SYNOPSIS

USHER HOUSE

Derived from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Usher House has Poe taking the stage himself as the narrator and main character. Poe’s macabre tale follows the reclusive Roderick Usher, who lives with his ailing twin sister Madeline and the sinister Doctor Primus in their vast ancestral home that is alive with the ghosts of the past. When Roderick’s old friend “Eddie” Poe visits, they become inescapably drawn into an otherworldly sequence of events, including Madeline’s apparent death and burial in a vault beneath the house. The climax of the story occurs when Madeline’s figure appears at the bedroom door during a storm—she had been buried alive and has clawed her way out of the vault to find her brother. As Poe flees the scene, he turns back to see the House of Usher splitting in two, collapsing around the siblings.

THE CANTERVILLE GHOST

The opera is based on Oscar Wilde’s story of the same name. Sir Simon de Canterville, a centuries-old spirit, tries desperately to scare the current residents of Canterville Chase. But his new “audience,” a family of well-to-do Americans, doesn’t take his ghostly presence seriously. He is admonished by the adults and tormented by the family’s rambunctious two sons. Poor Sir Simon feels like a once-great actor, whose art no longer makes an impression. Only the young daughter, Virginia, feels sympathy for the Canterville ghost. She helps the spirit find his eternal rest in the end.