04 September 2009

Alberto Gonzales, the Tragic Opera



Alberto Gonzales, the Opera, Hits Stage
September 4, 2009

A graduate music student has taken the political theater of Washington, D.C., one step further this summer.

She's turned it into opera.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' congressional grilling in April 2007 over fired federal prosecutors may have seemed like a dry political proceeding to most people. But where some critics heard little more than a constant chorus of "I don't recall" -- a sentence Gonzales uttered 71 times -- Melissa Dunphy heard music.



Starting Friday night, Philadelphia residents can hear Gonzales' testimony sung as the libretto of the 'Gonzales Cantata.' The entire hearing is re-enacted, but with the players' genders switched. As a statement against male-dominated Washington, Dunphy has women in the men's roles, and a man singing the part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The production is part of Philadelphia's Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe, a 16-day celebration of the arts.

"This is a humanist drama, not a partisan statement," Dunphy said in a press release. "We see Gonzales' mistakes, but we also feel some real pathos for a man who has dug himself into a terrible hole."

Source / America On Line

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