Flung on a Fling:
The Other Half
A family opera telling a funny, terrifying, confusing, and comforting story of an accidental journey to ancient Persia in the company of a large one-wing bird, where the leads, two pre-teens, help cause more trouble and then help repair the trouble, reunite the two half birds, and help the Great King defeat an evil uprising.
The opera is in two acts, around an hour in all, and uses from four to seven leads and a chorus of children or young singers. There is some spoken dialogue, so it is like an English singspiel. Microphones may be used if appropriate.
William Copper
Contemporary American composer William Copper (1953 - ) began this work intending it as one of four original scripts for animated movies. In converting it to a family opera for the Everett Theatre in Middletown Delaware, where it was first produced, the nearly invisible character Dot, a small beetle with a very large voice ("I AM THE DOT THAT IS OVER THE I") was regretfully edited out.
The original mix of acoustic and electronic instruments with piano has now been entirely orchestrated for a small standard orchestra; the final battle scene is re-written, and all the scenes touched up here and there.
William Copper studied first at MIT, then privately with composer George Crumb, then Eastman School of Music, and lastly at the State Higher School with composer Krzysztof Penderecki.
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