Corigliano - Phantasmagoria
13 Pieces for Halloween, no.1. “Phantasmagoria” is the name Corgiliano gave to his orchestral suite based off his 1991 opera “The Ghosts of Versailles”. The opera is a bit of a comedy. It combines the choruses and fantastic effects of Grand Opera with the silliness and playfulness of Opera Buffa. It also takes time to satirize opera conventions and tropes. The story is about the ghosts of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. Marie is upset over her beheading, and so the polymath Pierre Beaumarchais tries to cheer her up by staging an opera out of his own plays. And so the work turns into an opera within the opera, and the music has an ethereal quality to it. Sure the afterlife is somewhat cheerful, but in the Tim Burton sense of black comedy. Through thick, dark orchestrations, we get a few glimpses and references of Mozart and Rossini, their ghosts in the hazy fog of the world beyond ours.
