Emma Mistele presents “Perfect Lives”— A TV Opera by Robert Ashley
Saturday, November 9, 2024 at 11:00am
Ring Family Performing Arts Hall
Free
Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff can RSVP on WesNest.
Graduate music student Emma Mistele presents a day-long (from 11am to 11:30pm) screening of her adaptation of "Perfect Lives" (1977-1983), a TV opera by Robert Ashley (1930–2014). Ashley’s original television opera is “about” bank robbery, cocktail lounges, geriatric love, adolescent elopement, et al., in the American Midwest. One of the definitive text-sound compositions of the late 20th century, it has been called a comic opera about reincarnation.
After being developed as a live performance and touring media production, “Perfect Lives” was first broadcast in Great Britain in April 1984. It is widely considered to be the pre-cursor of "music-television." In recent years, several groups have revived the opera in various forms, notably Varispeed in site-specific day-long live events; Trystero in marathon, complete, performances, and Matmos in individual episodes in "pop" venues.
Mistele has adapted Ashley’s work, following the artist’s compositions as a guide. Each episode is approximately 30 minutes long.
11am: Act 1 - The Park (Privacy Rules)
1:30pm: Act 3 - The Bank (Victimless Crime)
3pm: Act 2 - The Supermarket (Famous People)
5pm: Act 6 - The Church (After the fact)
7pm: Act 7 - The Backyard (T’be Continued)
9pm: Act 5 - The Living Room (The Solutions)
11pm: Act 4 - The Bar (Differences)