Savage Winter – A new Chamber Opera by Douglas J. Cuomo (Southwest Premiere)

A man alone facing crisis, seeking atonement. One singer, three instruments, and electronics inhabit a landscape of lost love, longing and regret. Text freely adapted from Willhelm Müeller’s Winterriese poems by composer Douglas J. Cuomo. Originally Produced by American Opera Projects and Pittsburgh Opera

APERIO opens its 13th season with the southwest premiere of Douglas J. Cuomo’s Savage Winter, a fiercely contemporary reimagining of Wilhelm Müller’s poetry cycle Winterreise, most famously set by Schubert. In this bold new work, Cuomo transforms Müller’s lovelorn winter wanderer into a demon-haunted Everyman. The “radiant, communicative tenor” (Opera News) Tony Boutté assumes the existential mantle, giving a searing, intense performance as a man desperate for atonement, while electric guitar, trumpet, keyboards, and electronics—infused with acid jazz and a punk energy—narrate his delirious fever dream.

Savage Winter moves to The Brooklyn Academy of Music for a run immediately following its Houston premiere. The critically acclaimed ensemble of performers includes Tony Boutté, (tenor), Alan Johnson (piano), Frank London (trumpet) and the composer himself, Douglas J. Cuomo, on electric guitar.