Jake Heggie

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Jake Heggie (born March 31, 1961) is an American composer of opera, vocal, orchestral, and chamber music.

He is best known for his operas and art songs as well as for his collaborations with internationally renowned performers and writers.

Personal life

Heggie married singer and actor Curt Branom in 2008. They currently live in San Francisco.

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Career

Heggie is best known for his contributions to the American operatic repertoire. His operas have been praised by the Associated Press as "one of the finest contemporary opera composers" in the United States, as well as those of his contemporaries. Heggie describes himself as a theatre conductor and a drama composer who is concerned with "serving [the] drama" and "exploring character."

Dead Man Walking, with Terrence McNally's libretto, is an opera in two acts. It's based on a Sister Helen Prejean's book "Under a Message" that tells the tale of a Louisiana nun who becomes the spiritual advisor to a convicted murderer on Angola's death row. The opera, which was commissioned by San Francisco Opera, received its highly acclaimed debut at the War Memorial Opera House on October 7, 2000, starring Susan Graham (Sister Helen), John Packard (Joseph De Rocher), and Frederica von Stade (Joseph's Mother), with conductor Patrick Summers leading the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus. It was produced by Joe Mantello and created by Michael Yeargan, with lighting by Jennifer Tipton and costumes by Sam Flemming. The initial production of seven shows was boosted to nine, with the majority of them selling out. During the East Coast premiere at the New York City Opera in September 2002, the original version of Dead Man Walking was redesigned.

Dead Man Walking is currently in more than 70 countries on five continents. It has received two live recordings: the first on ERATO of the original cast in 2000 and the second on Virgin Classics from Houston Grand Opera in 2011, starring Joyce DiDonato (Sister Helen), Philip Cutlip (Joseph), and Frederica von Stade (Joseph's Mother). And The Making of Dead Man Walking, a documentary that aired nationally on PBS in 2002, chronicled the opera's production. In 2021, 'Dead Man Walking' will make its Metropolitan Opera debut in a new Ivo Van Hove production directed by Yannick Nezet-Seguin.

Several Dead Man Walking shows have been produced, including a well-researched version starring Leonard Foglia from Michael McGarty's designs. In 2006, the first European performance was at the Dresden Semperoper, directed by Niklaus Lehnhoff and repeated at Theater an der Wien in Vienna. The original production by Joe Mantello was on display at the Adelaide Festival in 2003, while Kelly Robinson's debut at the Calgary Opera in 2006 featured a new version. Additional productions have been conducted by companies in Sweden, Ireland, Germany, South Africa, Montreal, and most recently in the United States by Opera Parallèle in San Francisco, as well as companies in Boston, St. Louis, Eugene, Des Moines, and Northwestern University. A reduced orchestration was created for a Lincoln University of Nebraska production in 2008. The orchestration was further developed in 2013 and is now widely used.

The EOS Orchestra commissioned and premiered again in 2000, shortly after the premiere of Dead Man Walking, with a libretto by Kevin Gregory. The opera featured domestic violence and the four main characters from the television sitcom I Love Lucy in the sense that Ricky Ricardo had become physically abused towards his wife, Lucy.

The End of the Affair, which was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera in 2003 with a libretto by playwright Heather McDonald, is based on Graham Greene's book "the Same Name." The opera, which took place in London during and right after World War II, tells the tale of Maurice Bendrix, a writer embroiled in an illicit passion affair with Sarah Miles, the wife of a public servant. An air raid takes place during one of their attempts: a bomb explodes that burns the house and knocks Maurice unconscious. When Maurice returns to, Sarah breaks abruptly and promises never to see him again. Maurice, who is obsessed, jealous, and angry, embarks on a journey to find what happened and why he was turned away that day. In March 2004, the work made its premiere at the Houston Grand Opera in Houston. Heggie and director Leonard Foglia's libretto repertoire were then extensively revised, with new libretto lines included. The updated opera premiere at the Madison Opera in 2005 was performed, with further improvements made by Heggie and Foglia the same year at the Seattle Opera.

Heggie and McNally collaborated on At the Statue of Venus, a grant from Opera Colorado to commemorate the opening of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in 2005. The Statue of Venus is inspired by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Britten's great concert scenes, including a statue of the Goddess of Love, to meet a man she has never seen. Soprano Trevigne has performed the opera in its entirety, and its aria "A Lucky Child" is often performed in recital.

