Project: The Queens Assassin, opera in three acts, based on L'aigle à deux têtes by Jean Cocteau, libretto adapted by the composer from an English version by Carl Wildman. There are six characters: two sopranos, a tenor, a baritone, a bass-baritone and one silent role. The opera is scored for large orchestra, and features an extensive symphonic prelude in the Romantic fashion, which is devised to allow for separate programming apart from the opera in a concert setting. The work eschews all experimentalism, and concentrates instead on the essential operatic virtues of presenting a forceful story through the different mediums of text, stage, music and grand singing. Through the text is achieved structure, clarity, story and the surface of the character's expressions; from the music, mood, color, complex associations of objects and meanings, internal and often ironic expression of the characters; from the stage, movement, spectacle and concrete realization; from singing, the irreplaceable human component of the individual singer-actors. During residency the prelude was composed in full; a detailed sketch of the first act followed, and a general sketch of the opera as a whole concluded the work completed at Camargo. The prelude creates a microcosm of the drama, with the storm music of the first scene dominating, but not extinguishing, the themes of Stanislaus fleeing his pursuers, his desire to reach the Queen, the Queen's adoration of storms and lastly the apotheosis of their eventual, fatal love. In this music will be found the grand natural settings, the violent, lovely sea-storms of Cassis itself, which found their way into the score at the composer's ready invitation, and to which he owes not only his inspiration but also his permanent affection. A hearing of the prelude is envisioned in New York in the Spring of 1997.