Compositions

Lonely Hearts is a one-act opera in Hungarian language, based on a true story. I heard about this story on NPR in 2015. Jesse (T) signed up for a pen pal service, that put him in touch with a woman he could correspond with and befriend. The woman was named Pamela (S). She was beautiful, understanding, and sympathetic. Jesse cherished her letters, but never looked closely enough to realize they were mass-produced and written by another man. The story rings all too familiar this day and age. I commissioned Almási András Tóth to write the libretto in Hungarian. My opera is about the tension between illusion and reality, dreams and facts. Jesse prefers his version of reality to the facts revealed to him in the court room and continues to believe his story. The judge (B) falls in love with Pamela and dismisses the case to join the paradise himself. Pamela confesses and thus becomes the only truthful character in the opera.A mű leírása Magyarul

The music is very eclectic, there is a jazz singer singing Bindin’ My Time in Hungarian, in a dialogue with the soloists and chorus at the meeting scene (mm. 627). There are several other quotations throughout the work; the opening chorus recalls the Barcarolle from Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Jesse’s Aria is based on the Hungarian suicide song Gloomy Sunday, and the Angels respond to Mother Mary with the Gregorian chant Ave Maria Gratia Plena (mm. 244). Bartók’s “A bit drunk” from Hungarian Sketches is quoted in mm. 421 as Pamela relates the story of a drunk man stealing her phone. The libretto is not specific to the internet age, but there are few places, where this old story is updated with allusions to modern technology.