John Cage - Europera 5 (1994)

Tracklist:
1-2. Europera 5

Yvar Mikhashoff, piano
Martha Herr, soprano
Gary Burgess, tenor
Jan Williams, 78-rpm victrola
Don Metz, "Truckera" tape

Europera 5 (1991) was John Cage's last, and most portable opera. It is a collage scored for two singers, each singing five arias of their own choosing from the standard opera repertoire. A pianist "accompanies" them by playing six different opera transcriptions. They are joined by a single 78-rpm victrola-player, playing six historical opera recordings and a performer playing a pre-recorded tape, plus the use of a radio and a silent television.

The separation of these various operatic elements in Europera 5 produces a spaciousness and awareness of distances that is so characteristic of Cage's music. Cage also offers us a unique sense of historical distance–the singers performing the older operatic music in our presence; the pianist performing "romanticized" interpretations of romantic music and the victrola presenting old music in old performances, coming to us through an old technology. It is only in the silences and the use of the radio that our present time intrudes.

This recording is a unique document of John Cage's final opera. It was recorded at the very first time the work was performed in its entirety: during the dress rehearsal before the world premiere. John Cage was present, and the performers included the brilliant pianist Yvar Mikhashoff, who championed Cage's Europeras 3 & 4 and for whom Cage wrote Europera 5.


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