Joan Ross Sorkin | The Reef: A New Opera
Wharton Revisited Series
July 31, 2024
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Generations of authors, performers, and artists have been drawn to Edith Wharton’s writing as a source of inspiration. New to our 2024 programming lineup, this series of talks explores exciting recent adaptations–on the page and for the stage.
Joan Ross Sorkin is a playwright, musical theatre book writer, lyricist, opera librettist, and screenwriter, who has collaborated with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis on an operatic reimagining of Edith Wharton’s novel The Reef (1912). Sorkin set her adaptation on a wealthy sugar plantation in Martinique in 1928 — a place and time when the strict conventions of society bred intolerance based on both race and class. Wharton’s tragic love story between a widow and an American diplomat attempting to rekindle their fleeting romance from years before creates a compelling narrative for the opera, enhanced by a musical palette that combines classical, Caribbean, and jazz motifs. The first act was produced in a workshop performance by Berkshire Opera Festival at Merkin Hall in New York, April 2024.
"[The Reef's] libretto, loosely adapted from Edith Wharton’s novel by Joan Ross Sorkin, was poetic and deliberate in its rich imagery and strong sense of motif. Some lyrics — like the pregnant theme of moonlight or a bigot’s drunken confession that she has 'even dreamt of the dark Amazon' — were cuttingly raw... 'When you’re writing a libretto, it’s poetic. It has to have a musical rhythm to the words,” Ross Sorkin told a March virtual book club hosted by The Mount. “I try to find the core idea of what [Wharton’s] trying to say and work that into the libretto.'”
- The Berkshire Eagle
This discussion about The Reef opera with Joan Ross Sorkin will be introduced by Brian Garman, co-founder and Artistic Director of Berkshire Opera Festival.
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Photo: Courtesy of Berkshire Opera Festival
The Mount is a Massachusetts Cultural Council UP designated organization welcoming participants of all disabilities. Please contact The Mount at 413-551-5100 or by email, info@edithwharton.org, to discuss accommodations needed to participate fully in this event. The Mount's Health and Safety Guidelines can be found here.
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Joan Ross Sorkin is an opera librettist, musical theatre bookwriter and lyricist, and playwright. The Reef, based on the novel by Edith Wharton, was recently presented in a workshop performance by Berkshire Opera Festival. She and composer Anthony Davis were also Finalists for the 2018 Domenic J. Pellicciotti Opera Composition Prize. Sorkin’s libretto was presented by The Center for Contemporary Opera’s Prima Parole program and Libretto Slam! Her opera Strange Fruit with composer Chandler Carter was developed at New York City Opera’s VOX, commissioned and premiered by Long Leaf Opera, and presented in concert by The Harlem School of the Arts in association with NY City Opera. Materials for Strange Fruit are archived at The Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture (NY Public Library). White Witch: A Monodrama for Contralto and Percussion with composer Brian Schober premiered at Symphony Space, followed by a concert at Roulette and a production at Salem State University. Sorkin has two new opera projects, Jubilee with composer Randy Klein, and Paradise Bound with composer Steve Wallace. She has been a grant adjudicator for Opera America.
Sorkin is the bookwriter and lyricist for the new musical Black Swan Blues, also with Randy Klein. Her other musicals include: Bordello, Imagining Monet, In The Theatre, The Real McCoy, and Dandelion (licensed by Dramatic Publishing), together with her award-winning family musicals Isabelle and The Pretty Ugly Spell and Go Green! Prince Charming’s Quest for Love and Ecology in NYC. Her musicals have enjoyed productions in NY, PA. and FL. Her cabaret songs have been heard in NYC at Birdland, Don’t Tell Mama, Broadway Bistro Baby, and The Zipper, and “One Small Box” was nominated as Best Song of the Year by Ken Davenport’s TheaterMakers Studio.
Sorkin began her career as a playwright and is most proud of her one-woman play with music, (mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story (Emerging Artists Theatre, Chicago Humanities Festival, Jefferson Playhouse, and Schoolhouse Theater) with Drama Desk and Black Theatre Alliance nominations for Capathia Jenkins as Hattie. Materials are also archived in The Schomburg Center. Other plays have been produced in NYC and regionally. Her new COVID play, This Is Serious, was nominated as Best Play of The Year by TheaterMakers Studio.
Joan is a member of The Dramatists Guild, BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, ASCAP, Opera America, and The League of Professional Theatre Women. She is the President of the Board of The York Theatre Company.