AOP Presents New Musical Scenes 5/29-31, PAUL'S CASE And SHARON'S GRAVE

AMERICAN OPERA PROJECTS (AOP) "a valuable company [that] offers a chance to look in on operas in progress by talented composers." (The New Yorker) will present evenings of concert readings from two operas-in-development: Paul's Case, by Gregory Spears, who "fashioned a dreamy suspense" (The New York Times) with his instrumental work "Finishing" at Zankel Hall in November, and Sharon's Grave by Richard Wargo, hailed by Opera News as "a born opera composer."

The program will be presented on Friday, May 29 and Saturday, May 30, 8pm at South Oxford Space, 138 South Oxford Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and Sunday, May 31, 5pm at McAlpin RecitAl Hall at Princeton University, NJ, sponsored by the Dept. of Music. Tickets to each performance are $15 and may be reserved by calling 718-398-4024 or by visiting www.operaprojects.org.

Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather's story of the same name with a libretto by the composer and Kathryn Walat, Paul's Case chronicles the dissolution of a high school dandy living in sooty turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh. In Richard Wargo's Sharon's Grave, a dark comedy based on the play by John B. Keane, family members scheme to inherit the land of a dying patriarch against a backdrop of Irish folklore and legend.

Mr. Spears' instrumental music has been called "dreamy" (The New York Times) and "remarkable" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). He has had recent works premiered at Carnegie Hall choreographed by dance luminaries such as Christopher Williams. Mr. Spears began development on Paul's Case during the composer's 2007-08 tenure with the AOP series Composers & the Voice. Heralded by The Philadelphia Enquirer as "a fresh new voice in American opera," composer Richard Wargo's (The Music Shop) opera Ballymore, based on Brian Friel's play "Lovers," premiered in 1999 at the Skylight Opera Theatre, where it was recorded for PBS.

Singers slated to perform include New York City Opera baritone Marcus DeLoach, tenor Chad Johnson (BAM, Glimmerglass Opera), and Hai-Ting Chinn (The Wooster Group's La Didone, AOP's Darkling) under the musical direction of Jennifer Peterson (Paul's Case) and Steven Osgood (Sharon's Grave). A panel discussion and post-show reception with both composers and the cast will take place after each performance.

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