Photo by JJ Geiger for Long Beach Opera

⚘ the Romance of the Rose ⚘

Book and Music by Kate Soper

The Romance of the Rose (2023)
Two act opera/music theatre, book and music by Kate Soper with additional text by various authors
Voices: Three sopranos, mezzo, tenor, two baritones
Instrumentation: clarinet/bass cl,, alto/baritone sax, piano/keyboard, percussion, harp, electric guitar, violin/viola, cello, live and fixed electronics
Duration: 2.5 hours with one intermission
Premiere company/date/venue: Long Beach Opera; February 2023; Warner Grand Theatre, San Pedro CA; directed by James Darrah; music directed by Christopher Rountree [Premiere Info]
Premiere cast: Lucas Steele, tenor (“THE DREAMER”); Phillip Bullock, baritone (“THE GOD OF LOVE”); Anna Schubert, soprano (“LADY REASON”); Laurel Irene, soprano (“SHAME”); Tiffany Townsend, soprano (“IDLENESS”); Bernardo Bermudez, baritone (“PLEASURE”); Tivoli Trealor, mezzo (“THE LOVER”)
Album: Kate Soper: The Romance of the Rose, New Focus Recordings (fcr424)

For licensing, contact Caroline Kane at Schott Music Corporation

Purchase Score

The Romance of the Rose: Prologue

  • "....to leave the theater dazed by a new opera is one thing. To be still processing where the humor ends and the meaning begins, even after time to reflect, is another much rarer and more valuable thing."

    The LA Times (full review)

  • "Soper mobilizes the entire thousand-year history of music...I came away all the more convinced that she is a major music-theatre talent."

    The New Yorker (full review)

  • "Tender, whip-smart .... with earnestness, wit, whimsy, self-awareness and music that ranges freely among Baroque madrigals, power ballads and barbed modernism."

    The New York Times, 2/20/23 (full review)

  • for more reviews and premiere info

    Additional reviews and premiere details from Long Beach Opera

Program Note

Inspired by the bizarre and audacious 13th-century poem of the same name, "The Romance of the Rose" mixes medieval and contemporary allegory to dramatize the ways in which love, sex, and music wreak havoc on our sense of self. Lulled into a dreamlike state by The Dreamer, the audience follows their modern-day avatar The Lover into a surreal landscape brimming with riddles. On a mission for the conquest of a literal rose, The Lover meets The God of Love, Lady Reason, Shame, and their retinues – but as the fable unfolds, these allegorical figures begin to warp, revealing the fractured state of identity at the core of all human experience. Meanwhile, the music itself – with modernistic shrieks and wails, madrigalistic finery, auto-tuned didacticism, and lush Romanticism – freely beguiles, charms, and terrifies with no moral allegiances.

Album Program Note

The world premiere recording of The Romance of the Rose, featuring the dynamic Wet Ink Ensemble, was released November 15, 2024 on New Focus Recordings. Composer/librettist Soper sings the role of “Shame” alongside a cast including rising opera stars Phillip Bullock, Anna Schubert, Devony Smith, Ariadne Greif, and Ty Bouque and Tony Award-nominated singer and actor Lucas Steele. Available as a digital download or a limited-edition artbook, the album’s art features illustrated scenes from the opera created by the iconic cartoonist Julie Doucet, combining the aesthetics of medieval woodblock prints with vivid contemporary spectacle.

“This fabulously inventive opera gets a recorded performance of the calibre it deserves.”

Opera Magazine

Stage/Monodrama • Vocal [ Voice plus one • Voice(s) and Ensemble ] • Large Ensemble • Small Ensemble • Multimedia • Misc

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