Die Grte Fuge, an opera by Elliott Sharp, features bass baritone Nicholas Isherwood and the Asasello Quartet.
After 1815, Beethoven was beset with problems: physical, emotional, financial. Retreating into ""fugue"" states, he has visions, celestial and horrific, not hallucinations but visitations from a parallel reality of marvelous inventions, gleaming ships in the air, unheard musics, carnage beyond belief. Emerging, he translates these scenes into a music that stretches the rules to the verge of destruction. The resultant work, Die Grosse Fuge, is considered the first 20th century string quartet.
Sharp created a libretto from letters and writings of Beethoven as well as taking elements from Die Grosse Fuge as seed materials for extrapolation, randomization, and recombinance. Beethoven is presented as a disturbed and effecting figure, the tortured genius. The performers play Sharp's score, both apocalyptic and ecstatic, with incredible intensity.
