Schubert now steps up for another challenge: the sole singing role in Kate Soper‘s Ipsa Dixit. Long Beach Opera is performing Ipsa Dixit at the Art Theater in Long Beach on June 8th and 9th. It’s a very difficult work that Soper wrote for herself to sing accompanied by three musicians on flute, percussion and violin.

For this production, director James Darrah is adding two dancers (Anna Souder and Leslie Andre Williams) from the Martha Graham Dance company performing choreography created by Janet Eilber.

There are also film elements from Carl Theodore Dreyer’s silent film classic The Passion of Joan of Arc. Christopher Rountree conducts.

Recently I spoke with Schubert about her passion for contemporary opera, taking over a role originally performed by composer Soper and finding the inspiration to tackle such complex roles. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: You are a passionate advocate for new works and for contemporary classical music. What do you think are the greatest misconceptions about what new music is today?

I think one of the greatest misconceptions is that the audience won’t understand it or won’t respond to it, or especially that new audiences will not want to see it. Every time I do any new work I have people come up to me afterward that say, this was my first opera, or, this was my first time coming to see something like this. I didn’t know opera could be like this. I didn’t know that this kind of music existed. And they’re always really excited, just entranced by what they saw. 

You have worked with Kate Soper before on The Romance of the Rose. What do you most respond to in her work? 

I think an advantage that Kate has as a composer is that she knows what she wants and she’s very exact about what she writes and how she wants it in the score. Oftentimes she’ll write staging out. In The Romance of the Rose there was staging written in already. With Ipsa Dixit there’s like 30 pages or so of performance notes before the score, that have text and translations and notes about what certain figures might mean – in terms of the sound that you’re supposed to produce. Everything is written in there for you. 

But there is freedom for you as an artist to bring what you do to it as well, right? It’s not regimented.

There’s plenty of room for artistic interpretation as well. But she is very meticulous in the details of her work. More so, I think, than other composers that I’ve worked with. But yeah, there is still plenty of room for like, how do I want my face to look or what kind of a forte do I want to make this. It doesn’t have to be the exact same as everyone else’s or hers. She was the first one to perform this and the person who most performs it well.

That gives her an advantage as a composer because she is writing for her voice, which means she must know very well how to write for voice. 

I think she knows very well how to write for a lot of instruments. She does write really well for voice, but I think also she has like a unique instrument that she writes for specifically. As a soprano, I rarely have to go below a middle C, and she goes below middle C a lot because I think she has a very unique range where she can just belt out in her chest voice. I think the lowest note I have to go down to in this piece is a D flat below which I had never sung out loud before. Then the highest note is a high D, so it’s a very rangy piece.

You’re kind of trying to fit into the the box that she created for you. If maybe you’re used to kind of existing over here, well, for this piece you need to exist here. So you better figure it out.

If you were to describe Ipsa Dixit to people who have no idea what it is, how would you describe it?

I don’t know, because it’s not an opera. And it’s not a song cycle. And it’s not really a chamber piece, but it is also all of those things. It is hard to define it. It is just like a doctoral thesis, encapsulated in a piece of music. It’s very, very, complex and intricate and there’s a lot of philosophical text; there’s philosophical questions posed and answered. There’s also drama. There’s also poetry. There’s the drama of opera, but there’s also the poetic nuance of art song and then there’s also a bunch of extended technique and the wild things that we’re doing.

Given how many different sources are used for the text, is there any part of the text that you most that most resonates with you that you are most passionate about?

I think the metaphysics movement – which is movement five of the whole piece. It’s this whole existential question where she’s talking about what is matter? What is existence, really? It’s the only part of the piece where I get a break as the singer, where the instrumentalists just take over for a few pages. It’s kind of eerie, but it’s also calming in a way.

This is not your first collaboration with Long Beach Opera. Nor is it your first collaboration with James Darrah, who, I thin, in the best possible way, is a disruptor. But only in the sense of moving the art form forward. How does this production accomplish that goal?

This is an opera company and this is a very nontraditional performance for an opera company to offer. I think something that James is very passionate about, and something that I appreciate as a performer myself and someone that loves to do new works, is that he programs so much new music on the main stage. It’s part of the main season. It’s not a side project.

Opera, whether new or old, I think is at its best when it’s dealing with really big emotions and complex issues. But what are the personal challenges of delving so deeply into this kind of material?

For me, that’s always been about having some kind of balance. I know with p r i s m, it just weighed so heavily on me while we were rehearsing it. I mean, how could it not? When I’m here, in my home, your time is your own. In the weeks leading up to this, I was just rehearsing by myself at home as much as I could. Now that we’re in rehearsals, I’m trying to keep my home a much more sterile place. I’m done rehearsing for the day, I’m going to go home and do dishes and make food for myself and see my family and take my dog on a walk. I think that helps compartmentalize.

When I spoke to Kate, she told me that she hopes that one of the reasons her stuff is you’re sticking around is because it’s just really challenging and interesting and a fun experience for the performers. Is this work fun to do?

I’m going to be honest, this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever put together. I was actually going to send her an email today saying as much. Memorization wise, it’s definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever had to memorize. All new music is more challenging than we’re used to when you’re only studying super tonal, melodic, beautiful, romantic things in school – which is often the case. I don’t think that this kind of music is studied enough or prioritized enough in conservatories, at least in the US.

This music is very, very challenging, and I’m sure she wrote it to be that way. But therein lies the satisfaction of putting it together. I think she’s right about that, because it is challenging. That’s one of the reasons that it’s had a long life because everyone wants to climb that mountain, right? When you see something difficult, you’re just like, well, I want to show people I can do that.

There’s a manipulated film component to this production and that’s Carl Theodore Dreyer’s, silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc. Dreyer is quoted as having said, “There is no greater experience in a studio than to witness the expression of a sensitive face under the mysterious power of inspiration. To see it animated from inside and turning into poetry.” How does the mysterious power of inspiration work in your life, both professionally and personally?

It’s still mysterious to me in a lot of ways. Inspiration strikes me at all those inconvenient times [like] when I’m trying to fall asleep at night. When I’m working on a piece and I’m just really in the thick of it, I find myself going to sleep at night and thinking about the words.

