Taking Up Serpents Digital Album Released
COT has released a digital-only album of Kamala Sankaram and Jerre Dye’s Taking Up Serpents, a present-day opera set in the Deep South that has earned praise for its “powerhouse, richly theatrical, regionally tinged score…and colloquial libretto,” a prime example of COT’s “musical and thematic daring” (WTTW). Following the work’s early success at Washington National Opera, COT and On Site Opera co-commissioned the newly expanded version featured on this album, which is now available on all major digital platforms.
“Taking Up Serpents represents exactly what American opera should be,” said Lidiya Yankovskaya, who conducted COT’s critically acclaimed streaming performances in February 2021, during which these audio tracks were captured. “To expand the canon with lasting impact, we must foster stories about life today, incorporating music that is both highly sophisticated and quintessentially American, and supporting riveting dramatic storytelling that can cross boundaries of time and culture.”
The 75-minute opera is based on an original story by Chicago-based librettist Jerre Dye, who has drawn on his own upbringing to depict the life of a Pentecostal family in the American South. To delve into the psyche of Kayla, a charismatic preacher’s daughter, Indian-American composer Kamala Sankaram has juxtaposed highly Romantic musical writing with unusual instrumentation – including electric guitar, whirly tubes, and waterphone – and Appalachian shape-note singing. In a rarity for contemporary opera, the Serpents score calls for large-scale dramatic voices, captivatingly portrayed by Alexandra Loutsion as Kayla, Leah Dexter as her mother Nelda, and Michael Mayes as her fire-and-brimstone father.
“My goal for the sound world of the opera has always been to try to capture the mystery of faith in musical form,” said Sankaram. “To best capture that spirit – and the raw power that a live audience might experience – the opera was recorded in a single take.”
“There is great opera being written in America today, but the lack of available recordings lessens the potential impact of new works,” said Magnus. “COT wants to ensure that the new operas we put on our stage continue to have a long life after their premieres. Wide-reaching accessibility to the work is absolutely critical to that goal, and we are thrilled that it was possible to make our recording of Taking Up Serpents widely available.”
Listen now on Spotify.