A New Opera Award for 'Breaking the Waves'
20th June 2017
Dominic M. Mercier, Opera Philadelphia
Heidi Waleson, Wall Street Journal
The Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA) announced that Breaking the Waves, the opera by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek, won the Association's first Award for Best New Opera in North America. The award, which recognizes musical and theatrical excellence, will be given annually to a fully staged work that received its world premiere during the preceding calendar year.
The members of the MCANA committee that selected the finalists were Heidi Waleson (Wall Street Journal), George Loomis (Financial Times and Musical America), Alex Ross (The New Yorker), John Rockwell (Opera UK), and Arthur Kaptainis (Montreal Gazette and Musical Toronto).
'It's thrilling to be recognized by five critics I read regularly and respect mightily, and moving to know that Breaking the Waves stood out in a year full of fantastic new operas', Mazzoli said.
Mazzoli and Vavrek will accept the award at the MCANA annual meeting in Santa Fe, NM, on July 19. Fellow Travelers, by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce, and anatomy theater, by composer David Lang and librettist Mark Dion, were the award's finalists.
