Program Note:

Amelia is an opera about love, integrity, memory, and healing as they manifest in the lives and dreams of three generations of an American Navy Family between 1966 and 1996. The narrative concerns Amelia, a first-time mother-to-be whose psyche has been scarred by the loss of her pilot-father in combat over Vietnam. Unfolding in a magical realist series of non-linear flashbacks and forwards, her psychological and emotional journey is interwoven with memories of her childhood, visions of her dead father, the (imagined) fate of her namesake, Amelia Earhart, and elements of the Daedalus and Icarus myth.

The first movement is called Sortie. Having suffered a nervous collapse, Amelia fantasizes that she is with her father in his plane as he flies his final mission. She imagines taking off from the carrier in the dark, flying towards the target, dropping ordinance, encountering enemy fighter planes, engaging, the plane being damaged, and her father parachuting from the crashing plane.

During the second interlude, Why Fliers Fly, the music tracks Dodge’s thoughts as he floats earthwards towards his destiny.

Three simultaneous narratives unfold during the course of the third interlude, Ayreborne. The first tracks Daedalus as he cradles his dying son in his arms in the hospital room next to Amelia’s; the second takes place in the cockpit of Earhart’s plane as she crash lands on a deserted atoll somewhere in the Pacific; the third tracks Amelia’s labor.

Amelia associates her contractions with her father’s—and Amelia Earhart’s—planes struggling to achieve takeoff speed. As in real life the baby crowns, her subconscious achieves an ecstatic release. As Amelia and her husband welcome the newborn, Earhart is revealed to have survived, and is seen looking up at the stars, while Daedalus leaves the hospital carrying a baggie filled with his dead son Icarus’ personal effects. The movement ends  in tender joy and saudade.

Selected Reviews:

The most striking passage in Hagen’s score is the splashy, thrilling orchestral chaos leading to the baby’s birth … and the long, serene afterglow … just wisps of sound to bring down the curtain, echoing the stars coming out overhead, in a reprise of the contemplative atmosphere with which the opera began.

—Gavin Borchert, Seattle Weekly

Hagen has fashioned a score of impassioned and compelling beauty. His melodic lines are eminently singable, and his sumptuous orchestral writing constantly enchants the ear.

—Bernard Jacobsen, Seattle Times

A serious, heartfelt and unusual work … earnest and original.

—Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

Hagen's score is well-composed and, in many respects, a work of genius.

—Ivan Katz, Huffington Post

The music is both highly original and gripping. ... Amelia is a modern opera with traditional values: Hagen's restless, questioning music never loses its heart.

—Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal