The Heroes of Riviere Ouelle

I am feeling somewhat guilty about not posting anything since October of last year. It not that I have not been busy with music, just the opposite. In fact, I have been spending all of my spare time working on my opera, Heroes of Riviere Ouelle. The idea for writing an opera is not a new one for me. Since I was a teenager and dreamed about becoming a composer I wanted to compose an opera but the shadow that my grandfather who composed many operas prevented me from doing that. I felt that I could never compose anything as good as he did, so I put the idea aside. In fact, I put composing aside for almost forty years. When most composers are thinking about retiring I started thinking about composing again. Back in the summer of 2017 the idea for writing this opera came to me while my wife and I were visiting Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I don't exactly remember how the idea came to me and it probably doesn't matter but that is when it happened. At first it was just the idea that I would compose the opera around the story of the Heroes of Riviere Ouelle where a group of farmers beat back the soldiers of William Phips, the governor of  Massachusetts. That is over simplifying the story but that is the essence of it.

I thought I would share some of the highlights of act I which I finished just before the Christmas holidays. I am now working on scene I of act II. I thought I would share the love duet from act I.
The love duet is between the two main characters of the opera, Chloe and Gaston. Chloe is a young woman who has arrived in Riviere Ouelle from France with the intent of finding a husband and Gaston falls in love with Chloe at first sight. The sing the love duet together. Unfortunately, I don't have a soprano and a tenor on hand to sing the love duet so I can only give you the music and piano accompaniment. I have yet to do the orchestration for this aria.

Here is the video link

https://youtu.be/MliFNJcFIBo