The Mocking-Bird
(2000) A chamber opera in one act
Solo Baritone; 1(pic)010/0000/perc/pf/str(1.0.0.1.0)
Text: The composer based on a story of Ambrose Bierce
Duration 30'
Language: English
Commissioned jointly by the Serge Koussevitsky Foundation in the Library of Congress, with the approval of the Librarian of the Library of Congress, and the Koussevitsky Music Foundation, Inc., and by Boston Musica Viva

World Premiere: May 3, 2002: Boston Musica Viva, Boston
Richard Pittman, conductor, Nicholas Deutsch, stage director, Randall Scarlata, baritone

Publisher:  Novello & Co Ltd

Critical Acclaim:

The monodrama is a small but choice subdivision in the world of music. Now the 21st century has produced its first contender, Thea Musgrave's extraordinary anti-war parable THE MOCKING-BIRD. [It is] a dramatic display of Musgrave's talents.

Musgrave's decades of experience of writing every kind of music show in the precision of her craftsmanship-the adroit and evocative use of the six-instrument ensemble; the clear and meaningful text-setting (the libretto is her own); the skillful writing for voice; and above all, the flexibility of the music, which moves from military tattoos through recitative, a mimicry of military voices that anticipates the appearance of the mocking-bird, to superb lyrical music of an idyllic past that tugged at the heart and already lingers in the memory. At the end the mocking-bird's song embodies a ferocious irony that merges with an all-enveloping compassion; there is moral truth within this manipulative plot.
RICHARD DYER, Boston Globe

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