Gene Scheer

Last updated

Gene Scheer (born April 28, 1958) is an American songwriter, librettist and lyricist. He is the brother of Samuel Scheer, who is an English teacher at Windsor High School and a part-time musician.

Contents

Education and early career

Scheer was born in New York City. The son of two teachers, he was raised in Washington Township (Long Valley), New Jersey and attended West Morris Central High School. He received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, followed by a scholarship to the University of Cologne and a Rotary International Fellowship to study at the Hochschule Für Musik in Vienna. While in Europe, he worked as an actor and singer in leading roles at the Theater an der Wien, the Deutsches Theater in Munich and as director George Tabori's assistant at the Schauspielhaus in Cologne.

Operatic librettist

Mr. Scheer worked as a librettist with Tobias Picker on Thérèse Raquin (based on the Émile Zola novel), commissioned by a consortium of companies including The Dallas Opera San Diego Opera, and the Opéra de Montréal, and premiering in Dallas in November 2001, starring Diana Soviero. [1] A revised version of Thérèse Raquin was performed in March 2006 at the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Scheer collaborated again with Picker on An American Tragedy (based on the novel by Theodore Dreiser, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 2005, starring Nathan Gunn, Patricia Racette, Susan Graham, Dolora Zajick and Jennifer Larmore. [2]

Scheer has collaborated with the composer Jake Heggie on a number of projects, including the critically acclaimed Moby-Dick , which premiered at The Dallas Opera in April 2010, starring Ben Heppner and Stephen Costello. [3] In February 2008, the Heggie-Scheer collaboration Last Acts (based on a play by Terrence McNally, opened at the Houston Grand Opera, starring Frederica Von Stade. (Last Acts was subsequently retitled Three Decembers). [4] They also collaborated on lyric dramas To Hell and Back commissioned and debuted by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in November 2006, featuring soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and Patti LuPone, and For a Look or a Touch, written for a baritone, actor, and chamber ensemble (debuted by the Seattle ensemble Music of Remembrance in 2007). In May 2012, Music of Remembrance premiered a Heggie/Scheer lyric drama based on the life of Krystyna Żywulska, an Auschwitz survivor.

Most recently, Scheer worked with composer Jennifer Higdon on Cold Mountain , an operatic adaptation of the National Book Award-winning novel of the same name for the co-production by The Santa Fe Opera in 2015 and by Opera Philadelphia in 2016.

Scheer is credited for the libretto of the opera Intelligence [5]

Songs and song cycles

Also a composer in his own right, Scheer has written a number of songs for Renée Fleming, Sylvia McNair, Stephanie Blythe, Jennifer Larmore, Denyce Graves, and Nathan Gunn.

American Anthem, written by Scheer in 1998, was first performed by Denyce Graves for President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton at the Smithsonian Institution, launching President Clinton's “Save America's Treasures” initiative. The song was subsequently performed with the United States Army Band and Chorus at the opening ceremonies of the Millennium celebration on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Following 9/11, Denyce Graves performed American Anthem on The Oprah Winfrey Show and on Larry King Live. In June 2003, Patti LaBelle and Take 6 performed a new arrangement of American Anthem at a concert in Philadelphia, later aired on PBS. The song was also performed by Denyce Graves at the January 20, 2005 inauguration of George W. Bush. In 2007, the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns featured American Anthem (sung by Norah Jones) in the Emmy Award-winning World War II documentary for PBS, The War. American Anthem's lyrics were referenced and recited by President Joe Biden in his Inaugural Address on January 20, 2021.

In 2003, Scheer was commissioned to write a choral version of his song Christmas Once More which was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. This work was later performed by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Scheer has also collaborated as a lyricist on a number of Jake Heggie song cycles. These works include: Pieces of 9/11 – Memories from Houston commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera in 2011; and A Question of Light, commissioned by the Dallas Opera and inspired by works of the Dallas Museum of Art (debuted by Nathan Gunn in Dallas, April 2011). In February 2012, the Alexander String Quartet and Joyce DiDonato premiered Camille Claudel: Into the Fire, by Heggie and Scheer, based on the life of the French sculptor Camille Claudel.

Other Scheer collaborations include the lyrics for Wynton Marsalis’s It Never Goes Away, featured in Mr. Marsalis’s 14-movement Congo Square suite.

