The Photographer  

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The Photographer is a three-part mixed media performance accompanied by music (also sometimes referred to as a chamber opera) by composer Philip Glass. The libretto is based on the life and homicide trial of 19th-century American photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Commissioned by the Holland Festival, the opera was first performed in 1982 at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam.

Subject

Eadweard Muybridge was an English-born photographer who relocated to the American West and was an early pioneer in photographic technology. He photographed well-known landscapes of Yosemite that pushed the aesthetic and technological boundaries of the medium. His early photographic motion studies conducted in association with Leland Stanford led to the earliest moving photographic images.

In 1874, Muybridge murdered Major Harry Larkyns (referred to as 'Colonel Harry Larkyns' in this work), whom he suspected of being his wife's lover, and was acquitted by a jury against the instructions of the judge on the ground of justifiable homicide. His trial is well-known because his defense argued that a head injury incurred in a stagecoach accident altered his personality, which modern neuroscientists believe could have been caused by certain types of brain damage.

The text included in Glass' work is based on words drawn from the transcripts of the trial and Muybridge's actual letters to his wife. The second act features a slideshow of Muygridge's photographs. While based on historical events in Muybridge's life, the work also comments on aspects of Muybridge's work, melding both themes.

Roles

Edward Muybridge
Flora Shallcross Stone Muybridge
Colonel Harry Larkyns (based on Major Harry Larkyns)
Observers in Victorian costume

Instrumentation

Strings: Solo violin, Strings
Woodwinds: Flute, Soprano saxophone, Alto saxophone, Baritone saxophone
Brass: 2 Trumpets, 2 Trombones, 2 French horns
Percussion: Piano, Bass synthesizer, Electric organ
Vocals: Chorus




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The Photographer" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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