I tend to find the most inspiration when I am outside, away from overstimulation. Definitely on a hike. Or I like to be outside at night. I can’t count the number of times I’ve just gone on night walks by myself and listened to music that I love.

You have a whole universe swirling around because you’ve been able to just block out all the extraneous noise. The stillness in there. So that I think that is when I find my mysterious inspiration strikes.

To see the full interview with Anna Schubert, please go here.

Main Photo: Mona Tian and Anna Schubert in Ipsa Dixit (Photo by Jason Al-Taan/Courtesy Long Beach Opera)

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Every performing arts venue likes to advertise what’s new and exciting for their season launch. For CAP UCLA, they truly had a lot to crow about. Their new performing arts space in Westwood, The Nimoy, opened in September. They are also starting the 2023-2024 with their new Executive and Artistic Director Edgar Miramontes. He replaces Kristy Edmunds who left in 2021 for Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. It was Edmunds who first came up with the idea of buying the former Crest Theater in 2018 and turning it into a performing arts venue.

Miramontes, who had previously served as deputy executive director and curator at REDCAT since 2019, inherits a lot of firsts and a lot of challenges. The performing arts haven’t fully recovered from the COVID crisis and audiences haven’t returned in anywhere near the same numbers as before the pandemic. Accessibility in the arts has become a big issue as has representation.

This gave us a lot to talk about when I spoke with Miramontes in mid-October. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How much does your experience at REDCAT inform what you want to bring to CAP UCLA?

REDCAT was incredibly formative in terms of the kind of artistic, adventurous kind of programing that is the ethos of my own interests and supporting artists. It is, and has been. an artist-centered space. Seeing what artists are doing to say a story a different way using interdisciplinary approaches is something that I’m still interested quite a bit to think about.

CAP UCLA is a larger platform for the kinds of work, just given the size of the stage and the limitations and the types of spaces that CAP UCLA has. So to think about the kind of ethos for me to develop artists from just out of school and into kind of their professional careers, that continues to interest me. The more artists stay in Los Angeles, the better.

Is there more pressure to be successful at CAP UCLA than there was at REDCAT? Are the standards of what defines success different between the two venues?

It depends, really, how one defines success. There’s a lot of incredible support that the School of Arts and Architecture, which is where CAP UCLA sits under, for me and my ideas thinking about how a public institution has a responsibility to expand and serve different publics. Including, of course, the the L.A. area and beyond.

With The Nimoy in particular, I think it does offer additional support towards that vision. I’m quite excited to think about The Nimoy as a pilot for how a center for art and creation and for artists can be utilized to think broadly about the arts and culture that UCLA as a system can affect. 

The biggest challenge every arts institution faces right now is getting people back into the theater. One argument that I’ve made for quite some time is that accessibility is a key factor in that. It isn’t just getting beyond COVID. It’s making it accessible to people who can’t afford to pay hundreds of dollars for an evening of theater. What impresses me the most about The Nimoy is that a single person can go see a show and park at The Nimoy for $35.

That’s absolutely right. A lot of that was set up with the wonderful team that I get to work with now. Who comes and parks for $3 in Los Angeles? Tickets are $32, a little less than that.

Accessibility to me is also beyond just tickets. What does it look like to be accessible for others who may have been hearing-impaired? How does one actually think about accessibility as we move forward? As we re-enter these spaces?

I am dealing with the three spaces that we program at CAP UCLA. [Royce Hall, The Theatre at the Ace Hotel, The Nimoy] All historic theaters, all built within a certain time. Physical accessibility was really different. That’s a line of thinking which I’m approaching programing in general to think about what that might look like in terms of accessibility.

What’s the conversation that you and your team has to have with an artist or their representatives that says there’s this theater and it has this price point model and it’s smaller so you’ll probably can fill it? Or there’s this theater that has a broader price point that we can do, but you may not necessarily fill it. What is the power of persuasion that you employ to convince somebody that doing something on a smaller scale may actually be more interesting, more rewarding, if not necessarily more economically rewarding?

I’ve yet to move into those negotiations. I start programing now for the fall of ’24. It’s a lot of leading with the artist’s interests. I’m pursuing work that I think would be able to fit multiple spaces in different ways, but also developing an artist that can work in multiple spaces. 

I think artists can find ways to work in multiple ways. With The Nimoy what’s really interesting to me is to think about that you can experiment more. Some of the artists who are working on these larger scale [works] can test out an idea at The Nimoy that then moves potentially into Royce Hall. I think artists are always happy to think about ways of moving their art in a different direction or being pushed to a limitation where limitation becomes the opportunity to think about their work a different way.

You’re obviously establishing a new brand as part of CAP UCLA with The Nimoy. Does that mean that The Nimoy is front and center and takes priority over programing that might take place at the other venues?

Certainly I feel like this is the year of The Nimoy. I think a lot of artists are really curious to see what it can do. It’s a space that CAP UCLA has much more of control over. Royce and ACE are really great partnerships. We can think about The Nimoy as the space for much more development of new work. We can do a lot more with access to it, as ours, in a different way than these other two venues. 

We’re having this conversation on the heels of of really horrific events taking place in the Middle East. We’re also doing it on the cusp of an election cycle. What do you think from your personal perspective is the role of the arts in troubled times like these?

If anything, the arts and culture have the power to really to provide multiple perspectives on what is happening. I think it also has the ability to inspire action. I think artists have a history of participating and making work that is directly pointing to, or at least addressing, some of these issues that I think are quite important. I’m interested in thinking quite a bit about the kinds of voices that have not been necessarily at the center and to think about different perspectives that address some of these things.

More and more I find that the work needs to connect what it’s saying and who is saying it to how do you provide an additional platform for conversation to happen right after that. We need artists as leaders, as catalysts, to make work that is entertaining, but also you see something that you’ve never seen before that actually does shift something for you and for those who are experiencing it. On an intellectual level, on an emotional level, but also has a social impact perspective.

I spoke to Kristy Edmunds in January of 2021. She talked about how she felt like it had been her role to keep artists strong and inspired during the pandemic. I asked her what she did to keep herself strong and inspired. She said, “Artists are finding these places where somehow the glue in the cracks is a kind of kindness and compassion and a willingness to manifest some form of connection. That is ultimately what is going to be what the tail end of this is.”

