“THE DAY BOY AND THE NIGHT GIRL,” AN OPERA— 12/29.

The Symphony Space in New York will come alive with The After Dinner Opera Company’s 60th anniversary premiere of The Day Boy and the Night Girl. The three-act opera by Jordan Wentworth Farrar is a modern adaptation of a classic Victorian fable written by George MacDonald.

 

The Day Boy and the Night Girl tells the timeless tale of a young boy named Phytogen and a young girl named Nycteris. Unfortunately, the pair is condemned by the magic of a she-wolf named Watho. Phytogen’s supernatural affliction prevents him from seeing night while Nycteris is unable to see the light of day. This modified masterpiece spawned from Wentworth’s imaginative recollection of hearing the story in her childhood. "I wanted to take the premise of the book and make it my own," she says.

 

An eerie yet beautifully melodic chorus adorned with splendid vocal harmonies reverberates out from a fantastical scene of dancing fireflies, mystical mermaids and other apparitions. The metaphorical symbols elaborately illustrate the opposite worlds for which both Phytogen and Nycteris yearn.

 

Curator magazine eloquently stated, "Wentworth Farrar’s music is tonal, with haunting melodic themes interspersed with tightly stacked vocal harmonies...a new and unusual work."