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IDENTIFICATION AND BIO: Songwriter/Singer, Playwright, Poet, Stage Director, Opera Translator
B.A. in English Literature, Georgeown University, Washington, DC (1966)
Even in high school Gus Motta showed a passion for opera and an affinity for teaching, writing and directing. He organized trips to the Metropolitan Opera for his fellow students, and held "classes" for them beforehand so they would know what they were hearing. He directed and wrote incidental music for a student production of Macbeth. And the school literary magazine he founded and wrote for, The Laureate, still exists today. As a student at Georgetown University in the 1960s Motta wrote, directed and produced three original musicals — Gambit (1963), 571 B.C. (1964) and My Son Hamlet (1968) — with fellow undergraduate Richard Murphy, and wrote incidental music for productions of The Good Woman of Setzuan, Hetty and Mourning Becomes Electra. Motta entered the graduate theater program in Stage Direction at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and received Shubert Fellowships in Playwriting in 1966 and 1967. He directed several student productions including Albee's Tiny Alice, and created a sensation with his modern production of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. He also wrote and produced an anti-war play, Heresiarch, and founded and directed a student summer stock company. Some of the people he worked with in those years, such as set and costume designer John Wright Stevens and stage manager Margaret Peckham, along with Richard Murphy, remained his lifelong friends. In 1969 Motta pursued postgraduate studies in playwriting at Columbia University and received another Shubert Fellowship in Playwriting. He directed his own modern adaptation of Die Entfuehrung Aus Dem Serail with members of the New York City Opera and Metropolitan Opera Studio in 1971, and wrote the music for an erotic puppet show, Kumquats, given by Wayland Flowers and "Madame" late at night at the Village Gate after performances of Jacques Brel. By 1974 Motta was a fellow of the National Opera Institute, had received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for opera libretto translation and served as Assistant Director of the Washington Opera Company at the Kennedy Center, and was active as a guest director in the United States and Europe, including opera companies in the Netherlands and East Germany. He directed Wars of the Roses and Richard III as summer theatre director at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and staged other productions at Houston Grand Opera, Opera Society of Washington, Augusta Opera, Tanglewood Festival and Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Michael Steinberg praised him in a Cincinnati Globe review entitled "An Astonishing Performance of Moses and Aron": "Gustavo Motta...dazzled with his sleight-of-hand in suggesting a performance more fully staged than it in fact was.... the Golden Calf scene was a marvel of discretion and intense sensuality... [The production] was so direct, so immense in its impact, that it was hard to think of 'Moses and Aron' as a problem opera. Afterwards, Schoenberg's son, Lawrence, who has seen more than 20 stage performances of 'Moses and Aron,' said, 'It all seemed so easy, I don't think anyone here realizes what a fantastic job they did.'" In San Francisco he directed a small theater group in an experimental production of Woyzeck; directed and produced "I Am A Concert," a major fund-raising event for the Hunger Project, involving more than 50 artists, at the War Memorial; and began giving solo concerts of his own songs. A concert at First Unitarian Church in the mid-1970s was titled "What's-A-Motta?