Robert Ashley: Dust. Libretto by the Composer. Production
by Yukihiro Yoshihara. With Sam Ashley, Thomas Buckner, Jacqueline Humbert,
Joan La Barbara, and Robert Ashley. The Kitchen, April 14 (Amer. premiere).
Robert Ashley is one of America's busiest opera composers.
He's been at it for decades, composing and producing his works, always
focusing on technology and new ideas, with video footage and synthesized
sounds incorporated into his rock-informed performances. Encountering his
latest work, Dust, at the Kitchen, I found it hard to imagine why
he seems to have been so blithely ignored here in New York, where his appearances
are rare indeed. He seems to have done well anyhow, and is widely known
in Europe, as well as elsewhere in the U.S. (There's much more -- we'll
send you the rest for one dollar to cover postage. See the How to Order
page for address.)
James L. Paulk