AOP Presents HENRY'S WIFE, EICHMANN

AMERICAN OPERA PROJECTS (AOP) will present concert performances of scenes from two operas-in-development - Henry's Wife, by composer Randall Eng (pictured) and librettist Alexis Bernier, and Eichmann in Jerusalem, by composer Mohammed Fairouz and librettist David ShapirO. Henry's Wife will be presented at Manhattan School of Music's Greenfield Hall (120 Claremont Ave. @122nd St.) on Sunday, March 13 at 2:30pm, continuing a five-year relationship between AOP and Manhattan School of MusiC. Henry's Wife and scenes from Eichmann in Jerusalem will be presented on Sunday, March 20 at 7:00pm at South Oxford Space: 138 South Oxford Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Each semi-staged performance will feature a panel discussion and Q&A with the creators. Tickets are $20; $15 advance; $10 students & seniors, at www.operaprojects.org.

Tenor Thomas Wazelle (New York Symphony Society, Israeli Opera, Tulsa Opera) and a cast of young singers from the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) perform Act II of the haunting love story Henry's Wife about a man who feels compelled to follow the orders of his deceased first wife-- who speaks to him in his dreams-- and risk losing his current family. The March 13 presentation at MSM will be part of the school's annual New American Opera Previews: From Page to Stage series hosted by WQXR's Midge Woolsey. Scott Dunn (Glimmerglass Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra) music directs with stage direction by David Herskovits (Artistic Director, Target Margin Theatre). Scenes from Encompass New Opera Theatre's Angel of the Amazon will also be performed.

On March 20, at South Oxford Space, Henry's Wife will be performed in a pairing with Eichmann in Jerusalem, a new opera that details the trial and demise of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, the infamous "architect of the Holocaust." Eichmann, the fifth installment in an operatic monodrama series: new works developed and/or commissioned and presented by AOP, will feature baritone Ross Benoliel (New York City Opera, Glimmerglass Opera), with Jody Schum music directing and string quartet accompaniment.

The operas are the latest from AOP's First Chance series that presents concert performances of new operas in an intimate format that allows for direct conversation between audience and artist. Operas with scheduled fully staged premieres after passing through AOP's First Chance development program include Séance on a Wet Afternoon (New York City Opera, Opera Santa Barbara), Before Night Falls (Fort Worth Opera), and Heart of Darkness (London's Royal Opera House), among many others.

The AOP Operatic Monodrama Series is a new initiative that aims to champion an operatic form that has been largely overlooked-- the one-act for solo voice. AOP will be commissioning and developing new monodramas by American composers, existing works newly translated/adapted into staged works in English, and reductions of existing monodrama scores to make them more viable for today's audiences and performable in a variety of locations. Projects: The Abbot Agathon, by Arvo Pärt, commissionEd English version by Cori Ellison, first production Jan 2009 in partnership with Works and Process at the Guggenheim; AbSynth featuring composers Caleb Burhans, Florent Ghys, Kevin McFarland, Nico Muhly, Andrew Staniland and Stephen AnDrew Taylor, first workshop production at Galapagos Art Space, April, 2010; Our Basic Nature, by John Glover and Kelley Rourke, first workshop at Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, December, 2010; Nora, In The Great Outdoors, by Daniel Felsenfeld and Will Eno, first workshop at South Oxford Space, February, 2011.