The New Opera on CD: Music Is Still the Message

While multimedia may be radically changing the nature of opera, music--however changed--still remains its essence. Moreover, the best new opera can offer just as fulfilling a listening experience as the best of all opera, and an encouraging amount of it is turning up on compact discs.

It may be some time before Louis Andriessen’s “Rosa� is recorded, but the Dutch master’s first opera, “Materie,� a collaboration with Robert Wilson five years ago, will be released on Nonesuch early next year. Already one section from it, “De Stijl�--along with music Andreissen wrote for a television film by Peter Greenaway, “M Is for Man, Music, Mozart�--was recently issued by Nonesuch.

A large representation of Philip Glass’ opera and music theater is available on CD from Sony Classics and Nonesuch, and the latter will be issuing a recording of “La Belle et la Bete� in the spring. After a little practice with the pause buttons of video and CD machines, it should then be possible at home to synchronize it with a video of the Cocteau film.

With the new release, on Lovely Music, of “eL/Aficionado,� two of the four short operas of Robert Ashley’s “Now Eleanor’s Idea� are on CD (the first in the series, “Improvement,� is on Nonesuch). Also available from Lovely Music are both CD and video versions of “Perfect Lives,� the seven episodes of the central work in Ashley’s epic operatic trilogy. The first part, “Atalanta,� was issued on LP by Lovely in the ‘80s but still awaits CD transfer.

John Moran’s “Mathew in the School of Life� will be released shortly on Sony (not, however, by the classical division but as popular music), while Moran’s most controversial earlier opera, “The Manson Family,� is available on Point Music.

(By the way, Moran is not to be confused with Robert Moran, a onetime avant-gardist now turned minimalist opera composer, whose hugely entertaining “The Dracula Diary� has just been released on Catalyst.)

Tod Machover’s futuristic first opera, “Valis,� can be found on a recording produced by Bridge Records, which has also released a number of his technologically venturesome instrumental works.