The Classical Style (opera)

The Classical Style: An Opera (of Sorts) is an American comic opera in seven scenes, with music by Steven Stucky and libretto by Jeremy Denk. The opera was a joint commission from the Aspen Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Ojai Music Festival, and Ojai North!, and was premiered under the conductor Robert Spano on June 13, 2014 at the Ojai Music Festival in Ojai, California. The opera is inspired by the musicologist and pianist Charles Rosen's 1971 book The Classical Style and thus follows composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven as they descend from heaven into a modern-day classical music climate.The Classical Style was Stucky's last large-scale composition before his death in 2016.

Denk was a longtime friend of the pianist and author Charles Rosen, and had discussed the idea of adapting a comic opera from Rosen's celebrated book The Classical Style. Rosen died in December 2012 before the opera's completion, but had nevertheless given his blessing in time for Denk to proceed with the work.

On the inspiration to write a comic opera, Denk remarked:

Although those of us who perform and love this music like to cultivate an air of seriousness, at times we have to realize there is something ridiculous about the level to which we've subjected this music to consideration, analysis, thought. The opera buffa genre is simply a way of exposing this absurdity, turning music inside out to reflect on itself, with hopefully hilarious and intriguing results.

The opera opens in heaven on the bickering Classical period composers Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Observing present-day Earth, they are dismayed at the seeming decline of classical music and their growing irrelevance. After pulling Rosen's The Classical Style from a bookshelf at random, the three composers decide to descend to Earth to visit the author.

...
Wikipedia