We don’t know where we are now, but what do you see as the North Star for you in keeping yourself and artists strong and inspired as we move through whatever the next five years is going to throw at us?

I think that we need to think about ourselves as being interconnected to all things. I think that we need to think outside of our silos to be much more like artists: take risks, learn new ideas, research the things that you’re interested in, taking time to see that idea in multiple ways. It means that we need to find ways to redefine collaboration so that it’s, to some degree, less competitive. To think about an ethos of artists, producers, presenters, imagining a new way of working together. Also thinking about what are those values that we can set so that we can build something together. Artists have been doing that for a long time. It’s also leaning in for people who are producers or presenters to think with artistic practice and that means administratively.

I would love to see a festival for two weeks with a vibrancy that you see across the city. That we have multiple connections and in which artists are moving through a different way through these particular spaces. It’s international, it’s local, it’s national; all of these things. And it’s incredibly inclusive. That’s my aspiration of the North Star. But certainly that’s what keeps me going.

Main Photo: The Nimoy Theatre (Photo by Jason Williams/Courtesy CAP UCLA)

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Frank Farian was the mastermind behind 1970’s group Boney M and the disgraced Grammy Award-winning duo Milli Vanilli. Walt Disney was head of his namesake studio that turned Joel Chandler Harris’ Tales of Uncle Remus into the film Song of the South (1946). Only in the inventive mind of artist/writer/director Edgar Arceneaux would these disparate stories find their way into a story about a matriarch battling dementia and how it impacts her two sons.

That’s the premise of Boney Manilli, which has its world premiere on October 5th at REDCAT in Los Angeles as part of CAP UCLA‘s 2023-2024 season. Boney Manilli runs through October 7th.

Arceneaux may be best known for his drawings, sculpture and installations. This very personal show of his, inspired by his late mother’s own battle with dementia, has been in the works for six years. Boney Manilli has burrowed into his psyche and in the process he’s found a way to examine our present-day world while finding a personal catharsis.

I recently spoke with Arceneuax about the combination of these stories, his own experiences with his mother and what it took for him to get all the pieces in place for Boney Manilli to work. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Arceneaux, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Edgar Arceneaux, you told Caroline Goldstein for Artnet in 2020 that “The power of what art is, which is distinctive from other fields, is its unruliness, its nature to ask new questions.” Is that the guiding principle for you when you embark on any project? And if so, what was the principal question you wanted to ask with Boney Minilli? 

Because its nature is to be interpreted, it means that each person’s individual perspective is important. That it’s in that space of differences, in that space of debate, where power comes from. Which is different than, say, an advertisement or maybe even an illustration which is meant to be instrumentalized. But I think that art’s power comes amidst its unwillingness to be fully turned into one meaning or one message.

In the case of Boney, confusion is part of that unruliness, and it’s confusion on two different sides. On one side is a writer/director that I named after myself, Edgar, who is struggling to write a play about Milli Vanilli. Every time he thinks he has it, then it slips away. At the same time he’s trying to take care of his mother, who is slowly dying from dementia and is forgetting everything.

There’s a brother in the middle of the story whose name is Bro Bro, and he’s the younger brother. He’s also trying to tell a story. But this one is centered around the Song of the South, the story that Walt Disney Studios made into a film. He’s convinced, and everyone else in the family is convinced, that that movie was actually written by their grandfather and that Disney stole it from them. So all of them are trying to tell the story before the mother passes away.

How often do you find ideas or projects that you’re doing slipping away from you? If you’re going to name the character after yourself, how much of you is in this? 

Quite a bit. But there’s two different aspects of the character. There’s the one that’s struggling with the story and the frustration that comes along with that. But he’s struggling with the economic insecurity where he hopes that this thing is going to be able to get him out of the hole that he’s in. He’s living with his mother again.

Then there’s also the kind of madness that happens to people that can happen to you when you’re taking care of a loved one who’s going through either dementia or Alzheimer’s, because they go from being the person who’s there to nurture you to you becoming the person that nurtures them.

My mother and I had an amazing relationship up until the day that she passed. I did recognize in myself the capacity to become a really terrible person because of the emotional weight and responsibility. It just really tears and breaks everything apart when the mom is dealing with an illness.

In a podcast that UCLA Arts did with you a year ago when Boney Manilli was a work-in-progress, you talked about how these characters go through a baptism of fire. Have you been through a catharsis during the process of creating and bringing this show to life?

Most certainly. This is actually the fourth expression of this project over the last six years. This is the first one where I felt like I really could use the the aspects of how dementia impacts your mind as a kind of organizing principle for how to tell the story. When we did it as a work-in-progress presentation last March, it was impossible for me to really tell the story from that perspective because my mom had just passed away a year before. To go in three years after her passing, that can be a little more objective and a little more settled. The absolute reality, the undeniable reality, that she’s no longer physically here has given me a bit of creative distance to be able to really dig in to it in a way in which I just couldn’t do before.

I had this beautiful moment last night because I was with my dad. I had just taken him out to dinner and we were sitting on the bed. I finished a final edit of the script and I sent it to all the management team and the designers. I realized I was sitting on my mom’s side of the bed when I sent that final email off. It felt, in a subtle way, that there was something about it that was very poetic and I couldn’t have timed it that way.

Boney Manilli combines two problematic components of popular culture: Milli Vanilli and Song of the South, both of which have their own baggage that accompany them. What was the impetus for combining these two into one story?

I started to think about the relationship between these two stories: the one about the the potential death and then the way in which Joel Chandler Harris, the person who’s credited with these stories – actually just collected them from people who lived either on his plantation and of his grandfather or other Blacks who had these oral traditions – and then he created this character called Uncle Remus essentially in the same way that Rob and Fab existed as these fictional placeholders for a white author’s voice.

I recognized that these two stories are coming together, but I couldn’t leave those two things together without recognizing that there was a third element which was produced by juxtaposing these two things. Which is the way in which there is an industry of entertainment that values and monetizes this kind of trauma. The show is very critical of our desire to learn about the stories of people who’ve been taken advantage of.