The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra sponsored To Hell and Back in 2006 to celebrate its 25th season and 20th anniversary of music director Nicholas McGegan's 20th birthday. Persephone, the goddess of spring, who was kidnapped by the god Pluto and now spends half the year in Persephone, with a libretto by Gene Scheer. Scheer based his essay on Ovid's Metamorphoses, generating a modern tale based on the Persephone myth and contemporary tales of spousal abuse. Patti LuPone, a soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and Broadway actress, wrote and performed the opera.

In 2008, Houston Grand Opera conducted three Decembers. The story unfolded on the operatic stage after Schwartz decided to collaborate with Alan Menken on the 2007 film Enchanted, with music by Heggie, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and a book by Terrence McNally. Several Decembers tells the tale of a famous stage actress and her two adult children during three decades of the AIDS epidemic (1986, 1996, and 2006), based on Terrence McNally's unpublished script Some Christmas Letters and with a libretto by Gene Scheer, the characters are reliving the events of a December. The opera's original name, Last Acts, was recorded live at the 2008 premiere and later renamed. The updated job has not been published as of yet.

Moby-Dick had the most empathetic reviews since Dead Man Walking's debut on its first day. "A new chapter in opera history may have opened [with Moby-Dick]," D Magazine reported, with the Dallas Morning News lauding the work as a "live victory."

Moby-Dick (2010) is an opera in two acts with a libretto by Gene Scheer based on Herman Melville's book. It's set in 1820 and tells the tale of Ahab, the captain of the ill-fated whaleship Pequod, and the crew it commands. Captain Ahab is obsessed with finding and destroying him at any price, having lost one of his legs to the white whale named Moby-Dick. Starbuck, the ship's first mate, sees the dangers of Ahab's obsession.

Moby-Dick was commissioned by the Dallas Opera, San Francisco Opera, Calgary Opera, San Diego Opera, San Diego Opera, and South Australia's State Opera. As part of its inaugural season, it received its highly acclaimed world premiere on April 30, 2010, at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas, Texas. The piece, which was produced by Patrick Summers and directed by Leonard Foglia, featured sets by Robert Brill, projections by Elaine McCarthy, lighting by Donald Holder, and costumes by Jane Greenwood. Benjamin Heppner (Ahab), baritone Morgan Smith (Starbuck), tenor Stephen Costello (Greenhorn), bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu (Quee), baritone Robert Orth (Stubb), and tenor Matthew O'Neill were among the cast members (Flask).

The 2012 production of Moby-Dick at the San Francisco Opera was on display at Great Performances' 40th Season, telecast nationally in 2013 and then released on DVD (EuroArts). Moby-Dick: A Grand Opera for the 21st Century, a book by Robert Wallace, with photographs by Karen Almond, was published by UNT Press in the same year. In a Washington National Opera production, Moby-Dick made its East Coast premiere in February 2014.

Music of Remembrance (MOR), a Seattle-based concert series started by Artistic Director Mina Miller, approached Heggie in 2006 to produce what would be a series of three one-act operas on persecution during the Holocaust. The works, each with a libretto by Gene Scheer, are titled For a Look or a Touch (2006), Another Sunrise (2012), and Farewell, Auschwitz (2013).

A tale about the persecution of gay people during the Holocaust is on Look or a Touch. Scheer based his text on true experiences from Manfred Lewin's book and journal as well as a men's choir version and a song cycle for baritone solo.

Another sunrise is a stunning scene for soprano and chamber ensemble (clarinet, violin, cello, bass, and piano) based on the life and career of Holocaust survivor Krystyna Zywulska.

There are seven scenes for soprano, mezzo-soprano, and baritone in Auschwitz's farewell. The work appears in a chamber version for singers and piano as well as in orchestration with clarinet, violin, cello, bass, and piano. Scheer's lyrics are free translations of lyrics created by Krystyna Zywulska when she was detained in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Heggie and Scheer produced Out of Shadow, a full-length opera based on the three works they created for Music of Remembrance. In May 2016, the new opera premiere in Seattle was followed by performances in San Francisco. At present, a recording titled Out of Shadow (Naxos) contains both the original versions of Another Sunrise and Farewell, Auschwitz, as well as the song-cycle version of For a Look or a Touch.

