MATA HARI

“Bracingly unsentimental…Mr. Marks’s most striking innovation is a bold mix of vocal styles…the different sonic worlds came together poignantly…Mr. Peers’s smart libretto adopts a process that peels away his title character’s contradictions, unreliable memories, half-lies and compromising admissions in a way that subtly notches up the pathos”
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times

“Absorbing, finely-crafted…opera, at its best, is a form that can dispatch narrative and dramatic complications with a single melody or modulation, and Mata Hari is full of intelligent dramatic thinking and fine musical craft”
George Grella, New York Classical Review

“Mata Hari, a speaking role played by a commanding Tina Mitchell, gains our sympathy with ease…Mary Mackenzie as the crass nun, and the only other female performer and only female singing voice, wins our support, too, by being the sole supporter of our persecuted hero. Every performer has moments to shine, and the stylistically mixed music by Matt Marks provides a welcome variety to the score. It lives by its own rules, just as Mata Hari did”
Rachel Karp, Contemporary Performance