Royce Vavrek
Royce Vavrek is a Canadian-born Brooklyn-based librettist, playwright, dance scenarist, musical theatre writer and filmmaker known for his collaborations with composers David T. Little, Missy Mazzoli, Mikael Karlsson, Ricky Ian Gordon, Paola Prestini and Du Yun, soprano Lauren Worsham, producers Beth Morrison and Lawrence Edelson, and conductors Steven Osgood, Julian Wachner and Alan Pierson.
He has been called "the indie Hofmannsthal", a "Metastasio of the downtown opera scene", "an exemplary creator of operatic prose", and "one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world".
His opera Angel's Bone with composer Du Yun was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Life and work
Born in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, Vavrek studied piano and musical composition in high school and also sang in a chorus, but was even more drawn to writing for theatre, writing some 17 plays at that time, and filmmaking. But following an undergraduate degree in filmmaking from Concordia University and a master's from New York University in musical theater writing, he enrolled in the American Lyric Theater's Composer Librettist Development Program which established his career as an opera librettist.His work has been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, Norwegian National Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Glimmerglass Opera, Tapestry Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Opera Omaha, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Brooklyn Philharmonic, The Kitchen, Alarm Will Sound, Opera America, American Lyric Theater, Beth Morrison Projects, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, among others. His recent commissions include operas for the Royal Swedish Opera, La Monnaie, The Icelandic Opera, and the Prototype Festival. Vavrek's filmmaking credits include From Sky and Soil, which was created as part of the Corus Young Filmmakers Initiative for broadcast on the W Network, through a prize administered by the Canadian Film and Television Production Association.
Vavrek is gay.
Artistic influences and comparisons
Vavrek has suggested that his work is heavily influenced by cinematic auteurs including Neil LaBute, Lars von Trier, Catherine Breillat, Wong Kar-Wai, Mike Leigh, Larry Clark, playwrights Martin McDonagh and Sam Shepard, novelists Richard Ford, Miriam Toews and Larry McMurtry and Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards.His libretti have been compared to the work of Alban Berg, Maya Angelou and Edward Albee.
Opera libretti
- Nora at the Altar-Rail
- Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera
- Song from the Uproar: [The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt]
- Dog Days
- 27
- Maren of Vardø: Satan's Bride
- O Columbia
- Angel's Bone
- JFK
- Breaking the Waves
- The House Without a Christmas Tree
- Proving Up
- Silent Light
- The Wild Beast of the Bungalow
- Jacqueline
- The Puppy Episode
- The Listeners
- The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
- Melancholia
- The [Old Man and the Sea]
- Adoration
- Fanny and Alexander
- Indians on Vacation
- ''Lincoln in the Bardo''
Dance scenarios
- Crypto
- ''Evidence of it All''
Musical theater book and lyrics
Oratorios, cantatas, and song cycles
- Am I Born
- Stoned Prince
- Naamah's Ark
- The Hubble Cantata
- Epistle Mass
- ''So We Will Vanish''
Selected songs and concert works
- Hybrid Dreams
- Elena
- Red-Thread Smirk
- I
- A Song for Wade
- 1882 Songs
- Last Nightfall
- Canvas
- archaeology
- Bluetooth Islands
- A Mural
- Alien Summers
- Monkey Cowboys
- Violations
- Strip Mall
- Penance
- The Librettist as a Boy
- Brother
- E----
- Union
- ''Knoxville: Summer of 2015''
Films
- Sacrifice
- Good Woman
- From Sky and Soil
- I Will Not Be Sad Anymore
- ''Pig and Bear''