The Aspern Papers

About

The staging of this particular opera takes us all the way back to 1988, when the Dallas Opera premiered their commission of the contemporary work for the first time. Composer Dominick Argento based his English-language score on Henry James' creepy, suspenseful novella of the same name, a twisting tale of long-dead lovers, musical genius, and old Italian cities, still beautiful even in their decline. In a crumbling house on Lake Como, an aging opera diva and her niece live in relative seclusion until their solitude is interrupted by a stranger's arrival. The stranger claims to be a writer, but of course, nothing is quite as it seems.