Richard Sasanow - Page 13

'A Ukrainian Jew walked into a bar in Havana....' Wait, haven't I heard this one before? Not by a longshot. HATUEY: MEMORY OF FIRE, the opera by Frank London and Elise Thoron, performed in Yiddish, English and Spanish, is a unique work that ambitiously crosses many creative lines in a work inspired by a kind of Yiddish epic poem.

“I was, like many composers, not someone who was immediately in love with the human voice, the operatic voice, in new music,” says Lembit Beecher, whose opinion has definitely changed. He has become a powerful new force in the medium, with his new opera, SKY ON SWINGS, written with librettist Hannah Moskovitch and directed by Joanna Settle, opening the second year of Opera Philadelphia's Festival, O18, on September 20. It stars two formidable mezzos, Frederica von Stade and Marietta Simpson.

Soprano Julia Bullock is at the Met in New York this year--but not necessarily the one that comes to mind when you're thinking about performances by an opera singer. It's the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she kicked off her year as Artist-in-Residence (2018-2019) on Saturday night with “History's Persistent Voice,” the first in a series of five concerts.

You can't accuse Opera Philadelphia's O18 Festival--running September 20-30 at various city venues--of being predictable. But no one would chastise you if you were to think: How do you follow-up what seems like a once-in-a-lifetime event, last year's O17? Well, as Monty Python used to say, 'And now for something completely different...'

Before there was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, there was Antonio Salieri. Today, most people only know the latter as a character in the play AMADEUS and its Oscar-winning film version, and not as head of all things musical in Vienna for decades and a prolific composer. You've got to give points to the spunky little Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble for digging up Salieri's 1789 work LA CIFRA (THE CYPHER), an opera buffa popular in its time, and giving its US premiere.

“In Rigoletto we're dealing with abuse of women, male power, rape, murder. Obviously, the stories carry an unbelievable weight to them,” says Jonathon Loy, who's not only the stage director of the Berkshire Opera Festival's RIGOLETTO opening on August 25, but also the company's General director. 'In this #MeToo time, I need to communicate why the opera is so relevant to today's audiences, young and old--and why everyone will relate to what's going on.”

Lincoln Center's MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL is over for the season and finished up with a program that was an oddity because it wasn't mostly Mozart (or no Mozart) but all Mozart. Well, hooray for the 18th century. I was happy to be back in the bosom of the festival's namesake. Does that make me a bad person?

Ashley Fure's and Adam Fure's THE FORCE OF THINGS: AN OPERA FOR OBJECTS--one of this week's unusual attractions at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival--took place at Brooklyn's Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet. As far as I could tell, that first sentence was filled with misnomers: no recognizable opera, no Mozart--and no classical ballet either. But what the piece may lack in clarity, it gains in its boundary-stretching reminder that while we're sitting around, going about our business, climate change is happening. Now.

It was 'out with the old (i.e., Caramoor) and in with the new (i.e., Purchase College)' for Will Crutchfield's love affair with all things bel canto this weekend, and what better way to get things rolling at his new company, Teatro Nuovo, than Rossini's TANCREDI. After all, it was the master's first big hit, written in just a month when Rossini was not yet 21.

Anyone who loves Leos Janacek's gorgeous but grim operas--JENUFA, KATYA KABANOVA, MAKROPOLOUS--might be surprised by THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN. It's being presented, now through August, in a handsome production at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY.

Yes, it's still the Leonard Bernstein centennial and what better way to celebrate than at the Glimmerglass Festival with WEST SIDE STORY. It remains a unique creation, the collaboration of four geniuses: Bernstein himself, of course, Jerome Robbins (choreographer-director), Arthur Laurents (book) and then-newcomer Stephen Sondheim (lyricist/co-lyricist). Directed here with a deft hand by Francesca Zambello, the Festival's Artistic & General Director, and choreographed by Julio Monge

None of the three pieces that I saw at the Glimmerglass Festival near Cooperstown, NY, last weekend was exactly what it seemed to be: Is CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN a fairy story or a cautionary tale? Is WEST SIDE STORY simply in a class of its own? Does SILENT NIGHT find that war is hell—or that hell is simply other people? Let's begin with SILENT NIGHT.

This week, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival added its two-cents to the Leonard Bernstein centennial festivities, with the first of two performances of Bernstein's MASS: A THEATRE PIECE FOR SINGERS, PLAYS AND DANCERS, in an environmental production by Elkhanah Pulitzer.

When Stephen Sondheim was asked was asked about whether his great musical drama SWEENEY TODD was a musical or an opera, he once responded, “When it's done in a theatre, it's a musical. When it's done in an opera house, it's an opera.” Well, then, what about HAMILTON, the musical sensation of our time? Is it possible that it's (gasp!) an opera waiting to emerge?

If you didn't find a performance to attend in the first part of this series--or you simply can't get enough operas, symphonic concerts and musical theatre pieces thrown in for good measure--here's more to choose from. It covers the gamut from the Mozart REQUIEM to Bernstein, Bernstein and more Bernstein.

If you can't get enough of operas, symphonic concerts and a few musical theatre pieces thrown in for good measure, have I got a summer for you! Start in New York City and head north--almost around the corner, or a weekend (or more) away--and you'll find more than enough to keep you happy during the sultry weather ahead. (Even if it doesn't turn out quite so sultry…) It covers the gamut from Handel to Puccini, from serial podcasts to light opera, from dramma serio to musical comedy, with an added emphasis on Leonard Bernstein as the music world celebrates his 100th birthday.

Why do we need a program to train opera composers and librettists? Mozart and Da Ponte--together, creators of LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, DON GIOVANNI and COSI FAN TUTTE--didn't go through training programs!

What's left to say about Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party"--that milestone of 20th century feminist art now on permanent display at the Brooklyn Museum--that hasn't already been said? Actually, quite a bit, according to the students from the Opera Lab of NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program (GMTWP), who have taken a handful of the pieces and used them--and the work as a whole--as inspiration for a series of short operas, under the guidance of the Lab's co-directors, Randall Eng and Sam Helfrich.

At the opening of New York City Opera's US premiere production of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, with a libretto by Annie Proulx based on her short story, it was the score by Charles Wuorinen that knocked me out, with its intricacies, aural moodiness and exciting orchestration. Yet, there was hardly a moment that I felt I was listening to an opera.

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER--music by Huang Ruo and libretto by David Henry Hwang, directed by Matthew Ozawa--opened at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL) on June 3. The opera asks the powerful question: What does it mean to be an American? It is based on the true story of a young Chinese American, who enlisted in the Army during the war in Afghanistan and became victim of military hazing that led to his suicide. The artists spoke about the creation of the piece at the Guggenheim Museum's Works & Process series.