SOLDIER SONGS

The Artistic Team

Conductor - Mark Trawka
Stage Director - Kaley Karis Smith*
Set Designer - Mengyi Liu
Costume Designer - Jason Bray
Lighting Designer - Todd Nonn
Projection Designer - Joe Spinogatti
Stage Manager - Cindy Knight
Assistant Conductor - Glenn Lewis
Director of Musical Studies - Mark Trawka
Associate Coach/Pianist - James Lesniak

Music and libretto by David T. Little
 

_{+    Pittsburgh Opera debut
*     Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artist
**   Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artist alumni} 

We want you to have the best experience possible at our performances!

Here are some details and resources to help. Also visit our Opera FAQs or our Accessibility page. 

• Run time: Tentatively ~ 60 minutes with no intermission
• Soldier Songs contains strobe lights, strong language, simulated gunshots, explosions, and other combat-like sounds and visual effects
• Understand Every Word: Soldier Songs is sung in English with English supertitles projected above the stage at all performances
• View or download our Study Guide (PDF), created by our Education department
• View or download our Recommended Listening and Reading List (PDF), prepared in collaboration with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Music Department

Soldier Songs contrasts the perceptions and realities of a soldier from the age of six through sixty-six. Based on interviews with veterans, and the culmination of 9 years of work by composer David T. Little, Soldier Songs is constructed in three sections: Child, Warrior, and Elder, yet the movements flow seamlessly from start to finish.

CHILD
A boy first encounters war through toys and games, playing with action figures available with an arsenal of accessories. As he grows, video games replace these dolls. These games offer an immersive, combat-like experience in which the player kills countless "enemies," and where the only consequence of the player’s death is a brief wait while the game reloads. As the boy becomes a young adult, the game becomes more real. He registers for the draft at age eighteen. Reflecting on the highly randomized selective service process from the Vietnam War, he counts each day with a passing dread at the thought of combat. Once deployed, he counts the days again, but differently: down from 365, hoping he makes it to one.

WARRIOR
The boy is now a modern-day soldier. As technology has changed the tools and language of war, it has also changed the experience of combat. The soldier creates his own soundtrack: piping heavy metal into ear buds, he recreates the feeling of the video game, shooting abstract enemies that appear as pixels on a screen. But the game becomes too real, and the brutality of war sets in. Images of death, destruction and killing that may have been exciting in action movies back home, now play out with horror before his eyes. He seeks refuge from incoming ordinance; an unbearable experience that he knows will stay with him for the rest of his life.

ELDER
The stories diverge. Veterans reflect on their experiences in combat, or discuss the challenges of reintegration into civilian life. One man reflects on the futility of an endless war. Another confronts the bereavement team sent to notify him of his son’s death in combat. The opera concludes with recorded interviews—the composer’s family and friends: the soldiers who inspired this work—as our soldier opens his mouth to tell his story.

—David T. Little

• Observer-Reporter: Pittsburgh Opera to offer "Soldier Songs" in December
• OperaWire: Pittsburgh Opera to Present ‘Soldier Songs’
• Broadway World: Pittsburgh Opera Continues Season With SOLDIER SONGS
• OperaWire: Top 10 Operas to Stream This Week
• Broadway World: Photo Flash - Pittsburgh Opera Presents SOLDIER SONGS
• Pittsburgh City Paper: Seven Days in Pittsburgh: Dec. 10-16
• NEXT pittsburgh: Things to do this weekend, from Pittsburgh Opera’s Soldier Songs to Warhol films online
• The Incline: How to enjoy Pittsburgh in December
• Seen and Heard International: Pittsburgh Opera presents David T. Little’s powerful and provocative Soldier Songs
• OperaWire: Pittsburgh Opera Cancels In-Person Performances of ‘Soldier Songs’
• TribLive: Pittsburgh Opera’s free ‘Soldier Songs’ livestream examines reality of war

Listen to Pittsburgh Opera General Director Christopher Hahn give a brief synopsis of Soldier Songs featuring excerpts from the 2013 Innova Recordings recording featuring David Adam Moore, Todd Reynolds, and Newspeak.

Click play below or download this excerpt for an offline treat!

• "Real American Hero" - performed by David Adam Moore and Newspeak as the Child
• "Hollywood ending" - performed by David Adam Moore and Newspeak
• "Two Marines" - sung by David Adam Moore
• “War after War"