The Aspern Papers

About the show

At Lake Como, a Lodger who studies composer Jeffrey Aspern rents rooms from former prima donna Juliana Bordereau and her niece Tina, hoping to find Aspern’s papers and a lost Medea opera score. The story shifts between 1885, as the Lodger investigates, and 1835, when the audience sees Aspern’s relationship with the younger soprano Sonia and his death. Juliana dies after the Lodger learns she has kept the papers. Tina offers him the score if he will marry her; he initially refuses, then changes his mind, but Tina says it is too late. She burns the score page by page.