Deborah Drattell (born 1954) is an American
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
. She was born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York, and started her career in music as a violinist. Her compositions have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Tanglewood and Caramoor Music Festivals, and many other groups and venues. She rewrote the role of the villain in ''Nicholas and Alexandra'', Rasputin, from baritone to tenor when
Plácido Domingo
José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, ...
expressed interest in singing the role.
The Urban Man
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Selected operas
*''Festival of Regrets'' (1999)
*''Marina Tsvetaeva'' (2000)
*''Lilith
Lilith ( ; he, Wiktionary:לילית, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian Mythology, Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. ...
'' (2001)
*''Nicholas and Alexandra
''Nicholas and Alexandra'' is a 1971 British epic film, epic historical drama film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, from a screenplay written by James Goldman and Edward Bond, based on Robert K. Massie's 1967 Nicholas and Alexandra (book), boo ...
'' (2003, Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an American opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth-largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.
Leadersh ...
), with Plácido Domingo
José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, ...
as Rasputin, Nancy Gustafson
Nancy Gustafson (born June 27, 1956, in Evanston, Illinois) is an American opera singer.
She received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 1978 and her M.Mus. from Northwestern University. She has appeared in numerous productions at venues bo ...
as Alexandra, and Rod Gilfry
Rodney Gilfry is a leading American operatic baritone. After launching his career at Frankfurt Opera in 1987, Gilfry quickly established a reputation for stylish singing and acting. A renowned Mozart specialist, he has given acclaimed perform ...
as Nicholas.
*''Best Friends'' (2005) libretto by Wendy Wasserstein
Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950 – January 30, 2006) was an American playwright. She was an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She received the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1989 fo ...
and Christopher Durang
Christopher Ferdinand Durang (born January 2, 1949) is an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s, though his career seemed to get a second wind in the late 1990s.
...
Selected orchestral works
*Clarinet Concerto: ''Fire Dances'' (1986)
*''The Fire Within'' (1989)
*''Sorrow is not Melancholy'' (1993)
References
1956 births
Living people
Tulane University faculty
20th-century classical composers
American women classical composers
American classical composers
American opera composers
Musicians from Brooklyn
Women opera composers
21st-century classical composers
21st-century American composers
20th-century American women musicians
20th-century American composers
21st-century American women musicians
Classical musicians from New York (state)
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers
American women academics
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