New Hampshire composer, Roger Rudenstein, has been creating a name for himself in the classical world in a way normally reserved for angry punks and politically-motivated hip-hop artists.
Having written firstly written a full-length opera on the ex-president of the United States, George Bush (The Devil and George Bush) he has most recently aimed his crosshairs at leader of the free world, Donald Trump. Again, using opera as his preferred medium, his thinly-veiled on-going Faustian work, The Rise & Fall of Ronald P. Glumph has attracted rave reviews from not only the classical press but also a far wider audience.
With over 100,000 Soundcloud hits under his belt and a glowing write-up in the New York Times, Roger has now used classic literature as his source of inspiration. Distilling James Joyce‘s sprawling epic, Ulysses, into opera form might be off-putting to most but it has emerged as two and a half hours of provocative and biting music.
Key to the project was Roger’s insistence in sticking closely to the actual text Joyce used – this means that some of the surprisingly, though hilariously, foul-mouthed characters are delivering the same lines today that would have shocked and entertained audiences at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Drawing on distinctly European musical influences of the likes of Schubert, Stravinsky, Beethoven and Richard Strauss, Roger is now looking forward to having his work performed by any interested orchestras from across Europe.