Heggie and Scheer, a choral opera in one act, was hired by the Pacific Chorale, VocalEssence, Conspirare, and the Philadelphia Singers in 2014. The opera chronicles an unhappy middle-aged woman who is disillusioned with her life and dully going through the motions of daily life. Some of the choristers are the negative voices incessantly chiming inside her head, while others are beckoning to her from the radio. With bodies made up of a chair, a lamp, and a mirror, singers can even play the furniture in her room.

On October 30, 2015, Great Scott, a Terrence McNally-designed libretto, made its debut at the Dallas Opera. Arden Scott, the opera singer, comes back to her hometown to help the struggling company that started her career in Great Scott. The opening night of the long-lost opera she discovered on the same night as the home team's first football championship. Joyce DiDonato and Frederica von Stade, soprano Ailyn Pérez, baritone Nathan Gunn, and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo appeared in the opera. Heggie and McNally's third collaboration, Great Scott, was a success. The Heggie was lauded for his contribution, and the work was honoured by the Grammy Awards for Best New Composition (Classical).

Heggie's 2016 operatic interpretation of 1946's It's a Wonderful Life was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera with a libretto by Gene Scheer. The opera, based on Philip Van Doren Stern's book "The Greatest Gift" and made popular by the 1946 Frank Capra film, follows George Bailey's journey from death to his own on Christmas Eve but the joy of his guard angel helps him realize how many lives he has touched. It's a Wonderful Life that had its world premiere in December 2016 in the Wortham Theater Center's Cullen Theatre. PENTATONE released a live recording of the opera at the Houston Grand Opera in 2017. Following the premiere, Heggie and Scheer redesigned the piece. It was then presented at the San Francisco Opera with rave reviews.

Heggie has written nearly 300 art books incorporating texts by both living and deceased writers in addition to his extensive opera career.

Margaret Atwood, Maya Angelou, W.H., were among the writers included in Heggie's books. Auden, Charlene Baldridge, Mark Campbell, Raymond Carver, Hart Crane, John Hart, A. E. Housman, Galway Dillard, Thomas Hart, Helen Crawford, Elizabeth Duncan, Matthew Mearn, Helen Morefield, Mary Bennett, Joseph Smith, William Reid, Matthew Hart, Stephen Sexton, Helen Benton, Beth Sexton, Timothy Smith, Anne McNally, Catherine Smith, William Parker, Anne Rilke, John Hughes, Arna Watson, Matlock,

Heggie has also arranged a number of traditional American folk songs.

Many of Heggie's orchestral and choral works are inspired by literary works. These include Orchestral Episodes From Dead Man Walking (2002), which were commissioned by the Dallas Symphony; Ahab Symphony (2013), commissioned by the University of North Texas; and the orchestral work He Will Bring Us Around from Dead Man Walking (2003), an arrangement of the opera's original hymn tune commissioned by Wichita State University. Several of his song cycles, including the most recent, The Work at Hand (2015), have also been orchestrated by Heggie for larger orchestral forces.

Heggie was hired by the Oakland East Bay Symphony to compose Holy the Firm: an essay on cello and orchestra by cellist Emil Miland. The piece, which was an homage to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was based on Annie Dillard's book of the same name.

During his time at UCLA, Heggie wrote a number of instrumental works. Among other things, there are piano, string quartet, and instrumental solos.

He has also written several folk songs and traditional hymns for solo piano or other musical arrangements. Coward/Cabaret, a collection of three cabaret songs by Nol Coward for cello and piano, is one of Heggie's most popular arrangements.

Fury of Light (2010) and Orcas Island Ferry: Suite for viola/violin and piano (2012) were two new commissions for instrumental music. Fury of Light was commissioned for Carol Wincenc to celebrate her Ruby Anniversary, and was inspired by Mary Oliver's poem "Sunrise." Orcas Island Ferry: The Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival has commissioned violist/violinist Aloysia Friedmann and pianist Jon Kimura Parker for viola/violin and piano.

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Awards, honors and distinctions

• 1995 Winner – Schirmer American Art Song Competition
• 2004 Maecenas Award (Pittsburgh Opera)
• 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2015 Eddie Medora King Award (UT Austin)
• 2015 Brock Commission