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The Two Executioners

by David Chesworth

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13 Death 02:52
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14 Red Dawn 04:57
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15 Marceline 03:11
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about

Adapted from the controversial one-act play by absurdist writer Fernando Arrabal, composer David Chesworth teams with writer/director Douglas Horton to produce an ironic, darkly funny and ultimately disturbing work.

The libretto concerns a mother who quarrels with her two daughters. While her husband is tortured to death in an adjacent room, the mother agues the merits of what is taking place…

- Composed by David Chesworth
- Libretto by Douglas Horton
- Text by Fernando Arrabal with
- Directed by Douglas Horton
- Commissioned & Produced by Chamber Made Opera
- Set Design by Tomek Koman
- Costume design by Louise McCarthy
- Lighting design by Margie Medlin

Performers
Bernadette Robinson - soprano
Tracy Bourne - soprano
Deanne Flatley - soprano
John McAll - keyboard, samples and electronics
Peter Neville - percussion
Robert Jackson - saxophone

1994: World Premiere, Napier Street Theatre, Melbourne (4 – 10 August)
1996: Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse (15 – 24 August)

credits

released February 16, 2015

Horton says of Arrabal; "Many Dadaists and early Absurdists gave expression to their beliefs about an absurd and irrational universe by denigrating and destroying the aesthetic and dramatic conventions of their medium. Arrabal was able to give expression to this world through convention, and through absence - the deliberate withholding of key contextual information"

Employing what composer David Chesworth calls “the music of exclamation”, Arrabal’s macabre and almost comic tale is as much a revealing statement about human betrayal as it is a political allegory, spiced with telling characterisation and potent ambiguities.


Commissioned and premiered by Chamber Made Opera.
Winner of the inaugural ‘Age’ performing arts award and The Independent Monthly’s vote as the best piece of music theatre in 1994.

… a stunning example of Chamber Made Opera at its best.
THE HERALD-SUN

“Ingenious and splendidly witty music. Chesworth is a
child of Igor Stravinsky and cartoon composer Carl Stalling.” FINANCIAL REVIEW

Easily the most impressive and memorable piece of music theatre [in 1994] has been Chamber Made Opera’s brilliant adaptation of Fernando Arrabal’s The Two Executioners, a production in which all the elements (music, text, performances, designer, Douglas Horton’s direction and choice of venue) were fused into a deeply satisfying whole.
THE INDEPENDENT MONTHLY

… utterly sensational. Quite honestly, The Two Executioners is pretty much flawless.
THE BULLETIN

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about

David Chesworth Melbourne, Australia

While I'm not into genres myself, according to others I make experimental, electronic, post-punk, minimal synth-pop, post-classical, field recordings and experimental opera. Some of this may interest you, some may not.

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