Jeff Beal Premieres Song Cycle for Rachel Willis-Sørensen in Berlin

Emmy-winning composer Jeff Beal premiered a new song cycle for soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen at the Berlin Staatsoper on Nov. 1, with recitals to follow in California and France.

Beal, whose credits range from "Pollock" and "Monk" to "House of Cards," "Carnivàle," "Rome," "Appaloosa" and "All Her Fault," spoke to OperaWire about how the four-song cycle came together in under a year.

How the collaboration began

The two met through mutual friend Austin Wintory, a Los Angeles composer, while seated next to each other at a Metropolitan Opera performance of "La Bohème." "I immediately thought Rachel was a real firecracker—funny, smart, and obviously very artistic and passionate about her art and her love of opera," Beal said. He gave her a CD of his song cycle "The Paper Lined Shack" by way of introduction.

Soon after, he heard her sing Leonora at the Met and was, in his words, completely enamored of her voice and stage presence. A chance second meeting at the Met came just after Willis-Sørensen won the Beverly Sills Award. Beal invited her to his studio to hear the first act of his opera "The Magical Baba Sisters" — and she liked it.

The project crystallized after a powerful, lyrical "Arabella" at the Met. Beal texted her his praise and his wish to compose for her someday. Days later, she had just booked solo recitals in Berlin and at Stanford and asked him for original material. "Well, here we are, less than a year later!" he said.

What the songs are about

Willis-Sørensen conceived the cycle's concept herself. "All of the texts in some way provide an answer to what feels like an often negative and cruel world," Beal explained. "It's a meditation on the choices we all have in little and in big ways."

The four songs draw on varied texts:

• two poems by Kay Ryan, which Beal's wife Joan helped him sift through;
• "Power" by Carol Lynn Pearson, brought by Willis-Sørensen;
• a poem Willis-Sørensen wrote herself and texted to the Beals, which the composer set to music.

"You can't get much more personal and engaged than that!" Beal said. He praised her poem's honesty and its "real dramatic build and arc," a shape that structured the whole cycle.

Why writing for soprano comes naturally

Beal met his wife, Joan Beal, at the Eastman School in 1980 and they married in 1984. Her coloratura soprano (a light, agile high voice) appears on many of his film scores and albums, including "House of Cards," "Carnivàle" and "Rome." "I think the sound of a soprano is somehow imprinted on me at this point!" he said. Joan has retired from performing, but those years of collaboration still fuel his writing for the voice.

The couple exchanged long WhatsApp voice messages with Willis-Sørensen during composition, sending songs as they were finished.

What does the Berlin premiere mean?

Beal's first visit to the Staatsoper was for "Die Meistersinger" in 2019, conducted by Daniel Barenboim — "a transformative experience," he recalled. Premiering on that same stage with "one of the opera world's truly greatest sopranos" was, he said, "something I could never even have dreamed of."

He praised the house's acoustics despite its size, calling it "befitting of Rachel's talent that she has been invited to give a solo recital in this special temple of singing."

Beal also addressed the timing. "It's an odd time to be an American abroad," he said, criticizing the current administration for setting back international relations "by decades with its divisive, hateful policies and rhetoric." He framed the cycle not as a political statement but as "an honest response to our present moment" — a work, in his words, "celebrating the true spirit of our country: the values of compassion and kindness."

After Berlin, the cycle travels with Willis-Sørensen to California and then to France for two further recitals, giving audiences on both sides of the Atlantic a first hear of one of Hollywood's most prolific composers writing for the concert stage.