And Frank Farian and Walt Disney both did that.

They did. But the lens of this show is very much focused on the appetite of the audience for these kinds of stories. So when you come and see it, you’ll see how we try to turn the camera from the stage to the audience. And it’s funny to me in some interesting ways.

CAP UCLA says, in laying out information about this show, “To paint the picture of identity and infamy within its true reality is Arceneaux’s artistry at its best.” We’re living in a time when identity is being discussed far more openly and with perhaps greater acceptance than it has in quite some time. But it’s going hand-in-hand with a culture via social media that allows us to manufacture our identity – which doesn’t necessarily have any basis in reality. What do you see as the present day reality of how we are looking at identity? 

The question of how we see ourselves, how we label ourselves, goes hand-in-hand with with lens-based technologies that force us to quantify where we begin and where another person ends. I think the more pluralistic understanding of race, class, identity is really good for us as a republic. I do think that is butting up against the edges of grand monopolies and grand pooling of resources, both politically and economically, which is fortifying itself against this this desire for more of a plateau as opposed to giant pyramids of power. These things are pushing against each other. These monopolies are ways of reinforcing heteronormative ideas about ourselves.

Many artists are most excited about doing something that scares them. Was doing something like this show something that scared you?

A reason why I’ve been working on this project for six years is because the first three iterations were not great. I was sweating. It’s the worst feeling in the world to have an audience watching something of yours and you know that it’s not right. You’re just cringing on the inside because putting on these shows is so expensive. You’ve raised this money from other people [and] you want to do the best that you can. Sometimes you’re just not there and you just have to keep working at it. You have to keep faith that you’re going to get there. But there’s no indication that for certain you will.

Then at a certain point I was just like, Oh, I see the story now. I never could find the ending. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t write it for five years. And then I did. 

After your mother’s funeral, you quoted her on social media. You said she said to you, “Just because my body ain’t here don’t mean I’m not still with you. I will always be two steps behind you, just right there when you need me.” How is your mother there with you through the creation and the rehearsals for Boney Manilli? 

Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, that example of sitting on the bed with her last night is one example. She was a person who had an unyielding faith in me and my siblings. Oftentimes I would hear her voice or I can feel, some inkling that I was doing right by her in the story. After she passed I could feel her energy all around me, in me and the natural environment around me. I would often just rely upon that belief to stay grounded and keep the faith that this was going to be a great show.

To see the full interview with Edgar Arceneaux, please go here.

Main Photo: Two cast members of Boney Manilli with Edgar Arceneaux (Photo by Richard Ffrench/Courtesy CAP UCLA)

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Kudisch has also spent considerable time in operas and shows that are more operatic in nature. He appeared in David Lang’s Anatomy Theater, Ricky Ian Gordon‘s Sycamore Trees and Michael John LaChiusa‘s See What I Want to See. This week he will return to the role of The Older Man in Emma O’Halloran and Mark O’Halloran‘s one-act opera Trade. LA Opera is presenting Trade along with the O’Halloran’s Mary Motorhead at REDCAT in Los Angeles from April 27th – April 30th.

In Trade, Kudisch’s character spends the opera with The Younger Man (Kyle Bielfield) who is a rent boy. Their intimacy is not physical, but rather emotional. Both characters pursue a naked honesty that has nothing to do with sex.

In early March I spoke with Kudisch about his passion for the kind of stories that are told on opera stages and how that work is different than what he does on Broadway. We also talk about the power of music when words fail and the self-imposed prisons we all put ourselves in…just like his character in Trade. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

You told Stage Buddy in 2017, that as a performer, “I’m not interested in adulation. I’m in it for the conversation. I say yes to projects where I can be there to see how the audience receives it.” What was it about the conversation that Trade offers that made you say yes even before it was completely written?

First of all, I love the music. I just liked what Emma was writing in terms of a sonic environment. From that, I knew that it was going to be an uneasy conversation on the course of the night. Even in the aria. The first thing that we did was we polished and recorded at least the older man’s aria. That happened during the pandemic.

I liked the idea of someone who lacks the skill set of expression. I think that in many ways it is metaphorical for where we are right now. There are a lot of people out there who lack the skill set to truly express themselves. But I think some of us are trying very hard to do so.

This is a man who seems to be stumbling towards honesty by the end of by the end of the piece, which sounds like an intriguing arc for any actor to play.

I like stuff that’s honest, right? Engaging to me is just being honest. Not apologizing. Not trying to put a bow on anything because that’s not on us – not in today’s world. More often than not, when things get musicalized, they get romanticized because obviously music is a heightened state. When words aren’t enough, that’s when music kicks in. But also it’s about the heart, the senses opening up, even in the hardest or most challenging conditions.

For this man, like for me, I just look for hope. I don’t need a happy ending. I don’t want a happy ending. I want hope. That’s the thing that I think is so cathartic about the piece. The older man, frankly the younger man, by opening themselves up, by even just acknowledging their situation and trying to talk about it, there’s hope for an actual conversation to go beyond where they are now. That’s real and that’s moving. Because you can actually believe that other people of that ilk might want to, or after this attempt, communicate beyond where they’ve been. It’s what we’ve got to do. 

I had an opportunity to speak to Mark and Emma prior to the world premiere of Trade at Prototype. Mark said that he believes that at the end of Trade the older man has hit bottom. Mark doesn’t know if he moves up from there or not. What are your thoughts about where he might go after this, or is that even important to you? 

It’s not important to me because I have to play the moment. I play the event and I play the event moment to moment to moment to moment. It is incredibly important to the audience. If we do our job right that will be the conversation over dinner and then over breakfast the next day and then over a cup of coffee three weeks later. My responsibility is not to that. That’s the audience’s responsibility. My responsibility is not to judge.

My last Broadway show before working on this opera [Girl From the North Country], was again with an Irish playwright/director: Conor McPherson. [I was] playing a man that was not dissimilar in terms of where he was in his life and the decisions that he was making. And I loved that. I love in Irish literature that there’s a real exploration of men in intense circumstance. I can only speak from the male point of view, I don’t know where he ends up. I mean, I have my ideas of what possibly happens. But for sure, it’s weird. He hits bottom. But in hitting bottom he is at his best now. 

