Before It All Goes Dark • Music of Remembrance
“Heggie, a composer singularly attuned to the power of narrative, knows when a great story has found him. The resulting one-act opera, Before It All Goes Dark, with a libretto by longtime Heggie collaborator Gene Scheer, is…a striking fusion of intensity and emotional range, historical context and dramatic immediacy. When the action shifted to Prague, Before It All Goes Dark found its sure footing. Scheer’s libretto marries Mac’s unvarnished vernacular (“That painting is cool”) to lyrical meditations on the power of art to “make the invisible visible.” Engaging as Before It All Goes Dark was as a chamber opera, the potential for a full-length treatment is there. Heggie and Scheer have discovered an expansive story of layered themes that both captures and transcends its source material.”
