OPERA SEARCH
Atlas
(1991)For further information about this work, please contact the publisher, Meredith Monk Music.
212-904-1330
For information about licensing this work for ballet or other grand rights usage please contact your local Boosey & Hawkes office.
Abbreviations (PDF)
Boosey & Hawkes
San Francisco Chronicle
“After all this time, the piece emerged once again with all its artistic virtues — its expressive generosity, its unmistakable musical lexicon, the gentle tug of its dramatic arc — gloriously intact.”
“Her musical language, a suavely ingratiating blend of quasi-minimalist repetitions and vocal techniques rooted in body work, is unlike anything else on the musical landscape.”
“In the future, if the world proceeds as it should, this is a piece that will be done again and again.”
San Francisco Classical Voice
“It took a real leap of faith for Monk to trust Sharon to create his own vision of her opera. But she did, and the result is astounding — not just as a fantastic individual achievement, but to make a case that ATLAS deserves a place in the operatic repertory alongside Einstein on the Beach.”
New York Times
“mysterious beauty … the combination of sophistication and childlike wonder … radiant.”
New Yorker
“ATLAS is one of the great operas of the late twentieth century, and it deserves to travel as widely as its heroine.”
Los Angeles Times
“Monk’s elaborate style of vocalization, be it squeaks and grunts or crystalline song, express what words only hint at. Her mastery of rhythmic pulse, of natural melody that sounds less composed than plucked from the air, and imaginative vocal and instrumental character from the chamber orchestra provide a remarkable degree of communicability.”
“ATLAS … is the most illuminating of all.”
Poetic