On the 22nd of March 2025 Joyce DiDonato, the famous American mezzo-soprano performed the world premiere of 'Another Eve' at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, a composition by Rachel Portman in collaboration with the American librettist Gene Scheer. This expanded work is their second collaboration since they first collaborated on 'The First Morning Of The World' in 2022.
The 25 minute 'song-cycle', an expanded version of 'The First Morning Of The World', is a commission of the Konzerthaus Dortmund and the music college Winterthur and consists of seven parts:
- The First Morning Of The World
- Another Eve
- Breathing
- Holding On
- Why A Garden
- Eden’s Seed
- Tip Of Your Tongue
The premiere of this cycle is designed by DiDonato together with conductor Maxim Emelyanychev and the ensemble Il pomo d’oro. The concerto is based on Mozart's Symphony No. 1 and the »Jupiter’s Symphony – works that mark the beginning and highlight of his symphonic work and thus span the musical arc between origin and mastery.
Rachel Portman and Gene Scheer commented on the new piece: "As Joyce concluded her Eden world tour, she invited us to create a song cycle that would further explore the themes we had begun to uncover in our previous collaboration, The First Morning of the World. That piece, rooted in the desire to connect with the essence of creation and find harmony within nature’s rhythms, became the foundation for 'Another Eve'. Each song in the cycle reflects a different impulse to embrace perspectives that emerge from the idea of Eden. 'The First Morning Of The World' was like a stone cast into a pond—its ripples expanding in many directions, yet all leading back to a shared hope: a deep, resonant connection to the world around and within us. The borders of Eden, of course, are not drawn on any map. Yet, guided by Joyce’s luminous voice and her extraordinary ability to communicate, we set out to create songs that might make us feel as if she had been there—returning not just with music, but with an experience she could share, allowing us to glimpse, if just for a moment, that world through her."