Gatto - Making of Americans

Composer Anthony Gatto releases his radio opera setting of Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans," a reworking of his original opera premiered at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 2008. Fusing aspects of minimalism, experimentalism, and a keen instinct for setting Stein's quixotic prose, Gatto has created a unique presentation for a work whose fundamental and poignantly relevant question is uttered early in the opening scene, "What is a normal American?" Born in Brooklyn, New York, Anthony Gatto has developed a diverse body of music, often informed by literary and visual arts, exploring alternative narrative modes and structures. His cross-media works include the music and libretto for Wise Blood, after the novel Flannery O'Connor. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, Wise Blood (2015) presents the shattered war veteran Hazel Motes preaching the Church Without Christ from the hood of his car. Also commissioned by the Walker Art Center, his opera The Making of Americans (2008), based on the novel by Gertrude Stein, presents Stein's spectacular, universalist language celebrating generations of American families. "Soon now there will be a history of every one whoever was or is or will be living." and "Every one whoever was or is or will be living sometime will be clearly realized by someone."