Daron Hagen’s collaboration with the poet Paul Muldoon — one of the most fascinating operatic partnerships in American music — has brought forth a group of works which, not unlike the Thomson-Stein operas, have a provocative mix of European sophistication and American know-how that undercuts traditional artistic notions of simplicity and complexity. Vera of Las Vegas, a “nightmare cabaret opera inone act,” is their second work for the stage, a relationship that began with Shining Brow (1993), a two-act work based on a tragic episode in the life of Frank Lloyd Wright….
Vera may be fun to listen to, but it is not a particularly consoling piece. Its savage ironies extend to the close…. At the end of Shining Brow, a distraught Frank Lloyd Wright, surveying the burnt remains of the house in which his lover and her children lie dead, asks, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” Vegas has a reply: the house always wins. — Russell Platt, from the liner notes
This title, originally issued on the CRI label, is now available as a burn-on-demand CD (CD-R) or download in MP3/320, FLAC or WAV formats. CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print booklet or jewel case included. Liner notes are accessible via the link above.
Daron Hagen: Vera of Las Vegas
| MP3/320 | $9.99 | |
| FLAC | $9.99 | |
| WAV | $9.99 | |
| CD-R | $9.99 |
A *.pdf of the notes may be accessed here free of charge.
Track Listing
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Vera of Las Vegas: Prologue
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Flight Attendant's Blues
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: More Airport Dialogue
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Suckers' Lament
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Forum Shops Dialogue
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Doll's Song
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Dealers' Chorus
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Duet I
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Strippers' Chorus
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Duet II
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Wedding Chapel Chorus
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Vera's Song
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Dialogue
Daron Aric Hagen
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Vera of Las Vegas: Taco's Confession
Daron Aric Hagen
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