And he’s found a moment of truth. 

100% He achieved what he set out to do. It may have not have gone the way that he wanted it to, clearly. But he actually achieved what he set out to do. And that to me is a lot. Again, this is a piece that’s maybe not meant to have completion for him, but who knows who’s sitting in the audience. 

It doesn’t even have a completion for Mark. He wrote the play he adapted for the libretto.

It’s a beautiful play and I always stayed focused on the play. What I love about the piece is that when Mark saw the opera, he saw a whole different play that he had never even realized before. Which was really sort of wonderful to see on his face when he saw it for the first time. 

I love the opera of it. We’re talking about modern opera which I am a huge fan of. The same way that when I first discovered musical theater, I feel the same way about modern opera right now. Frankly, it’s far more interesting to me than anything on Broadway, because it’s sort of like when I first got to New York and I was doing theater. That was what we were doing. It feels like opera’s picked up those reins and has taken the reins and is moving forward in that direction.

I’ve seen you in The Wild Party. I saw you in Thoroughly Modern Millie. I saw you in A Little Night Music. I saw you in Assassins. I saw you in 9 to 5. But the show I saw you in that seems to have as much to offer you as an actor in parallel to what you do in Anatomy Theater or in Trade is actually See What I Want to See.

I wish you would have seen Girl From the North Country, which was my last Broadway show by Conor, which is a spectacular piece of theater and truly a play with music as opposed to musical. You would never forget it once you’ve seen it.

I loved See What I Want To See. First of all, I have such a long relationship with Michael John LaChiusa. Also I did an incredible piece for him down in Washington and never got to New York called The Highest Yellow, which was about Vincent van Gough, which was also spectacular. Michael John writes music theater aria. I don’t know why he hasn’t written more opera. He should. I keep poking at him to do it. That’s my longest relationship in terms of working relationship. His writing is incredible.

See What I Want to See is incredible. There’s an aria that I sing called Central Park and it is an aria. It’s one of my favorite things that I’ve ever created. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. It was a real collaboration with Michael John and I and it took a while to find it. But once we found it, there’s nothing else like it.

Do projects like Anatomy Theater and Trade challenge you vocally in different ways than other shows that you’ve done?

Yeah. I’m more interested in the intent. The truth is given where they both vocally sit, for me they’re not vocally taxing. It’s the intention that is the joy and the fun. I am classically a cavalier baritone. That is genuinely what I am. But for whatever the reason is, in most of the modern opera work that I do, I’m a bass baritone. That’s because, I guess, of the character or the intention of the character. So I’ve practiced my voice in that space. In some ways it becomes challenging because you almost have to re-register yourself. It’s hard to describe.

Because I work in so many different mediums and vernaculars of music, I have to keep my voice flexible. If I’m singing a pop score I place it in one place. If I’m singing a Broadway score, because it’s eight shows a week now, you cannot sing operatically eight shows a week. I don’t care who you are. So it has to be placed that way. If I’m singing something like Anatomy Theater or I’m singing something like Trade, then I have to place it here. I just have to constantly think because I have to keep flexible. 

In Anatomy Theatre there are moments where I wanted it to be nasal and shrill and harsh to play with the audience, to mess with them.

In an opera that’s already messing with the audience anyway.

I love it so much because it is a dangerous piece. I want us to do it again. I think we’ve gone through this period of time where it was just too sensitive. But I think we’re back at a period of time where I find it to be very necessary. But yeah, it’s subversive. Especially my character just beats you. Beats you with your own judgment.

In Trade it’s the opposite. We don’t come to you. You come to us. Trade is very much, even though it is an opera, it is very much a play, which I think is what is fascinating about the piece. It’s what I really love about the piece. It is not presentational. It is them reaching out, trying to communicate to the other. It thrashes at times and it’s super quiet at times. And again there are moments where I don’t want to sound pretty. It’s hard for this guy to say what he’s saying. If it was open and confident and beautiful the whole time that would be dishonest.

There are these brief phrases that each of these characters have. Then, particularly with the with the older man, all of a sudden he just spews his guts out. What Mark told me was that there’s a point where he these characters run out of words to say until it builds up and then suddenly everything comes to them. That’s got to be tremendous for you.

Oh, it is tremendous because it’s real. Look, acting is overrated. It just is. When I hear an actor say, “Oh, I pretend for a living,” it bothers me because I want to say, “Then you’re not a very good actor.” I don’t. I tell the truth. It’s not hard to tell the truth when what’s written on the page is truthful. And it’s also truthful, not just in its content, but in how the character sounds very much like that character. No one else should sound like that person. That’s when you know you’ve got something specific.

Sondheim said it all the time, and I think he stole it from Oscar Wilde, “The more specific you are, the more universal it becomes.” It’s a very specific play and because of that acting is not necessary. I just have to be with the character. Being a man of a certain age now, and having the amount of experience that I have in my life now, I don’t have to look far to relate to what the older man is going through. I just have to be in the play. With not only the play, but with the audience moment to moment to moment. That’s all we have to worry about. That’s all I have to think about.

Emma described the two pieces, Trade and Mary Motorhead, as being about people imprisoned in their own worlds. Characters like these prove endlessly fascinating for us as an audience. As somebody who gets to bring these stories and to characters to life, what is it about “people imprisoned in their own worlds” that is such a rich opportunity for you as an actor and compelling for you as a human being?

Because we are all people that are imprisoned. We are all people that are imprisoned in this novel of fiction that we write in our heads every day of our lives. There is not a soul walking the planet that has not formed some form of a cell or a box or a linear limitation of what the world is for them that they can, or allow themselves, to live in. Sometimes the cell is more literal than other times. That is why Mary Motorhead is so beautiful with ours.

Mary Motorhead is far more direct than our piece. You know, it’s a mono drama. Naomi just thrashes through that thing. It’s so fantastic. But interestingly, that is a character who is in prison and far freer human being than my character. [He’s] in his own prison, his own device of a prison. It’s a fascinating dichotomy. The two pieces could not be more polar opposite and yet more deeply connected. 

