Composer Nathan Hall Puts a Relevant Spin on Opera With Atlas of Remote Islands

For Denver-based composer Nathan Hall, creating a new work always begins with a clean slate, ready to be twisted into something unexpected by his far-out imagination. His latest work, an opera called Atlas of Remote Islands, is based on an illustrated traveler’s dream diary and map book of the same name by Judith Schalansky, originally published in 2009.

The opera, a collaboration with the singers of Opera on Tap Colorado and librettist Alan Olejniczak, premieres on Friday, May 6, and Saturday, May 7, for two performances at MCA Denver’s Holiday Theater.

Hall says the ideas in Atlas of Remote Islands, which he found in 2017 while browsing in an Aspen book store, differ completely from his last opera, a work about shibari bondage and finding one’s safe space in the queer…