Heart of a Dog
He composed two operas, "The Wife of Martin Guerre" (1956) and "The Murder of Comrade Sharik" (1973), which are markedly different in style. The first is a somber tale of a 16th-century French peasant's disappearance and return upon which he is suspected to be an impostor; the music is marked by dissonance which emphasizes the tension in the story, particularly in the final courtroom scene. The second is more lighthearted and comic; Bergsma wrote his own libretto after the story "Heart of a Dog" by Mikhail Bulgakov, which involves a dog transforming into a citizen of 1920s Moscow as a result of a doctor's experiments. The partially aleatoric orchestral writing is intended to be the voice of Stalin, and uses quotes from "Carmen", "La traviata" and "Don Giovanni" for comedic effect. He was also a skillful composer of smaller works, including many for chamber ensemble and solo piano as well as orchestral writings.