Heggie Premieres Earth 2.0 at Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra • December 2024
Fort Worth, Texas
Jake Heggie’s Earth 2.0, a monodrama about the Earth’s relationship with humanity, had its world premiere at Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Robert Spano. With a libretto by Anita Amirrezvani, it features and was written for countertenor Key’mon Murrah. Heggie reteamed with director/choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and two dancers from Urban Bush Women, Courtney Cook and Bennalldra Williams.
From the composer: “This piece takes a deep dive into an emotional perspective from Earth contemplating one of the big David and Goliath stories of all time – Earth versus Humanity. Are you going to wait, are you going to allow more time for humanity to do better? And this is Earth’s dilemma.”
Photo by Karen Almond / Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
Photo by Karen Almond / Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
Critical Acclaim
“The orchestral writing is an expressive mélange of sounds and styles. Wind twitters evoke songbirds, but dissonant, stabbing dance music suggests forests of concrete rising beneath their flights; a suggestion of a spiritual supplies refuge. A sultry, bluesy trumpet solo represents Earth’s evolving artistry. Orchestral wreathings wrap around a wish for human care — and imagined extraplanetary adventures. To a flute solo, words recall birds’ evolution from dinosaurs and their function as pollinators. ‘The Admirer’ celebrates human bodies in jazzy music. Heggie effectively exploited Murrah’s powerful countertenor voice and vivid delivery, with blazing high notes in soprano range.”
Dallas Morning News
“Heggie brought the awesome communicative power of music to reiterate increasingly disastrous predictions about global warming. Maybe delivering this dire warning with such effective musical postage will change a mind or two. It just might. That is because Heggie’s work, really a concert opera, displays his absolute mastery of musical dramatic delivery. Earth 2.0 sports a variety of musical influences from modernism to Broadway, with stops at folk, jazz, and the blues along the way. Murrah’s cri du coeur of ‘Cleanse Me’ at the opera’s climatic moment was unforgettable. Two dancers writhed in tortuous motions – perhaps they are us, suffering in the extreme heat, hurricanes, catastrophic floods, and uncontrollable wildfires we have foisted on ourselves. The audience was captured by Earth 2.0 and were all given a well-deserved ovation.”
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