), Julia Noulin-Merat and Andrea Nice (scenic designers), Neil Fortin (costume designer), Tlaloc Lopez-Watermann (lighting designer), Mark DiGiovanni (technical director)