/A Musical Coming Out." In 1980 Motta moved to New York, directed a Gilbert & Sullivan production for the Blue Hill Troupe, and continued to perform his songs, alone and with Cornelia Ladas (now Iredell) and other musicians, in concerts and cabarets in New York (Grady's, Kate's, Jan Wallman's, Old Merchant House), Philadelphia (Gay Community Center) and San Francisco. In the 1980s Motta also traveled frequently to Philadelphia and San Francisco as an account executive for the Nexis division of Mead Data Central. In 1985 Motta moved to Philadelphia and collaborated with Richard Murphy and John Wright Stevens to write and produce another original musical, The Green Monkey, at the Plays & Players Theater as a benefit for the Philadelphia AIDS Task Force. The cast consisted of singers Karen Saillant, Rossana Fichera and Cornelia Ladas and dancer/actor Otis Zachary. The following year Motta gave a benefit concert for the Task Force — "Painters/A Concert of Songs by Gustavo Motta" — at The Academy of Vocal Arts with Ladas, Saillant and cellist Lisa Philabaum. After testing positive for HIV in 1987 he devoted himself full-time to recording and performing his music in solo concerts and AIDS benefits. He appeared in Philadelphia's first Living Legacy Festival in 1988. Following a diagnosis of full-blown AIDS in 1991, Motta returned to New York and redoubled his efforts to ensure that his songs would be preserved and performed. He gave concerts at the Lesbian & Gay Community Center, The Rheedlen Foundation, Manhattan Center for Living, Trinity School and Greenwich House Music School, and worked with such groups as OutMusic and Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. In January 1992 he gathered several longtime musical friends — vocalists Jason Bauer, Win Rutherford and Cornelia Iredell — to record 65 of his songs. He was putting the final touches on this taping project at the time of his death. Gustavo Motta died of AIDS in New York at the age of 48 on February 6, 1993. His songs "Let There Be Love" and "Joe & Marie" were performed by Grant King and Dan Martin in their program "Brothering: Songs of Love, Passion and Healing" at the Philadelphia Ethical Society in October 1993. Steve Ross performed "Through The Music" and "Joe & Marie" in the Benson AIDS Series in December 1993. — Nurit Tilles
SONGS (1963-1993)
Arise My Love (text adapted from Song of Solomon)
MUSICAL THEATRE
Gambit (1963)
571 B.C. (1964)
My Son Hamlet (also known as Inside/Out) (1968)
Kumquats, The World's First Erotic Puppet Show (1971)
The Green Monkey (1985)
INCIDENTAL MUSIC/SONG SETTINGS
The Good Woman of Setzuan (1965)
Hetty (1965)
The Sound of Muzak (1966)
Mourning Becomes Electra
The Winter's Tale
Woyzeck (1977)
PLAYS
Heresiarch (late 1960s)
[title unknown] (1971)
Jugglers (1968)
UNCOMPLETED WORKS:
SONG LYRICS
OPERA TRANSLATIONS
PUBLISHED POEMS
UNPUBLISHED POEMS
OTHER WRITINGS
Gustavo Motta Songs: 1963-1993. A final project of the composer was a self-published studio recording of his songs 1963-1993 (see Works, above), released in 1993 after his death. Gustavo Motta, piano, with Jason Bauer, Win Rutherford and Cornelia Iredell, vocals. Produced by Alexander Bauer and Gustavo Motta. Four-cassette set with lyrics booklet. Gustavo Motta: Through the Music, self-published cassette recording of nine songs: Through The Music, Chestnut Man, Fourteenth Street, Franklin, Celebrate Yourself, Gonna Miss Tomorrow, Bananas On The Moon, Who We Are, One With you. Gustavo Motta, piano and vocals. Produced by Alex Bauer and Gustavo Motta (1990). Sunday Evenings: A Collection of 18 Songs/Words & Music by Gustavo A. Motta, Jr., cassette recording (1983). Registered with Library of Congress March 18, 1983. 571 B.C.: An Original Musical Comedy by Gus Motta, Richard Murphy and Michael Schumaecker, music and lyrics by Gus Motta, Georgetown University Productions, Custom Recordings Company LP (1964). Gambit: A Musical Legend by Gus Motta and Richard Murphy, music and lyrics by Gus Motta, Georgetown University Productions, Custom Recordings Company LP (1963).
PERFORMING RIGHTS AFFILIATION:
RESOURCES:
MUSICAL EXECUTOR:
OTHER CONTACTS:
Barbara Lutz
Margaret Peckham (stage manager and friend)
ARCHIVES:
Jo Marian Motta Going has some material, including video of 1992 OutMusic performance. Barbara Lutz has some material. Margaret Peckham has stage manager's script for The Green Monkey. Mimi Sterne-Wolf has "Through the Music" and "Joe and Marie"; lyrics booklet; other songs and recordings. Estate Project Music Archive has all cassette recordings, lyrics booklet, lead sheets to three songs, copy of "City/Country" and copies of some press articles. |
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