u/burnt-store-studio

Good afternoon friends,

I fixed the access permissions on the links in my previous post titled "UPDATE: Completed full-length opera - what next (this time with excerpted audio and score)".

I apologize for not realizing I'd posted badly.

If you have any inclination to peruse the score excerpt or listen to the audio I included in that post, I'd be grateful if you gave me a second shot 😄 . Here's the relevant portion:

This is the main link for the files. Here's what I've included:

1. MP3: Overture. (3'13"). Vocal lines, such as they are, start at 1:26.
2. MP3: Discovery. (2'08"). This is just an excerpt, as the scene is more than twelve minutes long. (What's going on in the action: a clandestine meeting in a foreign country has been attacked and a bunch of people were murdered. Now, the field is calling CIA headquarters to report the attack.)
3. MP3. Intermission. (4'12"). At the end, there is a vocal repeating a reveal that occurs at the end of Act I.
4. PDF. Excerpted Score covering the three MP3s. I don't know, friends, I probably over-did this PDF in that it's 60 pages long. Obviously feel free to skim, but I thought it necessary to cover what I'm actually sharing as audio. I apologize for the length.

I'm sorry for goofing up with the first post, and I'm really thankful for any time you spend on my material.

I'm hopeful my posting permission-denied links was the reason for the downvoting on that post, but in case it's instead because I've done something differently egregious, I apologize (and please let me know what I did so I can fix it?). Thank you!

Thank you to u/markjohnstonmusic for pointing out my mistake.

[edit: I updated the link permissions in Google Drive; I apologize if you tried to access it and couldn't. It's my first time sharing through Google Drive and I though just including the link was enough. It wasn't.]

Good morning,

Intro

You may have seen a version of this post on r/composer. On a suggestion from u/65TwinReverbRI, I'm posting here as well, with hopes of getting feedback on my new composition.

( r/composer has a rule re: using AI to craft post text. I'll mention here: as with my other post about this opera, I again did not use AI to craft any of this post. My text likely seems over-written and formal, and that's a consequence of me being me; I apologize.)

Also on a suggestion from u/65TwinReverbRI, I changed the links in this version of the post to point to Google Drive rather than Dropbox.

Background

The other day I posted here (in r/composer) reporting I'd completed a new opera and asking what should I do next. I learned a lot from the responses. As it turns out, I knew nothing about how to craft a piece with any hopes of getting it produced.

Regardless, I would like to share with you three audio clips and the relevant parts of the score from my opera Betrayal: A Tragedy. I might have over-done it (in length) with the excerpts I'm sharing -- please excuse me ... it isn't my intent to exhaust any of you who do { listen to, read } any of it!

I use r/Dorico as my notation software, and it facilitates creating MP3s of whatever you've written; this is how I got the MP3s. One consequence of this, though, is that the vocal lines are just the software's samples and not the opera text. (Technically, NotePerformer's samples, not Dorico's.)

This is the main link for the files. Here's what I've included:

1. MP3: Overture. (3'13"). Vocal lines, such as they are, start at 1:26.
2. MP3: Discovery. (2'08"). This is just an excerpt, as the scene is more than twelve minutes long. (What's going on in the action: a clandestine meeting in a foreign country has been attacked and a bunch of people were murdered. Now, the field is calling CIA headquarters to report the attack.)
3. MP3. Intermission. (4'12"). At the end, there is a vocal repeating a reveal that occurs at the end of Act I.
4. PDF. Excerpted Score covering the three MP3s. I don't know, friends, I probably over-did this PDF in that it's 60 pages long. Obviously feel free to skim, but I thought it necessary to cover what I'm actually sharing as audio. I apologize for the length.

I am sincerely open to all criticism. And if you happen to have any questions about the work, I will happily entertain them!

Aside from family (and anyone from r/composer who chose to click through), you are the first to see or hear anything from this piece, and so I'd be extremely grateful to read what you care to write.

Thank you so much for engaging with me here and on my previous post. I appreciate this community, as well as the responses I got to my original posts on r/composer.

Hi!

The other day I posted here reporting I'd completed a new opera and asking what should I do next. I'm very thankful to all who responded!

A suggestion I received: share here some audio and bits of the score, which I'm doing now.

(To address posting rule #8: I again did not use AI to craft any of this post. My text probably seems over-written and formal, and that's a consequence of me being me; I apologize.)

I would like to share with you three audio clips and the relevant parts of the score from my opera Betrayal: A Tragedy. I might have over-done it (in length) with the excerpts I'm sharing -- please excuse me ... it isn't my intent to exhaust any of you who do { listen to, read } any of it!

