The Fall of the House of Usher
An Opera in Two Acts by Philip Glass
Libretto by Arthur Yorinks
Based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe
1988 © Dunvagen Music Publishers. Used by Permission.
Sung in English with English captions available.
Boston Lyric Opera gives an arthouse cinematic treatment to Philip Glass’ opera The Fall of the House of Usher, now streaming exclusively on BLO’s operabox.tv. This chilling film places Edgar Allan Poe’s iconic gothic horror story in the imagination of a migrant child as she journeys into the United States. Experience the world of the Ushers through her eyes, as she reaches for the promise of the American Dream. Music comes to life through hand-drawn animation, stop-motion film, and archival footage, featuring a brand-new recording by BLO artists.
Learn more about Edgar Allan Poe’s story, Phillip Glass’ opera, and BLO’s brand new film through our virtual reading room experience, Into the House of Usher.
Press Release
This synopsis represents three interwoven stories – Poe’s original story; the story of Luna, a young girl from Guatemala City; and references of an American story shown through archival images. These pieces frame the original opera libretto.
Please note this synopsis contains spoilers for the film experience.
Luna, a young girl, is watching television at home in Guatemala City when her mother receives a phone call. They flee violence. Simultaneously, William rushes to the home of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, who has sent him a letter begging him to visit. Roderick and his sister, Madeline, are the last left of the Usher family, and Madeline is mysteriously ill. Upon entering the gloomy home, William meets a physician, who warns him not to upset the household. Meanwhile, archival television footage juxtaposes idyllic images of American family life, with that of children in detention centers, like the one where we see Luna again.
Luna stumbles across an abandoned dollhouse. We learn that the Ushers’ story is taking place within that dollhouse and Luna’s imagination. Roderick, pale and drawn, greets William, but when William gives him a music box as a gift, Roderick recoils from its sound. His nerves are overwrought from caring for Madeline, and he says that he cannot leave the house. Archival footage shows images of life in the United States. Outside the House of Usher, a storm rages. William observes Roderick brushing Madeline’s hair and is unnerved. He tries to sleep, but is awakened by troubling dreams of Roderick and Madeline.
Luna stares out the window at the other children in the detention yard. Images describe dancing, joyful gatherings, and birds flying free, which soon are replaced by news reports showing crowds of migrant families. Madeline has died, as has Luna’s pet chick. In the dollhouse, Madeline’s death casts a shadow over the House of Usher. William helps Roderick carry Madeline’s coffin down to the tomb under the house. Roderick reveals that he and Madeline were twins. He becomes agitated, and William tries to soothe him. Luna climbs into a ditch in the detention yard.
Luna is carried inside and handcuffed. A flashback depicts Luna and her mother crossing into the United States. William and Roderick hear frightening noises, and a window blows open. Madeline suddenly appears. A swarm of birds materialize, and the detention center falls to pieces.
Creative Team
Yuki Izumihara is a scenic, projection, and production designer based in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured at L.A. Opera, the New World Symphony, The Adrienne Arsht Center, San Diego Opera, the Hammer Museum, Getty Villa Museum, and various theaters in Los Angeles. Izumihara has worked as a scenic and projection designer for the Miami Classical Music Festival for the past five years, designing productions including The Flying Dutchman, The Marriage of Figaro, Dead Man Walking, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Tales of Hoffman, The Crucible, The Magic Flute, and The Turn of the Screw. Recent engagements include Les Enfants Terribles with Opera Omaha, Don Giovanni with Jacksonville Symphony, and Measuring Eternity at TEDxUCLA. As a visual artist, she has been commissioned to create Opera Omaha’s ONE Festival season cover work for the last three years, join the post-production team of Sun Valley Music Festival 2020 as a title card designer, and participated as a featured artist of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s season Close Quarters. 
Cast
Originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Jesse Darden was the 2018-2019 Principal Artist-In-Residence with Boston Lyric Opera. With the company, he was seen as A Boy in the world premiere of Schoenberg in Hollywood, Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia, and Luke in The Handmaid’s Tale. Jesse returned to Boston Lyric Opera in November 2019 to portray Timothy in Fellow Travelers to great acclaim. Jesse made his Union Avenue Opera debut in 2019 in the title role of Candide. Jesse spent his 2017 and 2018 summers as an Apprentice Artist with the Santa Fe Opera, performing several small roles, and covering the role of Robert Wilson in Doctor Atomic. Jesse has completed apprenticeships with Chautauqua Opera and Opera North. Jesse was a New England Regional Finalist with the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, won Third Prize in the Gerda Lissner International Voice Competition, received the Chautauqua Opera Studio Artist Award, and received the Boston Lyric Opera Shrestinian Award for Excellence. He has performed extensively with Boston Lyric Opera, Odyssey Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Dartmouth College, New York Festival of Song, the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra, Boston University Opera Institute, Piedmont Opera, Chautauqua Opera, and the Chautauqua Symphony.
