Lee Hoiby’s Bon Appétit! is a portable one-woman opera transcribed from a classic Julia Child television broadcast. In this “episode” we find the master chef teaching the makings of a classic French chocolate cake as only she can. Hoiby’s lively score illuminates child’s words & witticisms and takes listeners on a musical journey to match the culinary adventure unfolding before their eyes. Spectators who rarely find their way to an opera house will be surprised and delighted by a fully sung production with familiar musical themes and a hilarious, feverishly whisking chef who creates a masterpiece with flour flying and egg-beaters racing.
While “chocolate is much more complicated than any of us suspect,” staging requirements for the production are relatively simple. This twenty minute musical monologue can be performed with chamber ensemble or keyboard accompaniment. Just as in a cooking show on TV, the cake is prepared from real ingredients as the piece is sung. The performance venue need only supply a performance space of at least 8ft x 13ft, piano or amplification system for electric piano, a worktable or countertop (at least 30in x 56in) with one working burner and an electrical outlet for kitchen mixer.
Selections from Bon Appetit!
sung by Melissa Collom
Files are in mp3 format. Intro (.8MB)
Wonderfully, Chocolately, and Amazingly Light (3.2MB)