American composer of operas “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” (2004), with libretto by James Fenton, after Salman Rushdie’s 1990 novel of the same name, and “Brokeback Mountain” (2014), with libretto by Annie Proulx, after her 1997 love story, Charles Wuorinen, born in New York City on June 9, 1938, passed away here, at the age of 81, on March 11, from complications from a fall in September 2019, according to publicist Aleba Gartner. A teacher, conductor, and author—of “Simple Composition” (1979)—as well, Wuorinen is survived by his husband of 32 years, Howard Stoker.
New York City Opera gave the world premiere of “Haroun” on October 31, 2004, and Teatro Real, in Madrid, Spain, gave the world premiere of “Brokeback” on January 28, 2014. City Opera presented the first American performance of “Brokeback” on May 31, 2018.
Rushdie had written his novel “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” (1990) as a children’s book, as a way to explain, to his young son, the 1989 fatwa, calling for the writer’s death, imposed by Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini. “Wuorinen’s music for Fenton’s lyrical text, largely tonal with some dissonance, fusing Western and Eastern elements, is accessible … this fantastic, escapist fairy tale, albeit with serious underpinnings, provided just the distraction some of us needed in the wake of the devastating results of the presidential election,” the reelection of George W. Bush, this writer wrote for Theater Scene.net, on November 3, 2004. Covering City Opera’s “Brokeback” for Q on Stage, Sherri Rase wrote, on June 4, 2018, “[F]or those of us who crave the real chemistry angst and frissons of electric magnetism [of Proulx’s story] and the deep fear and longing that draw us together and rip us apart, this opera delivers. The music is the anti-Copland jagged music of western climes that are as cruel as Brokeback, which takes lives directly or indirectly. The wild beauty of the landscape that fateful season brought a spark forth from two hearts that were never truly together while being never truly apart.”
Co-founder of the Group for American Contemporary Music in 1962, Wuorinen won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for his electronic work “Time’s Encomium.” He wrote ballet scores for the New York City Ballet, as well as symphonies and chamber music. Wuorinen’s last completed work was his Second Percussion Symphony, given in Miami by the New World Symphony on September 28, 2019.