The House of the Seven Gables

Scott Eyerly received his master's degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Elliott Carter, and his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan School of Music, where he studied with William Bolcom and Curtis Curtis-Smith. He currently lives in New York City. About his opera he writes: "In 1989, while seeking a story for my first opera, I picked up a copy of The House of the Seven Gables. It was love at first read. What seized my imagination immediately was the atmosphere and the characters. Vivid stage pictures suggested themselves to me, from the vast gloomy house to its singular characters. I was drawn to the powerful morality in the tale. Hawthorne's exploration of human nature, especially the repercussions of one's actions on others, struck me as being no less relevant today than in 1850. Having received a grant in 1992 from the National Endowment for the Arts to begin writing the opera, I spent six weeks in Salem, Massachusetts, where the actual House of the Seven Gables stands. Although the story is fictional, it is set in a real house. The chance to see what Hawthorne had seen intrigued me. Seven years were to pass between my Salem visit and the Manhattan School's announcement of the opera's premiere." With the current opera craze on the part of classical music lovers, here is a new opera which should have a broad appeal to anyone who enjoys the voice.