Artist

Admin

Singer

Lauren Easton

Juliana Bordereau

Ronald Samm

John Cumnor

Jacob Bettinelli

Henry Jonson

Sandeep Gurrapadi

Gardener

Melody Compton

Giovanna

Oscar Castellino

Gondolier

Alison Buchanan

Tina

Conductor

Jan Karl Rautio

Stage director

Simone Ibbett-Brown

Lighting designer

Chuma Emembolu

Repetiteur

Avishka Edirisinghe

Pegasus Opera

English

The Aspern Papers

London

United Kingdom

Susie Sainsbury Theatre

THE ASPERN PAPERS

Public

Approved

One of James's best-known and most acclaimed longer tales, The Aspern Papers is based on the letters Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to Mary Shelley's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, who saved them until she died. Set in Venice, The Aspern Papers demonstrates James's ability to generate suspense while never neglecting the development of his characters.


Philip Hagemann composed The Aspern Papers first as a one-act opera in 1980 and then revised it in 1988, where it was premiered at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. One of operas curiosities is that Dominick Argento’s opera, The Aspern Papers, also based on James’s novella, premiered the same night of November 11, 1988, in Dallas, Texas. The opera opens in Venice in 1888. The story revolves on the efforts of Henry Jonson, an American scholar, who goes to Venice to attempt to retrieve the papers of the early 1800s poet Jeffrey Aspern from Aspern’s last lover, Juliana Bordereau, also an American, who has lived in Venice all of her adult life and is now very old. Henry seduces Juliana’s niece, Tina, in order to access these papers. His deception leads to dramatic confrontations and drama more than he anticipated. Hagemann’s music heightens the drama and the characters to fully render James’s powerful narrative.

The Aspern Papers by Hagemann, P., From (2022/2022), Directed by Simone Ibbett-Brown,, Conductor Jan Karl Rautio, Susie Sainsbury Theatre, London, United Kingdom

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