“Jennifer Higdon has been commissioned by Opera Philadelphia to compose ‘Woman with Eyes Closed,’ which will open the company’s O20 Festival on Sept. 17 and in a novel twist will feature three different endings,” writes Ronald Blum in Thursday’s (2/27) Associated Press. “Higdon, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music and a three-time Grammy Award winner, has teamed with librettist Jerre Dye for the 80-minute chamber work…. The opera is a fictionalized account inspired by the theft of seven artworks from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, including Lucian Freud’s 2002 painting ‘Woman with Eyes Closed.’ Higdon and Dye wrote three endings that last two to four minutes…. ‘I think what we’re going to do is each night before the opera starts, we’ll decide which ending to take,’ Higdon said. ‘I could see lots of logical endings to this story. The real story is still unfolding.’ Higdon’s first opera, ‘Cold Mountain,’ premiered at the Santa Fe Opera in 2015 … ‘This work isn’t really about the theft of the art in itself, although that is a big part of it, but it’s about what would you do to protect somebody that you love?’ [General Director David] Devan said.”
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