With Penthesilea, his seventh opera, Pascal Dusapin has written a wild and powerful masterpiece: the story of a terrible love that quot;conveys a concern to the world.quot; The composer achieves between song and breath a passionate art of vocality. His music, intense and refined, creates a subtly colored enigmatic atmosphere in the dark and barbarous war between Achilles and Penthesilea. Pascal Dusapin (born 29 May 1955) is a contemporary French composer born in Nancy, France. His music is marked by it's microtonality, tension, and energy. A pupil of Iannis Xenakis and Franco Donatoni and an admirer of Varèse, Dusapin studied at the University of Paris I and Paris VIII during the 1970s. His music is full of quot;romantic constraintquot;, and he rejects the use of electronics, percussion other than timpani, and, up until the late 1990s, piano. His melodies have a vocal quality, even in purely instrumental works. Dusapin has composed solo, chamber, orchestral, vocal, and choral works, as well as several operas, and has been honored with numerous prizes and awards.
