Michael Torke: Strawberry Fields (2005)

Even though its title suggests some musical association with the 1967 song by the Beatles -- perhaps even a direct borrowing from it, as in Alvin Lucier's remarkable Nothing is Real (Strawberry Fields Forever) -- Michael Torke's one-act opera is only indirectly linked through its setting: the section of New York City's Central Park named Strawberry Fields in memory of John Lennon. Composed in 1999 on a libretto by A.R. Gurney, this work was conceived as the second part of a trilogy on the subject of Central Park, along with ... Read More

Even though its title suggests some musical association with the 1967 song by the Beatles -- perhaps even a direct borrowing from it, as in Alvin Lucier's remarkable Nothing is Real (Strawberry Fields Forever) -- Michael Torke's one-act opera is only indirectly linked through its setting: the section of New York City's Central Park named Strawberry Fields in memory of John Lennon. Composed in 1999 on a libretto by A.R. Gurney, this work was conceived as the second part of a trilogy on the subject of Central Park, along with The Festival of Regrets by Deborah Drattell and Wendy Wasserstein, and The Food of Love by Robert Beaser and Terrence McNally. Torke's and Gurney's work revolves on the quirky behavior and musings of an unnamed elderly woman who believes that she is attending the opera, though she is merely sitting on a park bench. Her interactions with her family and strangers who pass by are confused and pathetic; but through her conversations with an idealistic student, who expresses a passion... Read Less