SEMMELWEIS Music by Raymond J. Lustig Libretto by Matt Gray
Additional lyrics by Matthew Doherty
Dr. Sherwin Nuland, Medical Advisor
About Semmelweis
Against the backdrop of the revolutions of 1848, Hungarian obstetrician Ignac Semmelweis struggles to understand the strange pattern of disease transmission he is observing in the maternity wards at Vienna’s General Hospital. The solution to one of history’s most devastating epidemics – childbed fever – turns out to be literally in the doctors’ hands.
With decades to go before the germ theory of disease, Semmelweis fights a losing battle against the European medical establishment to convince them that one simple act will prevent them from killing thousands of mothers a year.
Composer Raymond J. Lustig’s sweet, simple songs swirl together with fatalistic waltzes and grim music of death bringing to life this terrible, true story in a two-act libretto by Matt Gray. The story is told with maximum flexibility for staging and would fit perfectly in either smaller contemporary performing arts spaces and music theater venues or medium to large opera houses. It has been conceived for seven singers/actors with optional chorus and dancers.
Funded in part by The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project and by a generous multi-year award from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
About the Creators
RAYMOND J. LUSTIG (composer)
Currently completing his doctorate at the Juilliard School, composer Raymond J. Lustig was recently awarded the prestigious Charles Ives Fellowship from the Academy of Arts and Letters, and has won ASCAP’s Rudolf Nissim Prize, the Juilliard Orchestra competition, and the New Juilliard Ensemble competition. His works have been performed in venues ranging from New York City clubs and galleries to major concert halls and festivals around the world—from Le Poisson Rouge to Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall—by groups like the Juilliard Symphony, the Bowling Green Philharmonia, American Opera Projects, Blind Ear Music, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the New Juilliard Ensemble, Avian Music, Duo Noire, counter)induction, and Opera on Tap. His teachers have included John Corigliano, Robert Beaser, Samuel Adler, Philip Lasser, and Conrad Cummings. Before pursuing graduate study in composition, Lustig was a published researcher in molecular biology at Columbia University and Massachusetts General Hospital. He lives in New York, teaches at the Juilliard School, and is married to surgeon Ana Berlin, with whom he has collaborated frequently on both scientific and artistic projects. (www.raymondlustig.com)
MATT GRAY (co-librettist)
Matt Gray has a list of artistic credits that cover writing, directing, acting and theatrical and film producing. He is the co-creator of the 12-part serialized play Penny Dreadful produced by the Brick Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn from 2007-2009. Recent NY performances include MadForest (nominated for Best Ensemble, NY Innovative Theatre Awards), Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, The Sinister Urge, Nevada Territory, Antony and Cleopatra, The Fugitive Girls, Bitch Macbeth (DM Theatrics); World Gone Wrong (Gemini CollisionWorks); Dangerous Liaisons (Wilde Mule Prod.). A BFA graduate of the North CarolinaSchool of the Arts in directing, Matthew also directed and co-wrote the play Stand Clear for the downtown arts festival The Fall Collection, and the third installment of James Comtois's serialized play Entrenched at The Battle Ranch in Brooklyn. At AOP, where he also serves as Producing Director, he has directed workshops of Numinous City, AbSynth and Semmelweis and the Philadelphia premiere of Darkling at Center City Opera Theater.
WATCH
"A Child of Nine"
Filmed at Opera Grows in Brooklyn
Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, New York - Dec 2009
Stage Direction by Matt Gray; Music Direction by Charity Wicks
Featuring: Matthew Curran
Who was Ignaz Semmelweis?
from BBC Four's "Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery"
AOP Presentations
September 18, 2011 Concert reading of scenes
part of Opera Grows in Brooklyn Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
Music Direction by Mila Henry; Stage Direction by Matt Gray
Featuring: Jeffrey Tucker and Amy Shoremount-Obra
March 25, 2011 Concert reading of scenes
Combined Medical and Surgical Grand Rounds Lecture on Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis featuring discussion with Dr. Sherwin Nuland (author, "The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis")
Mc Ginn Educational Center at Staten Island University Hospital
Music Direction by Mila Henry
Featuring: Jeffrey Tucker and Maeve Höglund
November 21, 2008 Dramaturgical workshop with Dr. Jonathan Miller
in collaboration with Glimmerglass Opera Angel Orensanz Center, New York, NY
MUSIC DIRECTION: Kelly Horsted
PERFORMANCES BY: Matthew Curran, Jessica Miller-Rausch, Josh Mertz, Donna Smith
October 3-4, 2008 Composers & the Voice: Six Scenes (presented as The Doctors' Ward) South Oxford Space, Brooklyn, NY
MUSIC DIRECTION: Kelly Horsted
STAGE DIRECTION: Ned Canty
PERFORMANCES BY: Matthew Curran, Abigail Fischer, Josh Mertz, Donna Smith
RAYMOND J. LUSTIG (composer)
MATT GRAY (co-librettist)