Oratorio

With the composer Steven Stucky, Scheer wrote the oratorio August 4, 1964 . The work was premiered by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 2008 and was performed by the orchestra at Carnegie Hall in May 2011, with Jaap van Zweden conducting, during the inaugural “Spring for Music” festival. The concert-drama follows pivotal events of August 4, 1964 in the Lyndon Johnson White House: the discovery in Mississippi of the bodies of three murdered young civil rights workers and an alleged attack on American warships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in honor of President Johnson's centennial, the work is based on diaries, news reports and historical documents concerning the events of that day. [6] [7] [8] [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dallas Opera</span> Opera company in Dallas, Texas, USA

The Dallas Opera is an American opera company located in Dallas, Texas. The company performs at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, one venue of the AT&T Performing Arts Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Houston Grand Opera</span> American opera company

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) is an American opera company located in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1955 by German-born impresario Walter Herbert and three local Houstonians, the company is resident at the Wortham Theater Center. This theatre is also home to the Houston Ballet. In its history, the company has received a Tony Award, two Grammy Awards, and three Emmy Awards, the only opera company in the world to win these three honours. Houston Grand Opera is supported by an active auxiliary organization, the Houston Grand Opera Guild, established in October 1955.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denyce Graves</span> American mezzo-soprano (born 1964)

Denyce Graves is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jake Heggie</span> American opera composer and pianist

Jake Heggie is an American composer of opera, vocal, orchestral, and chamber music. He is best known for his operas and art songs as well as for his collaborations with internationally renowned performers and writers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobias Picker</span> American composer

Tobias Picker is an American composer, pianist, and conductor, noted for his orchestral works Old and Lost Rivers, Keys To The City, and The Encantadas, as well as his operas Emmeline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, An American Tragedy and Lili Elbe, among many other works.

Christopher Chapman Rouse III was an American composer. Though he wrote for various ensembles, Rouse is primarily known for his orchestral compositions, including a Requiem, a dozen concertos, and six symphonies. His work received numerous accolades, including the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He also served as the composer-in-residence for the New York Philharmonic from 2012 to 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolf Trap Opera Company</span>

The Wolf Trap Opera Company was founded in 1971 as part of the program of the Wolf Trap Foundation located near the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Fairfax County, Virginia. The company is a residency and training program for aspiring opera professionals, with its major production being a summer opera festival.

David Bruce is a British composer and a YouTuber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Sleeper</span> American classical composer (1956–2022)

Thomas M. Sleeper was an American composer and conductor. He was the Orchestra Conductor at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida from 1985 to 1993, and Director of Orchestral Activities and Conductor of the University of Miami Frost Symphony Orchestra until his retirement in 2018. He was also the director of the Florida Youth Orchestra from 1993 to 2020.

Mark Grey is an American classical music composer, sound designer and sound engineer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyce DiDonato</span> American mezzo-soprano

Joyce DiDonato is an American opera singer and recitalist. A coloratura mezzo-soprano, she has performed operas and concert works spanning from the 19th-century Romantic era to those by Handel and Mozart.

Glen Paul Roven was an American two-time Emmy winning composer, lyricist, conductor and producer. He composed the music to "The Hillary Speeches" setting two of Mrs. Clinton's speeches to music which streamed opposite Trump's inauguration and featured opera stars Patricia Racette, Isabel Leonard, Nathan Gunn, Lawrence Brownlee, Mathew Polenzani, Kyle Ketelson, and twenty-three others. Other notable Roven compositions include a violin concerto based on the children's book The Runaway Bunny which was recorded by Sony narrated by Brooke Shields and recorded by GPRrecords narrated by Catherine Zeta-Jones. Another notable composition is "Goodnight Moon, An Aria for Singer and Orchestra" which the National Chorale performed at Geffen Hall in 2016. It was subsequently performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Kimmel Center. His Symphony No. 2 premiered at Geffen Hall (2018) and he produced with Universal Music Hopes and Dreams, The Carnegie Hall Lullaby Project with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Joyce DiDonato, Patti LuPone, Dianne Reeves, Fiona Apple, Natalie Merchant, Pretty Yende and more. The CD hit number one in both the Classical and Pop charts. He was creating the Poetry Curriculum for K-6 for the United States Public School System. He was working on a musical for Netflix written by and starring Dolly Parton. He was the Artist Director of Roven Records. On July 25, 2018, Roven died at the age of 61.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Brownlee</span> American opera singer

