PLURABELLE is a registered charity: BN 734003627RR0001
For CRA-compliant donations of $1,000+ please contact me directly.
An opera in two or more acts, steeped in the “Anna Livia Plurabelle” chapter of Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, and drawing out and upon some of the 3,000+ references to opera that he fused into his flourishing text.
Begetter / Librettist
Thomas Peter O’Brien
Composer
Augusta Read Thomas
Cast
Female Chorus 1-4:
(red, orange, yellow, green – later blue, indigo, violet, black)
Male Chorus 1-4:
(blue, indigo, violet, black – later red, orange, yellow, green)
Woman 1:
(later a tree) soprano
Woman 2:
(later a stone) soprano
ALP (Anna Livia Plurabelle)
mezzo-soprano
HCE (Here Comes Everybody)
bass-baritone
Shem the Penman:
(son [“daughterson”] of HCE and ALP) tenor
Shaun the Postman:
(son [“daughterson”] of HCE and ALP) tenor
Issy:
([“Isolde” / “Iseult”; “the clou historique”] daughter of HCE and ALP) alto
Additional SATBC Chorus:
up to 25: soprano, alto, tenor, bass, countertenor
Dancers:
up to 25 dancers, as water (in variable states, shadows, shades, sparkles) that trickles, meanders, splashes, bursts, cascades, overflows, disperses – dancers are present both on stage and elsewhere throughout the performance space, and are evident before the opera begins and after it ends
Listen
James Joyce reading a few pages from the chapter “Anna Livia Plurabelle” — the only recording we have of him reading from Finnegans Wake.
Looking Forward
The first 20-25 minutes of PLURABELLE (the opening and a scene from Act II) will be composed, orchestrated, sung, and recorded (audio and video) by December 2025. Approaches to international commissioning opera companies will then follow.
Friends & Supporters
Founding Friends of PLURABELLE
(this is named for those who supported the opera before they even heard one note of music – this designation will be celebrated in perpetuity)
$25,000 +
Morden Yolles & Dylan Yolles
$10,000 to $24,999
LeeAnn Janissen & Peter Paul
$5,000 to $9,999
Patricia Baranek
Denny Creighton & Kris Vikmanis
Harry & Ann Malcolmson
Larry O’Brien
Sheilagh O’Connell
$2,500 to $4,999
Ada Mae Wilson
$1,000 to $2,499
Adriano Belli
Marta Braun
Andreas Curkovic
Anthony N. Doob
Roger Garland CM
Carrie & Reg Greenslade
Up to $999
Sara Angel CM
Robert Everett-Green
Kathleen Metcalfe
Craig Miller & Susan Meech
Colleen O’Brien
Siobhan O’Connell
Benjamin Salsberg
Ron Thompson & Jacquie Maund
Anonymous (1)
Board of Directors
Plurabelle Opera Inc.
Nudity and Nakedness in Finnegans Wake
This opera calls for the eight principal chorus members (four women, four men) to be naked for much of the first scene of Act II, as they ritualistically wash their clothes and then exchange them: women to men and men to women. Nudity and nakedness are central interests and fascinations for Joyce throughout Finnegans Wake and there are many relevant and related evocations, allusions, and references.
“Anna Livia Plurabelle” chapter from my artwork
LOTS OF FUN WITH FINNEGANS WAKE
James Joyce references hundreds of rivers in this chapter (pages 196 – 216). I’ve “underlined” many of them with ~~~~~ and have painted or illustrated 21 of them: each flows into the other … the Liffey (196) flows into the Euphrates (197) flows into the Saskatchewan (198) flows into the Colorado (199) … flows into the Nile (216).
Augusta Read Thomas
Composer
“Music for me is an embrace of the world – a way to open myself up to being alive in the world in my body, in my sounds, and in my mind.“
The music of Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964 in New York) is nuanced, majestic, elegant, capricious, lyrical, and colorful — “it is boldly considered music that celebrates the sound of the instruments and reaffirms the vitality of orchestral music” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
A composer featured on a Grammy-winning CD by Chanticleer and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Thomas’ impressive body of works “embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). The New Yorker magazine calls her “a true virtuoso composer.”
Championed by such luminaries as Barenboim, Rostropovich, Boulez, Eschenbach, Salonen, Maazel, Ozawa, and Knussen, she rose early to the top of her profession. The American Academy of Arts and Letters describes Thomas as “one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American Music.”
She is a University Professor of Composition in Music and the College at The University of Chicago. Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for conductors Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez (1997-2006).
Thomas won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, among many other coveted awards. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Thomas was named the 2016 Chicagoan of the Year.
She is a long-standing, exemplary citizen with an extensive history of being deeply committed to her community. She is the former Chairperson for the American Music Center; Vice President for Music, The American Academy of Arts and Letters; and Member of the Conseil Musical de la Foundation Prince Pierre de Monaco.
In February 2015, music critic Edward Reichel wrote, “Augusta Read Thomas has secured for herself a permanent place in the pantheon of American composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. She is without question one of the best and most important composers that this country has today. Her music has substance and depth and a sense of purpose. She has a lot to say and she knows how to say it — and say it in a way that is intelligent yet appealing and sophisticated.”
Thomas has the distinction of having her work performed more frequently in 2013-2014 than any other living ASCAP composer, according to statistics from the performing rights organization (New York Times).
Her discography includes 90+ commercially recorded CDs.
Gusty and Peter at the world premiere of Gusty’s “Bebop Kaleidoscope – Homage to Duke Ellington” commissioned by and then performed by the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, New York, September 2024.
Peter O'Brien 