As the audience enters, twelve archetypal centurions have marched around the performance circle for a good hour, "energizing" its space. When the audience assembles, the drama begins with a single instrumentalist walking from the back of the hall while playing a "signature" phrase of music. As she reaches the orchestra in the pit, all 38 players take up her phrase and launch into the four acts (and hours) of myth and ritual that is MacArthur Award-winning composer Anthony Braxton's most ambitious work to date, Shala Fears for the Poor.

Shala is a character who, like the classic liberal, looks like the only hero of heart and conscience in a rich-eat-poor world. At least in the first act. By the end of the fourth act, says Braxton (his own librettist), "Her fear for the poor has more to do with her knowledge of how they're about to suffer now that she's finally in charge."

 "Opposition and surprise" is Braxton's own summary description of the libretto for his new opera. Premiering in New York shortly before we elect the last American president of our century and millenium, the four acts read like mythical sketches of (respectively) modern corporate downsizing, the beleagured yet noble tenacity of the American Dream as pursued by a single family, ethnic conflicts such as in the Balkans, and AIDS as a social issue. None of these is spelled out, but all are evoked by the mythological fantasy world of Braxton's operatic universe. All present the human spirit at its best and worstÑand to spell out which of those finally prevails is what would truly give this opera's story away.

Anthony Braxton will conduct his Tri-Centric Ensemble--in addition to 9 featured improvising solo instrumentalists in sync with 9 vocalists playing the cast of characters--in the world premiere of Shala Fears for the Poor, an opera in four acts, on Friday, October 25 and Saturday, October 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the John Jay Theater, 899 10th Ave. (between 58th and 59th), in New York City.

Shala Fears for the Poor, like all of Braxton's works, fits into an overarching musical universe from which he generates individual works. "'Trillium' is the name I have given to a series of 36 autonomous one-act operas conceived as an 'opera complex' that allows for the interconnection of each act in any combination," he says. "Each act serves as a vehicle to elaborate on the variables of given philosophic associations."

The characters in all acts personify the shifting archetypal forces at play in typical human situations (for example, Shala moves through representations of compassion, ruthlessness, and lust for power). The first act takes place in the Board meeting of a mythical multinational corporation, the second in a family's living room as the parents send their son off to war, the third in a mythical American "Wild West" community, and the fourth in another "generic" meeting of power brokers.

Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Ensemble comprises an international/New York-based group of 38 seasoned and promising artists of new and improvised music. Its New York debut took place in February, 1995, at a three-day festival of Braxton's works at The Kitchen. That was followed with a six-day festival in November, 1995, at The Knitting Factory. Both events sold to full houses and won critical acclaim. The ensemble was awarded four prestigious New York-original grants (from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Mary Flagler Carey Charitable Trust, and the American Music Center) for the first season after its debut.

The featured solo improvisers for Shala include: Brandon Evans, bass clarinet; Joseph Celli, oboe; Aaron Stewart, baritone sax; Rob Brown, flute; Steve Swell, trombone; Mark Whitecage, soprano sax; David Bindman, tenor sax; Libby van Cleve, english horn; and Perry Robinson, clarinet. The featured singers-actors are soprano Lisa Bielawa (as SHALA); soprano Melissa Fathman (as NTZOCKIE); mezzo-soprano Mary Nessinger (as ALVA); mezzo-soprano Heather Dea Jennings (as KIM); tenor Matthew Pass (as DAVID); tenor (to be announced) (as OJUWAIN); baritone Milton Sawyer (as ASHMENTON); baritone Gregory Purnhagen (as JOREO); and bass Peter Stuart (as ZAKKO).

Shala Fears for the Poor was commissioned and produced by Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation [see website] with funds from the John T. and Catherine P. MacArthur Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the American Music Center's Margaret Jory Fairbanks Copying Assistance Program, and the Mary Flagler Carey Charitable Trust's Commissioning Program of New York.
 
 
 

FIRST PERFORMANCES	the designers, singers, and orchestra
ON THE TRILLIUM OPERA SERIES	by Anthony Braxton
SCENES FROM THE PRODUCTION	photography by Rozanne Levine
REVIEWS	from The New York Times
THE TRILLIUM R LIBRETTO	by Anthony Braxton