About

Ouroboros is a three-part exploration of life, death and rebirth, as symbolized by the ancient Greek icon of a serpent eating its own tail. The trilogy, produced by Beth Morrison Projects and The Friends of Madame White Snake, will be presented in Boston in the fall of 2016, both as individual operas and as seven hour full-day events. The production will bring together an acclaimed artistic team, including conductors Carolyn Kuan, Julian Wachner, and Lan Shui, and composers Zhou Long, Paola Prestini, and Scott Wheeler. Many extraordinary Boston music institutions such as The New England Conservatory of Music, The Boston Children’s Chorus, Arts Emerson, The Boston Children’s Museum and the Celebrity Series of Boston are participating in the project.

Madame White Snake, co-commissioned by Opera Boston and the Beijing Music Festival, premiered in 2010 at Opera Boston and was brought to Beijing by Beth Morrison Projects for its Asian premiere at the Beijing Music Festival. Madame White Snake went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2011, and will be performed in concert by the National Taiwan Symphony in the fall of 2013.

Inspiration

OUROBOROS Trilogy, conceived by Charles M. Jacobs and Cerise Lim Jacobs, is a vision long deferred, beginning in places as disparate as Brooklyn, New York and colonial Singapore,and then spanning the globe in a world-wide sojourn of place, time, space and mind. Unable to find the voice to express her concept of reality in art and lacking the courage to try, Cerise practiced law for 25 years. Her marriage to Charles Jacobs, a free-spirited entrepreneur and raconteur, freed her from convention and together, the Jacobs conceived of OUROBOROS - the snake eating its tail, simultaneously dying and regenerating - a metaphor for the natural, political, philosophical and religious state of our world. They launched one opera in the Trilogy, Madame White Snake, to great acclaim in 2010. Charles died shortly thereafter. On the second anniversary of his passing, Cerise determined to complete the OUROBOROS circle. OUROBOROS Trilogy is the Jacobs' tribute to those who dared leap into the void before, those who are in midair now and those who will come after.

Three Living Composers

OUROBOROS Trilogy comprises: NAGA composed by Scott Wheeler, MADAME WHITE SNAKE composed by Zhou Long, and GILGAMESH composed by Paola Prestini. Each opera stands alone artistically; yet when performed together in a complete circle, the totality of the creator's vision is revealed.

Watch Cerise's "TED Talk" About Madame White Snake From December 2013.