Freshwater is a two-act chamber opera

Chamber opera

Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small...

 composed by Andy Vores

Andy Vores

Andy Vores is a Welsh classical music and opera composer. He has lived in the United States since 1986 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.-Education:Vores studied composition at Lancaster University in Lancaster, England...

, based on the 1929 comic play by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....

. Vores received assistance in creating the opera from Quentin Bell, Woolf's nephew and executor, who provided a rarely seen earlier version of the text that served as the inspiration for several passages of the libretto.

Freshwater was commissioned by the Boston University

Boston University

Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

Opera Institute and had its world premiere on December 2, 1994 at the Huntington Theatre in Boston.