OPERAS Seasons in Hell: A Life of Rimbaud, An Opera in Two Acts, 1994. about the life and times of French prodigy poet Arthur Rimbaud NEW!: Albany Records 1997 release of "Seasons in Hell," 2 CD set with Libretto Fourscore: An Opera of Opposites, Musical Farce in Two Acts, 1986. Breakfast Waltzes, Bagatelle Opera in One Act, 1992. REVIEWS PREMIER REVIEWS Seasons in Hell, American Record Guide, March/April 1998, Vol.61, No.2 Seasons in Hell, Opera News, April 13, 1996 Vol.60, No.15 CD REVIEWS Music for Rimbaud, American Record Guide, September/October 1996, Volume 59, Number 5 Music for Rimbaud, Fanfare, September/October 1996, Volume 20, Number 1 EXCERPTS Excerpts from other reviews RELATED LINKS The American Music Center Washington University's Gaylord Music Library Blumenfeld's page on Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies, Inc. Other related links on the Internet

Biographical Sketch

Harold Blumenfeld is the first composer to devote extensive attention to the poetry of the precocious and notorious Arthur Rimbaud. A native of Seattle and long-term resident of St. Louis, Blumenfeld studied with Hindemith at Yale and with Leonard Bernstein, Robert Shaw and Boris Goldovsky at Tanglewood. After engagement in opera direction in St. Louis throughout the sixties, he turned to musical composition, producing a body of works based on Hart Crane, Derek Walcott, Baudelaire and Verlaine, Rilke and Mandelstam, and on an entirely different note, two comic operas - Fourscore, an Opera of Opposites and Breakfast Waltzes, both with libretti by his collaborator, Charles Kondek. These works earned him awards from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the National Endowment for the Arts. Over the past decade Blumenfeld has been immersed in Rimbaud, composing four works based upon his poetry. His Rimbaud Odyssey culminates in Seasons in Hell (1992-1994), a two-act opera tracing the adventures of the adolescent poète maudit and his subsequent - and disastrous - fortune-seeking and gun-running in Africa. Blumenfeld's fascination with opera dates from just after graduation from Yale, when he joined Goldovsky in Boston to produce the first American staging of Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea.

Blumenfeld starts work on Borgia, Opera in Two Acts, at the Bogliasco Foundation, Liguria, in Spring, 1998. Borgia will be composed to a libretto by Charles Kondek after Victor Hugo and Klabund.

List of Musical Works

• Amphitryon 4, Opera in three acts, Libretto by the composer after Molière revision in preparation
• Ange de flamme et de glace, (Rimbaud) medium voice and chamber ensemble
• Borgia, Opera in two acts, Libretto by Charles Kondek. in preparation, (1998 - 2000)
• Breakfast Waltzes, bagtelle-opera in one act
• Carnet de damné, (Rimbaud) mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble
• Charioteer, (Merrill, James) baritone, viola, guitar
• Circle of the Eye, (MeKeown, Tom) medium voice and piano
• Eroscapes, (Gardner, Isabella) mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble
• La Face cendrée, (Rimbaud), soprano, cello and piano
• Four Tranquil Poems, (Lawrence, D. H.) men's chorus
• Fourscore: an Opera of Opposites, musical farce in two acts
• Illuminations: Symphonic Fragments after Rimbaud, orchestra
• Mythologies, (Walcott, Derek) baritone and chamber ensemble
• A l'Ouest de la lune, (Verlaine) soprano, tenor and chamber ensemble
• Rilke for voice and guitar
• Seasons in Hell: A Life of Rimbaud, opera in two acts
• Silentium, (Mandelstam, Ossip) medium voice and piano
• Song of Innocence, (Blake) soli, large chorus, chamber chorus and orchestra
• Songs of Cassis, (Lyon, Rick) medium voice and piano
• Starfires, (Hanson, Pauline) mezzo-soprano, tenor and orchestra
• Three Scottish Poems, (Strong, L. A. G.) SATB chorus
• Transformations, for piano
• Vers sinistres, (Baudelaire) baritone, soprano and orchestra
• La Voix reconnue, (Verlaine) soprano, tenor and chamber ensemble
• Voyages, (Crane, Hart) baritone and chamber ensemble
• War Lament, (Sassoon, Siegfried) mixed chorus and guitar

Discography

Centaur Records, CRC 2277, 1996 : Music for Rimbaud:

La Face cendrée (the Cindered Face)

Christine Schadeberg, soprano with Savely Schuster, cello and Seth Carlin, piano

Ange de flamme et de glace (Angel of Flame and Ice)

Randall Gremillion, baritone and CCM Contemporary Music Players,

Gerhard Samuel, conductor

Carnet de damné (Notebook of a Damned One)

Christine Schadeberg, soprano and St. Louis Ensemble, composer conducting

Illuminations: Symphonic Fragments after Rimbaud

Cincinnati Philharmonia of the College Conservatory of Music, Gerhard Samuel, conductor

1. Diluvial
2. Meadows of Emerald and Iron

Vox Box CDX 5145, 1995: 20^th Century Voices in America

Rilke for Voice and Guitar

Rosalind Rees, soprano and David Starobin, guitar

	Harold Blumenfeld http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~blumenf/
	Harold Blumenfeld's three operas, "Seasons in Hell", "Fourscore - an Opera of Opposites" and "Breakfast Waltzes" - all to libretti by collaborator Charles Kondek - are published, along with the composer's other works, by MMB Music Inc, 3526 Washington Ave., St. Louis MO 63103. FAX 314 531-8384. Blumenfeld is represented by Friedman/Goetz Associates, 11 Worth St, New York NY 10013, FAX 212 226-6788, e-mail FGASSOC@aol.com Materials may be secured from Friedman/Goetz, from MMB Music Inc, and may be consulted at the American Music Center, New York. All works © Copyright MMB Music, Inc.