ARKHIPOV
October, 1962. A Soviet submarine headed for Cuba.
A hotheaded captain. A nuclear torpedo. A US quarantine.
A perfect storm, building towards a terrifying close call for humanity.
Every night I dream
I’m drowning in this coffin of a submarine
a hundred fathoms beneath the sea.
I can’t swim to save my life,
but that’s not the worst of it.
The worst is not a dream.
It’s her—
She who sleeps next to me, cold and still.
My torpedo,
who runs hot when triggered—
hot as Hiroshima.
music by Peter Knell
libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann
directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer
conducted by Daniela Candillari
dramaturg: Cori Ellison
produced by Cath Brittan
music workshop 1: LA, 2018
music workshop 2: Seattle Opera, May 2020
concert premiere: Jacaranda, Kirk Douglas Theater, LA, October 2022
2 acts, 10 singing roles, one silent; an orchestra of 17
archival video, score and libretto available upon request
CONCERT PREMIERE PRESS
A desperate saga of men at sea in times of war, it blends the aura of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd with the sum-of-all-fears brinksmanship of The Hunt for Red October.
—San Francisco Classical Voice
“…[Knell and Fleischmann] manage to grab the listener’s attention and hold it. Beginning with the ding of mallet percussion, Knell pulls us right into the story, with running trills, tremolos, and col legno percussive effects from the string section effectively stoking the tension and claustrophobia of being aboard a submarine with a broken air conditioner headed from Murmansk to the Sargasso Sea region east of the Bahamas. There were musically literal depictions of the sub submerging into the deep and resurfacing; soft, sustained double bass bowing that seemed to simulate the motor quietly propelling the craft. Edward Parks III delivered the title role in a strong baritone while conveying a poetic, even visionary side of Arkhipov as he contemplated the night sky, always haunted by what happened on the K-19 sub…”
“…Knell and Fleischmann have superbly captured this story in their ironic juxtaposition of a tragedy barely avoided within a tragic tale of why it came to be so. [The opera] orchestrates human emotions into a musical language, and the cast of Arkhipov succeeds in fully capturing the rage, terror, madness and hope of the event itself.”
—TVolution
The next two hours are spent in the pressure-cooker tension of the submarine cabin as the crew, led by the vocally powerful Edward Parks III as co-captain Arkhipov, sets off toward Cuba.