I say it all the time: technology constantly changes, constantly advances. The human condition remains the same. Will always remain the same. Always. We will never change as human beings. We will never evolve in my opinion. So the best thing we can do to connect is to merely acknowledge that is who and what we are. Acknowledge our flaws. Acknowledge our foibles. Acknowledge our limitations. Acknowledge the cells we create for each other. Only then is there a conversation about opening the door and letting ourselves out.

To see the full interview with Marc Kudisch, please go here.

Photo: Mark Kudisch (Courtesy LA Opera)

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Prima Facie – Golden Theatre – New York, NY

Jodie Comer stars in this play by Suzie Miller that is now playing on Broadway. Miller and Comer won Olivier Awards for Best New Play and Best Actress at this year’s Olivier Awards. Could Tony Awards all come their way?

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Good Night, Oscar – Belasco Theatre – New York, NY Sean Hayes stars in this play about Oscar Levant written by Doug Wright and directed by Lisa Peterson. The show originated in Chicago and received rave reviews for both the play and for Hayes.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

TRADE/Mary Motorhead – LA Opera at REDCAT – Los Angeles, CA – April 27^th – April 30^th

These two one-act operas by composer Emma O’Halloran and her librettist uncle, Mark O’Halloran, debuted at the Prototype Festival in New York earlier this year. Now they are in Los Angeles with original cast members Kyle Bielfield, Mark Kudisch and Naomi Louisa O’Connell in tow.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Dee Dee Bridgewater & Bill Charlap – SFJAZZ – San Francisco April 27^th – April 30^th

Rarely have two artists so perfectly melded their talents the way jazz singer Bridgewater and pianist Charlap do in concert. I’ve seen them twice and would go again and again given the opportunity. You have the opportunity to hear how great this duo is even if you don’t live in San Francisco. Their performance on April 28^th will be streaming live at 7:30 PM PT (with an encore showing on April 29^th at 11 AM PT).  

For in-person tickets and more information, please go here. For streaming tickets and information, please go here.

Champion – Met Opera Live in HD – Cinemas Worldwide – April 29^th – 12:55 PM ET/9:55 AM PT

This Saturday the Metropolitan Opera will present Terence Blanchard’s first opera, Champion, in a live transmission from the Met in New York City. Ryan Speedo Green, Eric Owens, Latonia Moore, Stephanie Blythe, Paul Groves and Eric Greene star in this opera based on the true story of boxer Emile Griffith. The production is directed by James Robinson with choreography by Camille A. Brown (both of whom were involved in the world premiere of Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones.) Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.

To find a theater near you, please go here.

Photo: Ryan Speedo Green in Champion (Photo by Ken Howard/Courtesy Met Opera)

The post Revisiting Best Bets appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

One reason for this is our Top Pick this week actually happens on Monday. It’s a reunion of the original off-Broadway cast of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s musical Assassins.

There’s literally something for everyone this week with options for jazz, classical music, opera, dance, ballet and two top Broadway stars perform as well.

Here are the Best Bets: March 5th – March 8th:

*TOP PICK* – Assassins Reunion – Studio Tenn Theatre Company – March 8th – 8:00 EST/5:00 PM PST

On Monday, Studio Tenn Theatre in Franklin, Tennesse will be streaming a reunion of eleven of the original cast members of the Playwrights Horizon production of Assassins including: Victor Garber, Greg Germann, Annie Golden, Lyn Greene, Jonathan Hadary, Eddie Korbich, Terrence Mann, Debra Monk, William Parry and Lee Wilkof.

If you’re wondering why a theatre in Tennessee is holding this event, Studio Tenn Theatre’s Artistic Director is Patrick Cassidy who originated the role of The Balladeer in that production. He’s participating, of course.

If you aren’t familiar with the Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman musical Assassins, you should be. The show opened in December of 1990 at Playwrights Horizon in New York. It’s a musical that features successful and would-be presidential assassins as its subject matter. Yes, the likes of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme had their stories musicalized.

Sondheim and Weidman along with director Jerry Zaks, music director Paul Gemignani and orchestrator Michael Starobin will also participate.

The following clip is from Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall and features Patrick Cassidy and Victor Garber.

As Frank Rich explained in his New York Times review, “In Assassins, a daring work even by his lights, Mr. Sondheim and his collaborator, the writer John Weidman, say the unthinkable, though they sometimes do so in a deceptively peppy musical-comedy tone. Without exactly asking that the audience sympathize with some of the nation’s most notorious criminals, this show insists on reclaiming them as products, however defective, of the same values and traditions as the men they tried to murder.”

The timing of Assassins‘ opening wasn’t terrific. With the first Gulf War raging, producers didn’t believe audiences would be so interested in the show – even though the off-Broadway performances sold out.

Many consider the addition of the song, Something Just Broke, as a key to the musical’s emotional core. That song was added by Sondheim for the 1992 Donmar Warehouse Production. In a 1994 production in Toronto the characters of Lee Harvey Oswald and The Balladeer began to be played by the same actor.

Theatergoers did finally embrace the show, as did many critics, when the Roundabout Theatre staged the first Broadway production in 2004. That production would go on to win five Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical.

Given recent events in the past year, particularly the riot in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, this musical will be more topical than ever.

There is no charge to watch this reunion, however donations are certainly encouraged.

DANCE: ‘kwirē/ – REDCAT – Now – March 6th

This solo work by dancer/choreographer Jessica Emmanuel finds the dancer seeking details about her past from her ancestors. ‘kwirē/ takes place in a dystopian world. Most information about public and personal history along with ancestral information has long ago been destroyed. Very few human beings are still alive. Through dance and sound, Emmanuel utilizes natural resources to reconnect with her own memories and her DNA.

Emmanuel is Los Angeles-based and has worked with Poor Dog Group, Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre and countless other companies.

There are two performances this weekend available for streaming: Friday at 11:30 PM EST/8:30 PM PST and Saturday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST. Tickets are $15 for general admission; $12 for REDCAT members and students and $8 for CalArts students, faculty and staff.

BALLET: Wooden Dimes World Premiere – San Francisco Ballet – Now – March 24th

As part of their digital programming, San Francisco Ballet is presenting the world premiere of choreographer/director Danielle Rowe’s Wooden Dimes. Joining this work are two archived works: Symphony #9 by Alexei Ratmansky and Swimmer by Yuri Possokhov.

