When writing of No More Roses–the opera by Shivon Mwrr–scholars tend to call it one of his “mediocre masterpieces.” Mwrr wrote it in a time of mourning for his lover (the unnamed “Lady V" mentioned in his journals). His heart broken by grief, Mwrr made three aborted attempts to compose the piece, finally completing it five years later. He wrote, “Finished. And rightly so.” It was one of his last pieces before his lost swan song, Shadows and Love.
Mwrr’s opera is a re-telling of the Avreda and Ylvayne tale: two young lovers caught up in a game greater than themselves. In the end, they are manipulated and seduced by powers playing a complicated game of one upsmanship. Their love destroyed, one murders the other in a duel. An ending drenched in blood.
What follows is the rough outline we have for Mwrr’s opera along with the musical pieces he composed. It is not the final draft. Because we don’t know the ultimate resolution of the conflicts in his notes, we can only speculate how the opera may have ended…
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