I use r/Dorico as my notation software, and it facilitates creating MP3s of whatever you've written; this is how I got the MP3s. One consequence of this, though, is that the vocal lines are just the software's samples and not the opera text. (Technically, NotePerformer's samples, not Dorico's.)

This is the main link for the files. Here's what I've included:

1. MP3: Overture. (3'13"). Vocal lines, such as they are, start at 1:26.
2. MP3: Discovery. (2'08"). This is just an excerpt, as the scene is more than twelve minutes long. (What's going on in the action: a clandestine meeting in a foreign country has been attacked and a bunch of people were murdered. Now, the field is calling CIA headquarters to report the attack.)
3. MP3. Intermission. (4'12"). At the end, there is a vocal repeating a reveal that occurs at the end of Act I.
4. PDF. Excerpted Score covering the three MP3s. I don't know, friends, I probably over-did this PDF in that it's 60 pages long. Obviously feel free to skim, but I thought it necessary to cover what I'm actually sharing as audio. I apologize for the length.

I am sincerely open to all criticism (although compliments would also be sweet 😊).

Other than my family and one friend, you are the first to see or hear anything from this piece, and so I'd be extremely grateful to read what you care to write.

Thank you so much for engaging with me here and on my previous post. I appreciate this community.

EDIT: the thumbnail is not me. Reddit pulled it from one of the links in my post, and I can’t undo it.

Hi! I recently completed a 2-act opera for chamber orchestra, and I'm not sure what to do next to find and approach producing companies.

I'd be grateful for any advice this group can offer!

(To address posting rule #8: I did not use AI to craft any of this post. It likely feels over-written, and that's a consequence of me being me; I'm sorry. I have tried to anticipate commenters' questions, which adds to the length. I'm grateful to all who read this!)

Brief background on me

• I'm in the Washington, D.C., USA region.
• My career was in mathematics and computer research; theater music has always been "just" an avocation, albeit a significant part of my life.

Brief background on the opera

• It's titled Betrayal: A Tragedy.
• It's about a spy in the U.S. Intelligence Community.

My hopes and expectations

I hope to have my opera produced. I hope this can happen without a lot of self-funding (as self-funding isn't really an option). I have no expectations regarding the level of production (professional, educational, or amateur). Beyond this, I'm not smart enough in the world of opera production to understand what are realistic expectations. I'm open to learning!

I literally do not know what to do next regarding the work.

What I've done

I did cold-call (email) one small but respected opera company several months ago. After hearing nothing for seven weeks, I did a brief follow-up email ten days ago. (I won't bother them anymore. I've since learned this approach is frowned upon, and I feel bad for having done it.)

What I'm learning

From what I've read online I've gone about this the wrong way. Quoting from [1] (see Sources, below) "If you’ve already composed an opera without a production agreement, your chances of getting it staged are extremely low."

Quoting from [2], Leigh has some suggestions.

1. "Get formal training [go to] composition school [or something like] American Lyric Theater."
2. "Get informal training." (Hire people for private lessons; when you're ready, they'll connect you with the right people.)
3. Pay out of pocket and hire a production company.
4. Pay out of pocket and produce it [myself].
5. Pay out of pocket and do it with amateurs.

I realize the irony in asking for advice when the first thing I'm about to do is write why these five options are discouraging enough as to be non-starters. But...

1. "Formal training." Realistically, I'm too old to go back to school. (I'm a strong believer in "you're never too old", but where I am in life, for me specifically, I just don't see going back to school as an option.
2. "Get informal training." I'm not sure I could afford to "hire people for private lessons", but if you think it's a necessary step, could you please give me some concrete details?

Thank you for reading

Thank you so much for reading all of this, I appreciate your time! I will be grateful for any pointers, any advice, no matter how hard the lesson 😄.

Sources

EDIT: I removed the hyperlinks because Reddit was pulling an image from one of them to use as the thumbnail for my post. Which turned out to be harder than you’d think. Reddit’s editor keeps undoing my changes. So, it looks like this now, sorry.

EDIT 2: and it didn’t matter anyway; Reddit is keeping the thumbnail regardless. Sigh.

1. Omar Shahryar, composer. omarshahryar.info/how-do-you-get-a-new-opera-performed-secrets-from-a-professional-opera-composer/
2. David Leigh, opera

-singer. quora.com/How-do-I-get-a-new-opera-performed