Media and Responses to Violet Fire
“Undulating arpeggios repeated endlessly, creating an otherworldly musical environment for the story of the visionary electrical inventor Nikola Tesla… High-strung rhythms pulsed through instrumental texture like electricity. Vocal leaps erupted like power surges. Rhythmic counterpoint juxtaposed steady electrical pulse against something as irregular as Morse code. The music was dreamy… It also served as a reminder that the minimalist aesthetic has been the source of so much significant American music.”
—David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer
“The narrative structure of the opera is smartly conceived… Gibson and librettist Miriam Seidel created characters who sing intelligibly, and with texts that are emotionally meaningful… The images projected on several screens were often delicate and beautifully animated.”
—Peter Dobrin, Philadelphia Inquirer
“The surprise for me is not that Seidel’s libretto bounces around in time—adding to the Tesla man-outside-of-time theme—but that it is poetry. Gibson’s lovely, efficient, and sometimes even beguilingly astringent music was played onstage by the Relache Ensemble. There’s just enough minimalist churning to suggest electric dynamos, but no predictable Phil Glass crescendos. The vocal writing is surprisingly beautiful. I was thrilled.”
—John Perreault, artsjournal.com/artopia
“Video projections by Sarah Drury and Jen Simmons lent an appropriate whiff of celluloid science fiction… Scott Murphree, a tenor, sang the role of Tesla with genuine presence and impeccable diction… The role of the White Dove, a source of inspiration for Tesla, was simultaneously sung by Mirjana Jovanovic, a soprano, and danced by Joanna Kotze, who moved with an appealingly pigeonesque angular grace.”
—Steve Smith, New York Times
“After the expressive high point, when all the performers on the stage expose their conflicting opinions on [Tesla’s] work, the opera ends on its condensed emotional climax… This exciting tale created many possibilities for scenic realization which the designer was able to accomplish with the video artists… The director found very impressive solutions (for the scene in Tesla’s laboratory, for example) and all the young singers were very good… The most beautiful and unforgettable role was the choreography of the dying White Dove. Gibson has supplied very emotional music in a post-minimalist idiom with characteristic orchestral pulsations. The expressive melodic lines even combine with tango-like rhythms and accompaniments or the sounds of a spiritual in the choir; just some of the many possibilities to write music for this Science Fiction opera.”
—Donata Premeru, Tempo
“Jon has created a direct, lyrical and dramatic musical language for the stage. The result is a wonderfully compelling evening of music theater.”
—Philip Glass
More media coverage
Violet Fire — Flights of Fancy on Alternating Currents, article by Merilyn Jackson, 10/17/2006, exploredance.com
Fire in the Sky, arts section cover story, Philadelphia City Paper, 1/8–14/2004
Nikola Tesla’s Brain, column by Andrei Codrescu, Downtown Express