Gould was a galvanizing, distinctive artist, equal parts genius and eccentric.

Lang embraces the severe intensity of the monologue format in his adaptation. His monologue takes place years later after Wertheimer has committed suicide.Īnother composer and librettist might have been tempted to flesh out the story into a drama with three characters. The narrator abandoned the piano, we learn. Gould’s staggering genius has a transcendent impact on Wertheimer and the narrator, but ultimately undermines their identities. The young Glenn Gould was also a student. Through meandering, obsessive ruminations, the narrator recollects a life-turning (imagined) encounter in 1953, when he, then a piano prodigy, and Wertheimer, a friend and also a prodigy, studied with Horowitz at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. The novel (originally published in German) is in the form of an interior monologue by an unnamed narrator. Lang from Thomas Bernhard’s 1983 novel, “The Loser” had its premiere on Wednesday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s opera house in a boldly unconventional staging devised by Mr.

Or is it an austerely staged concert work? Or an in-your-face monologue for baritone?Īdapted by Mr. Intriguing ambiguity permeates every element of David Lang’s “The Loser,” a mysterious 60-minute chamber opera.

60 minutes music prodigy