In 2015, Boston’s American Repertory Theater debuted one of his first operas, Crossing, based on the poetry of Walt Whitman and directed by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus. It’s the place I feel most at home.”Ī Boston-area native, Aucoin studied poetry as a Harvard undergraduate and received his MA at Juilliard-the latter while he was serving as the youngest-ever assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. “What I learned from all of those explorations was that I really do believe in this thing we call classical music, and I do think it’s worth fighting for. “I assumed it was just not possible, so I didn’t go to conservatory for my undergrad.” As a teenager, he immersed himself not in opera but in jazz and rock in a band called Elephantom. “I didn’t see a clear road to being a composer for a long time,” Aucoin says. His reply: “What score?”ĭespite this auspicious start, a career in music was not a given. Awestruck, they asked where he had seen Mozart’s score. It also comes at a time of transition for LA Opera, with the recent departure of general director Plácido Domingo following sexual harassment allegations.Īucoin was 11 when his parents began to recognize his extraordinary gifts: he sat down at the piano in a Vermont hotel lobby one rainy afternoon and played The Marriage of Figaro from beginning to end. The new opera comes as the company pivots toward original and contemporary productions, beginning with the season opener, a new iteration of La Bohème by director Barrie Kosky. Soprano Danielle de Niese sings the title role, with baritone Rod Gilfry as her father, while Mary Zimmerman directs and Aucoin conducts. “And the throughline of all of that has been Eurydice.” “I’ve gotten to know the city so intimately,” says the 29-year-old Aucoin of his residency. Now nearing completion, that tenure was a productive period that also saw him conducting Philip Glass’s Akhnaten and Verdi’s Rigoletto as well as original compositions, including his new score for the classic silent horror film Nosferatu. This February, LA Opera will stage the world premiere of Aucoin’s Eurydice, a reimagining of the Greek myth that shifts the narrative away from the musician Orpheus and onto his beloved wife, Eurydice, who, lost in the underworld, is reunited with her deceased father.Īucoin, a 2018 MacArthur Fellow, composed the new piece during his term as LA Opera’s first artist in residence. It garnered a rave review from his father, who currently serves as chief theater critic for the Boston Globe. At the age of four, future composer-conductor Matthew Aucoin was on a family vacation driving through Florida when he wrote his first opus, Cloud Symphony.

Rigoletto la opera