GRAMMY® Award-winning baritone Daniel Belcher has performed in many of the world’s music capitals, including Paris, London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Geneva, Madrid, Toronto, Montreal, Tokyo, Seoul and Houston. With a repertoire of more than 80 roles, Belcher has championed roles from the Baroque to those composed expressly for him. He came to international attention in 2004 creating the role of Prior Walter in Peter Eötvös’ Angels in America for the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Belcher recently created the roles of Alfred Stieglitz in Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed’s world premiere of Today it Rains with Opera Parallele, Inspector Kildare in Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell’s Elizabeth Cree at Opera Philadelphia, James Addison III in Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek’s The House Without a Christmas Tree at Houston Grand Opera, Lord Bellingham in Lori Laitman’s The Scarlet Letter at Opera Colorado, Brian Castner in Jeremy Howard Beck’s The Long Walk with Opera Saratoga, and Robert Kennedy in Robin de Raaff’s Waiting for Miss Monroe for his debut at The Netherlands Opera and Holland Festival. Other world premiere roles include John Brooke in Mark Adamo’s Little Women, Andy Warhol in Michael Daugherty’s Jackie O (and multiple roles in Tod Machover’s Resurrection, all with Houston Grand Opera. Additional recent engagements include Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Fredrik Egerman in A Little Night Music at Madison Opera, and Beaumarchais in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles as well as reprising his Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia at Chautauqua Opera.
Christon Carney, a native of Nashville, TN, currently calls New England home. He received his Masters of Music in Vocal Performance from the New England Conservatory and his Bachelors of Music in Music Education from Lipscomb University. He’s debuted with Boston Lyric Opera as Second Villager in the 2019 production of Pagliacci, and has continued to perform with BLO’s chorus. Christon has also debuted with the Nashville Opera during their production of La Traviata as Giuseppe. He has been honored to be a finalist in the Alltech Vocal Scholarship Competition, as well as, the Harlem Opera Theatre Competition. He has participated in vocal ensembles such as, the Boston Lyric Opera Chorus, the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony Chorus and Chamber Chorus, Nashville Opera Chorus, Nashville’s Heimermann Chorale and helped to premiere several large works by living composers.
Jorgeandrés Camargo, Bass, a native of Houston, Texas, holds performance degrees from Eastman School of Music and Boston University Opera Institute. Recent performances include the role of Figaro in The Marriage of Fígaro with Boston Opera Collaborative, and Rocco in Fidelio (a virtual zoom opera) with Promenade Opera Project. He will return to Boston Lyric Opera next season as Il Bonze in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Other roles include Il Gran Sacerdote in Nabucco, Mephistopheles in Louisville Ballet’s ‘Project Faust’, Pistola in Falstaff, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Don Alfonso in Cosí fan tutte, Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro, Geronimo in Il matrimonial segreto, Capitán in Florencia en el Amazonas, Prophet/King in Dark Sisters, Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Roy Cohn in Angels in America. Mr. Camargo can also be heard on the Sound Mirror recording of Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock. He has previously worked with Kentucky Opera, Ojai Music Festival, CoOperative, Crested Butte Music Festival, Opera Breve, First Coast Opera, American Lyric Theater, and Opera Saratoga.
Sheila Vand is an actress and artist who has appeared in numerous award-winning films such as The Rental (2021 Critics Choice Super Award nominee – Best Actress, Best film), We The Animals (2019 Independent Spirit Award nominee, 2018 Sundance NEXT Innovator Prize), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Gotham award winner, Independent Spirit award nominee), ARGO (Academy Award winner), and many more. Her stage work includes a Broadway debut alongside Robin Williams in the Pulitzer Prize finalist Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, as well as the world premiere of Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the LA Philharmonic. Sheila can be currently seen starring in internationally-acclaimed artist Shirin Neshat’s exhibit Land of Dreams at The Gladstone Gallery in NYC, as well as the upcoming second season of TNT’s Snowpiercer alongside Daveed Diggs. Sheila has served on juries at the Sundance Film Festival and the Vimeo Film Festival. Her own original works include Sneaky Nietzsche (a theatrical experience mounted at LACMA) and MILK: What Will You Make of Me? (a visual art collaboration with TED-fellow Alexa Meade).Into the House of Usher: BLO’s Virtual Reading Room
BLO invites you Into the House of Usher to explore and learn about Edgar Allan Poe’s story, Phillip Glass’ opera, and BLO’s brand new film. Engage where history and present day meet in this virtual reading room, and even add your own creative brilliance by contributing to our community short story. Can you discover all the mysteries this house has to tell?
Virtual Stages: Learning to Engage in a Pandemic
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world as we knew it. New guidelines for public life were put in place, impacting every corner of our society. Doors closed, programs were canceled, gatherings were banned, and the arts sector was all but decimated. We found ourselves pondering: how can the arts survive if we are not allowed to perform, and our audience is not permitted to watch?Yet, seemingly overnight, a virtual world rapidly developed and became the new normal. Companies, artists, and everyone really, dove headfirst into cyberspace and started innovating. Suddenly, our daily activities became available online, including work, [...]
The Fall of the House of Usher & Uncanny Truths of American Identity
Rumor has it that Edgar Allan Poe modeled the House of Usher on a dwelling in Boston with a gruesome secret. The Tremont Street home of eighteenth-century bookseller Hezekiah Usher (located just a few blocks from the house where Poe was born, in 1809) was demolished in 1830, and two bodies were said to have been discovered in the basement, locked in a ghastly embrace. But that is just a rumor. The precise origins of Poe’s celebrated story remain elusive – like so many elements of the work itself. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is shrouded in uncertainty. [...]
The Reviews are In!
“[An] arresting stop-motion film.” – The New Yorker
“…[BLO’s] most ambitious and spectacular project of the season” – The Boston Globe
“The striking visual components embrace the opera’s ambiguity and nightmarish ambiance.” – The Wall Street Journal
“Amazing hand-drawn and stop-motion footage.” – Cinema Junkie/KPBS
“The crushing forces of the pandemic, shaped by the news media, sculpt this film into something like a diamond. Beautiful, though with cutting edges.” – WBUR/The Artery
For press images, please visit
The Fall of the House of Usher Media Kit
Images: operabox.tv/Boston Lyric Opera