FULL Dr. Heidegger”s Fountain Of Youth (Jack Beeson) New York 2013 Hunter College

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Dr. Heidegger"s Fountain Of Youth  
• Composer: Beeson Jack  
• Libretto: Sheldon Harnick, based on a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne.    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Danny Kaye Playhouse, Hunter Opera Theater, New York City  
• Recorded: April 2, 2013
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: unknown
• Conductor: unknown  
• Orchestra:
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Aliya Kamenshikov  
• Date Published: 2021  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

  “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” is one of those Hawthorne tales in which he delights his reader with moral ambiguities and with events that may be natural, supernatural, or both. However, although such ambiguities may be delightful on the printed page, they can be baffling and exasperating when transferred to the stage. A theatre audience, caught in the flux of action, words, and music, needs to know who is who, where the action is, and when and what-if-anything-is-meant to be ambiguous. It needs the steady escort of the writer and the composer who clearly and forcefully shape their means toward clearly defined ends.

  In adapting Hawthorne’s story, the supernatural was not invoked: the ghosts in Heidegger’s study are in the imagination of the superstitious maid, who dislikes dusting skeletons and over-sized books. However, some ambiguities remain: Is the transformation of the rose a parlor trick? Is the elixir merely a “fine old wine”? As to the transformations of Heidegger’s friends, perhaps they really happen; perhaps “. . . only thinking makes it so.”

  Quoted from newworldrecords.org

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