Opera Reading Project

Alice Tierney

June 05, 2025

Description

Opera Reading Project is doing a public double-bill final reading of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and Melissa Dunphy's Alice Tierney under the music direction of special guest Music Directors, Celeste Marie Johnson and Joseph Li. We are pleased to welcome an audience into our reading process to support our singers during their final reading performance!

Pagliacci (1892)is a tragic Italian opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo in which members of a commedia dell'arte theatrical company grapple with love, betrayal, jealousy, and the blurred lines between performance and reality. Alice Tierney (2023) follows the work of four modern-day archaeologists as they uncover and piece together the story of Alice Tierney's life and her death in 1880 -- a true event that inspired composer Melissa Dunphy and librettist Jacqueline Goldfinger to write this opera and respond to the ways in which women's stories of trauma are silence or minimized. (Trigger Warning: Please note that these operas contain both references to and depictions of violence and death.)