Emmeline (opera)
Role Voice Premiere Cast , 1996 ( Conductor : George Manahan )
Emmeline Mosher soprano Patricia Racette
Matthew Gurney , a railroad worker tenor Curt Peterson
Mr. Maguire , factory supervisor baritone Victor Ledbetter
Aunt Hannah Watkins , Henry Mosher 's sister dramatic contralto Anne-Marie Owens
Henry Mosher , Emmeline 's father bass Kevin Langan
Mrs. Bass , owner of the boarding house mezzo-soprano Josepha Gayer
Sophie , older girl at the mill soprano Melanie Sarakatsannis
Pastor Avery , pastor in Fayette , Maine bass Herbert Perry
Hooker , foreman at the mill tenor Wright Moore
Harriet Mosher , Emmeline 's sister soprano Michelle Bradley
Simon Fenton , Emmeline 's suitor baritone Gregory Keil
Ella Burling , girl at the mill soprano Mary Jane Kania
Roles
Emmeline is an opera in two acts composed by American Tobias Picker with a libretto by J.D. McClatchy. Picker's first opera, it was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera company and premiered in 1996. In 2009, a chamber version of Emmeline was created for the Dicapo Opera. Based on the book of the same name by Judith Rossner, it is the story of a mid-19th-century Maine woman who has an illegitimate son whom she gives up for adoption. He is raised by others. Twenty years later the two meet and unknowingly marry; when they discover the secret, Emmeline is abandoned by her son and ostracized in her town.