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Peter Hilliard (composer) and Matt Boresi (librettist) specialize in the creation of new comic opera, musicals, and art song, with a particular eye towards revivifying classic forms.
Their modern day opera buffa
Don Imbroglio - An Opera You Can't Refuse,
workshopped at both New York University and the Lark Play Development Center, was selected by a jury of Broadway heavyweights (including producers Jack Viertel and Kevin McCollum, director Susan H. Schulman, choreographer Rob Ashford and actress Joanna Gleason) as a Next Link Production in the 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival, produced by NYMF, True Love Productions, and Beth Morisson Projects. This "mob hit" enjoyed an extended sold-out run at Off-Broadway's Theatre Row.
Talkin Broadway said of Imbroglio that "Boresi's libretto bursts with wit and charm" and that "Hilliard's music is a fine match, attractively setting up everything from minor comedy numbers to heavily layered duets and trios to keening arias of Metropolitan breadth.
CurtainUp called the piece "consistently delightful" with "soaring, roaring arias, duets, trios, quartets, and ensembles"
and Variety put it in "the festivals top tier."
Hilliard and Boresi's chamber opera The Filthy Habit was performed in excerpt by Manhattan School of Music at the National Opera Association 2005 Convention as an NOA Chamber Opera Competition National Finalist, and was also performed at the Tanglewood Institute (where they have appeared as visiting lecturers) and Manhattan Opera Theatre (World Premiere).
Their opera-bouffe The Brazilian, based on the play by Meilhac and Halevy, premiered in October 2004 in English with French titles as a joint production by Manhattan Opera Theatre and the French Institute/Alliance Francaise at Florence Gould Hall.
Other works by Hilliard and Boresi include the chamber opera
Wonderful Clockwork (NYU), the puppet review Eat Your Greens: Verdi by Vegetables (Dixon Place, Open Circle Arts, Great Small Works), and the performance piece The Staten Island Grand Operas Administrative Intern Presents:
Tosca (Open Circle Arts, Bad-Ass Clown Productions).
Empty Plates, their opera based on Michael Hollinger's Off-Broadway Play An Empty Plate in the Cafe Du Grande Boeuf, is receiving workshop readings in Philadelphia and New York.
A Schooling in Love, or That's What's Up With Girls, Boresi's teen comedy featuring music by Hilliard, premiered in Chicagoland in February, and a musical version is being created for production in 2008.
Hilliard and Boresi's genre-bending musical Going Down Swingin', read in NYC in May 2007, has been chosen as a Next Link Participant in the 2007 New York Musical Theatre Festival, produced by Beth Morrison Projects, and New Sounds Theatre.
Going Down Swingin' runs 6 performances only, Sept. 24th through Oct. 6th at the TBG Theatre, 312 W. 36th Street, NY.
For details and to purchase tickets, go here!
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Peter Hilliard, composer (ASCAP) - studied voice with John Shirley-Quirk at the Peabody Conservatory, composition with David Conte and Orchestration with Conrad Susa at the San Francisco Conservatory, and received an MFA in Graduate Musical Theatre Writing at NYU. His choral music has been performed all over the U.S. and by the Berlin Cathedral Choir on their tour of the U.S., and he won the Grand Prize in the 2005 Young New Yorkers Chorus Composition Competition. His 'Song for Saint Cecilia's Day' (SSATB) was recently selected for a reading session by Matthew Glandorf and the Philadelphia Choral Arts Society sponsored by the American Composers Forum. Peter has music-directed extensively on both coasts and Off-Broadway. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Allison, and their children, Elizabeth, Nicholas, and Jonathan.