Symphony #9 had its world premiere by American Ballet Theatre in 2012. It is set to composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s 9th Symphony.

Ratmansky is a former dancer who went on to be the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet in 2004. He joined ABT in 2009 as Artist in Residence.

Symphony #9 features a cast of 21 dancers with two couples in the lead and a solo male. Can you dance to Shostakovich?

Wooden Dimes by Rowe features the music of composer James M. Stephenson. Not much is officially known about Wooden Dimes except that it takes place in the roaring 20s, is a backstage story and that it title comes from the expression “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

On Stephenson’s website, he says the ballet is about Fanny Brice (the actress brought to life by Barbra Streisand in the stage and film musical Funny Girl).

Swimmer as 1960s pop culture in its sightline. Posskhov, is a former dancer with both the Bolshoi Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet. He’s a very popular choreographer with SF Ballet and this work, which dates to 2015, is immensely popular.

His work is set to music by Shinji Eshima, Kathleen Brennan, Gavin Bryars and Tom Waits.

Tickets are $29 and allow for 72 hours of access.

PLAY: Jericho – New Normal Rep – Now – April 4th

In Jack Canfora’s play, Jericho, a family gathers for Thanksgiving in the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy. While that sounds like heavy material, Canfora infuses the play with generous amounts of humor and compassion. The play had its world premiere at the New Jersey Repertory Theatre in 2011.

Appearing in this reading of Jericho are C. K. Allen, Jill Eikenberry, Eleanor Handley, Jason O’Connel, Michael Satow and Carol Todd. Directing is Marsha Mason.

Anita Gates, in her New York Times review of the play said, “Mr. Canfora has delivered a smart, hard-hitting drama filled with biting wit. One character says: ‘It’s an oxymoron. Like jumbo shrimp or Fox News.’ The best jokes consist of wordplay with expletives that are not printable here. But to give you a sense of the tone, one character, Jessica, complains in Act I that her husband considers her occasional viewing of the celebrity-gossip show Access Hollywood ‘the moral equivalent of sodomizing kittens.’

Tickets are $25 and can be purchased here.

OPERA: The Marriage of Figaro – Royal Opera House – March 5th – April 4th

Conducted by Ivor Bolton; starring Erwin Schrott, Sophie Bevan, Stéphane Degout, Ellie Dehn, Kate Lindsey and Carlo Lepore. This revival of David McVicar’s 2006 production is from the 2015-2016 season.

Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro is based on the 1784 play La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (translated: “The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro”) by Pierre Beaumarchais.

Lorenzo da Ponte wrote the libretto. La Nozze di Figaro had its world premiere in Vienna in 1786.

Figaro and Susanna are getting married. They are in a room made available to them by the Count who plans to seduce the bride-to-be based on an old law that gave permission to lords to have sex with servant girls on their wedding night. When Figaro gets wind of this plan he enlists several people to outwit the Count using disguises, altered identities and more.

Tim Ashley, in his review for The Guardian, said, “At the centre of it all, however, lies a grand confrontation between Erwin Schrott’s Figaro, and Stéphane Degout’s Count. Schrott’s interpretation has also changed somewhat since he last sang the role here. There’s less political anger, more manipulative wit: he sings Se Vuol Ballare with bemused irony rather than scorn, not so much as a manifesto, but as a prelude to a game that turns increasingly dangerous. Degout, a wonderfully patrician singer with a handsome, ringing tone, has an innate charm that can turn to menace in a flash: it’s a superbly accomplished characterisation.

Tickets are £3 which equates to approximately $4.20.

JAZZ/EXPERIMENTAL: Laurie Anderson and Tammy L. Hall – SFJAZZ – March 5th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

In 2018 Laurie Anderson served as Resident Artistic Director for SFJAZZ. Over the course of one week in late November she performed and curated a series of concerts. Amongst them was Songs for Women.

Anderson was inspired to create Songs for Women after hearing Tammy L. Hall’s song For Miss Jones.

From there a musical collaboration was born with songs written for and about women by both artists.

Laurie Anderson is known for her innovative films and recordings including Big Science, Strange Angels and Home of the Brave.

SFJAZZ will stream this concert as part of their Fridays at Five series. You must have either monthly digital membership ($5) or an annual digital membership ($60) to stream this and all other Fridays at Five concerts.

BROADWAY/VOCALS: Leslie Odom Jr. in Concert – PBS – March 5th (Check local listings)

Tony Award winner Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton) performs Live From Lincoln Center in this concert which originally aired in 2018. But don’t expect to hear all of his songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s juggernaut of a musical. This performance showcases Odom’s jazz and soul chops.

As with all PBS programming, best to check your local listings. For instance, in Los Angeles this show is not scheduled to run until March 11th and 12th.

OPERA: Das Rheingold – San Francisco Opera – March 6th – March 7th

San Francisco Opera streams their 2018 production of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle with each of the four operas available in successive weeks. The first opera is, of course, Das Rheingold.

Conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles; starring Greer Grimsley, Jamie Barton, Falk Struckmann, Ronnita Miller and Stefan Margita.

This revival of Francesca Zambello’s 2011 production is from the 2017-2018 season.

This is the first in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (also known as The Ring Cycle). As with all four of these operas, Wagner wrote the music and the libretto. Das Rheingold had its world premiere in 1869 in Munich. It was premiered as a stand-alone opera. The first performance of the entire cycle was at Bayreuth in 1876.

Alberich is a dwarf who renounces love in his successful effort to take gold from the Rhinemaidens and have possession of a ring bestowing power to the wearer. With this one action, he sets in motion the storyline that runs through all four operas in the Ring Cycle. Fafner and Fasolt are the giants who built Valhalla. The long-suffering Wotan is introduced here as are the challenges the gods face in repaying the architects of Valhalla. When the ring is stolen from Alberich he puts a curse on it and on anyone who takes possession of it.

Zambello sets this production in the American west beginning with the Gold Rush and ending with the tech age.

All four operas in the Ring Cycle will be presented in order on consecutive weekends. There is also a Ring Festival with additional programs. You can find details about that here.