Lawrence Brownlee is an American operatic tenor particularly associated with the bel canto repertoire. Describing his voice, Speight Jenkins, general director of the Seattle Opera, said: "There are other singers that sing this repertory very well, but I don't think anyone else has quite as beautiful a sound and as rounded a tone," and praise his "incredible top notes", adding about his high F (F5) in "Credeasi, misera": "With him it's not a scream, it's a beautiful sound." Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato adds: "He is always in service of the music. His natural instrument is just incredibly beautiful. The word 'honey' comes to mind. He also has technical prowess and agility."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cincinnati Opera</span> American opera company

Cincinnati Opera is an American opera company based in Cincinnati, Ohio and the second oldest opera company in the United States. Beginning with its first season in 1920, Cincinnati Opera has produced operas in the summer months of June and July with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra providing orchestral accompaniment.

<i>Thérèse Raquin</i> (opera) Opera by Tobias Picker

Thérèse Raquin is an American opera in two acts composed by Tobias Picker to a libretto by Gene Scheer based on the 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola. It is Picker's third opera, following Emmeline (1996) and Fantastic Mr. Fox (1998). It was commissioned by the Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, and the Opéra de Montréal. It premiered in November 2001. In 2006, a version with reduced orchestration was commissioned by Opera Theatre Europe; it premiered that year at the Royal Opera House and had its first New York performance in 2007 at Dicapo Opera Theatre. This version was subsequently produced by Boston University Opera Institute in 2009, Pittsburgh's Microscopic Opera Company in 2013, and both Long Beach Opera and the Chicago Opera Theater in 2015.

<i>An American Tragedy</i> (opera) Opera by Tobias Picker

An American Tragedy is an opera in two acts composed by Tobias Picker, with a libretto by Gene Scheer. This was Picker's fourth opera, written four years after the debut of Thérèse Raquin. Based on the 1925 Theodore Dreiser novel, An American Tragedy, the opera was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, and premiered in New York City on December 2, 2005.

Richard Bernstein is an American bass opera singer. A Metropolitan Opera company member since 1995, Bernstein has appeared in over 500 of its performances, including the Grammy award-winning Akhnaten in 2022. His repertoire includes the bel canto of Rossini, classic French opera, and 20th-century works, among others.

Patrick Summers is an American conductor best known for his work with Houston Grand Opera (HGO), where he has been the artistic and music director since 2011, and with San Francisco Opera, where he served as principal guest conductor, 1999–2016.

John Thomas Holiday Jr. is an American operatic countertenor. His repertoire focuses on the Baroque and contemporary composers, including staged opera and opera in concert, works for voice and orchestra, and experimental mixed-media. He has participated in several world premieres. He has performed with several opera companies in the United States, toured with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and sung in Shanghai and several European cities. He also sings gospel, pop, and jazz; he was a contestant on season 19 of NBC's The Voice, a vocal competition television series.

References

  1. ↑ Tommasini, Anthony (11 December 2001). "OPERA REVIEW; Did Hubby Really Have to Go? He's Such a Nice Guy". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  2. ↑ Tommasini, Anthony (5 December 2005). "OPERA REVIEW 'An American Tragedy' Dreiser's Chilling Tale of Ambition and Its Price". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  3. ↑ Smith, Steve (2 May 2010). "Music Review: A Role for the Roiling Sea as Ahab Hunts His Whale". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  4. ↑ Blank, Matt (6 March 2008). "Photo Journal: Jake Heggie's Last Acts Premieres at Houston Grand Opera". Playbill . Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  5. ↑ Houston Grand Opera "Intelligence". Retrieved November 19, 2023.
  6. ↑ Wakin, Daniel J. (September 12, 2008). "Two Wars, Two Presidents, One Oratorio". The New York Times . Retrieved December 21, 2011.
  7. ↑ Oestreich, James R. (September 19, 2008). "All the Way Through Fateful Day for L.B.J." The New York Times . Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  8. ↑ Ross, Alex (June 6, 2011). "Mix And Match: Spring for Music, at Carnegie Hall". The New Yorker . Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  9. ↑ Kirby, Paul (May 12, 2011). "Review: August 4, 1964 (at Carnegie Hall)". Theater Jones. Archived from the original on April 14, 2015. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.