Juliet Letters

Composer: Elvis Costello
Librettist: Elvis Costello
Company: Portland Opera

Synopsis

The Juliet Letters is UrbanArias’ latest foray into musical mashups. Three accomplished young opera singers with flexible voices and acute acting sensibility will interpret Elvis Costello’s plaintive ballads and gritty up-tempo rock songs in a new conception by Cara Gabriel.

Inspired by a professor in Verona who took it upon himself to answer correspondence sent to the fictional (and dead!) Juliet Capulet, The Juliet Letters is a song cycle in which each of the songs is a letter: love letters, begging letters, suicide notes, Dear John letters, breakup letters, and even junk mail.

In Cara Gabriel’s intriguing staging, the piece is a series of vignettes with distinct characters who play out their various obsessions and affections (or disaffections). It is ultimately a work about how we communicate about love.