DANCE/CLASSICAL MUSIC: Sasha Waltz & Guests in C – Bang on a Can Website – March 6th – 2:00 PM EST/11:00 AM PST

If you thought dancing to Shostakovich was intriguing, how about dancing to Terry Riley’s In C? It’s a work that has an undefined length. Riley wrote 53 different musical phrases. They are all numbered. It is up to the musicians performing the work to figure out exactly how long they want to play each phrase, in what order and when they start.

Choreographer Sasha Waltz, Co-Director of the Staatsballett Berlin with Johannes Öhman for the 2019-2020 season, is using a recording of In C by Bang on a Can for this live-streaming performance from Berlin. Here’s how she explains what this project is:

“The score of In C consists of fifty-three musical phrases and reads like stage directions for musicians. The thought of translating these detailed instructions into dance through a choreographic exploration of the music appealed to me. The result is an experimental system of fifty-three movement phrases for a structured improvisation with clear rules and laws. The length of the piece remains variable, as does the number of musicians and dancers.”

There is no charge to watch the performance, but donations are encouraged.

DANCE: Israel Galván/Maestro de Barra, Servir el Baile – CapUCLA – March 6th – 10:00 PM EST/7:00 PM PST

To get a sense of flamenco dancer/choreographer Israel Galván, let’s turn to an interview he gave Dance Magazine in 2019 where he told them:

“I know it sounds odd, but I think I dance because I don’t like to dance. It’s not logical, but there is something freeing in accepting that. I literally cannot remember a time in my life when I didn’t dance. I’ve danced since I’ve had consciousness. It’s simply in my DNA. And you can’t escape what you are.

“I was always going to be a dancer, but my saving grace as an adult is that I don’t feel any pressure. I feel total freedom when it comes to how I choose to dance. As long as people continue asking me to perform, I will, but it has to be on my terms.”

His terms will be on full display on Saturday when CAP UCLA offers up Maestro de Barra Servir el Baile which roughly translated means Master of the Bar, Serving the Dance. This is Galván’s way of keeping dance alive during the pandemic. He utilizes the concept of music and dance as played out in cafes and bars around the world for this work.

There is no charge to stream this performance, however donations are encouraged.

BROADWAY/VOCALS: Eva Noblezada – Seth Concert Series – March 7th – 3:00 PM EST/12:00 PM PST with an encore at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST $25

If you were lucky enough to see Hadestown on Broadway before theatres closed in New York, you got to experience the wonderfully talented Eva Noblezada. She received her second Tony Award nomination for her performance as Eurydice in the musical.

Her first nomination came for her performance as Kim in the 2017 revival of Miss Saigon.

Noblezada is Seth Rudetsky’s guest for this weekend’s conversation and performance program.

Tickets are $25. Note that the schedule has changed a little for these performances (at least through the month of March.) The live show is in the afternoon on Sunday and the encore stream of the performance is Sunday evening.

JAZZ: Alan Broadbent Trio – Smalls Live – March 7th – 5:00 PM EST/2:00 PM PST and 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

For nearly 50 years, pianist Alan Broadbent has been making great music. He’s worked as a bandleader and has collaborated with some of the biggest names in multiple genres of music. That list would include David Byrne, Kristin Chenoweth, Natalie Cole, Charlie Haden, Shirley Horn, Diana Krall, Linda Ronstadt and Barbra Streisand.

If you haven’t heard his solo recording, Heart to Heart from 2013, I suggest you do so. It’s beautiful.

For these two sets at New York’s Smalls Broadbent will be joined by Billy Mintz on drums and Harvie S on bass.

You can make reservations for either streaming show (which includes a donation), or you can wait for the show to just go live at the link above.

That does it for Best Bets: March 5th – March 8th. But I want to remind you of a few other options I’ve already covered this week:

The Los Angeles Philharmonic begins the second season of Sound/Stage on Friday, March 5th with a performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals. Yuja Wang and David Fung join Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for this performance filmed on the stage at the Hollywood Bowl.

CaltechLive! has begun streaming Herbert Sigüenza’s A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. You can read our full preview here and my interview with Sigüenza here.

The 25th anniversary celebration of Rent will remain available through 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST on Saturday, March 6th.

This weekend’s offerings from the Metropolitan Opera where they are celebrating Women’s History Month are Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes from the 2007-2008 season on Friday; Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka from the 2013-2014 season on Saturday and Giuseppe Verdi’s La Forza del Destino from the 1983-1984 season on Sunday.

With our new line-up extending to Monday, here’s a preview of next week at the Metropolitan Opera: Monday’s production is Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut from the 1979-1980 season and kicks off Week 52 at the Met with the theme Verismo Passions.

I hope you enjoy your weekend and enjoy whichever of my Best Bets: March 5th – March 8th interest you the most! Have fun!

Main photo: The cast of the Playwright’s Horizon production of Assassins (Photo courtesy Studio Tenn Theatre Company)

The post Best Bets: March 5th – March 8th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

My top pick this week was originally from Dance Theatre of Harlem. They were schedule to show their highly-acclaimed re-invention of the ballet The Rite of Spring with music by Igor Stravinsky on Saturday. We just received word it has been postponed until March 13th.

Luckily there are plenty of other options and my revised Top Pick is The Gathering For Justice’s tribute to the legendary Harry Belafonte.

I also have Tony Award-winner Brian Stokes Mitchell, Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel in San Francisco Opera’s 2013 production of Verdi’s Falstaff, an evening with Tony Award winner Ali Stroker and a release party/concert for Old Friends by Mark Winkler and David Benoit.

But there’s so much more than that. So take a look. Here are my Best Bets: February 26th – February 28th:

MUSICAL: Gatsby – a Musical – Cadogan Hall – February 26th – February 28th

Baz Luhrmann did all but make F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby into a musical. But he’s not the only one who believes this story can, to greater or lesser degree, be musicalized.

Enter composer and lyricist Joe Evans and writer/director Linnie Reedman with their musical version, Gatsby A Musical.

The show played at the Kings Head Theatre in north London in 2012. This weekend, Cadogan Hall is offering a reunion concert presentation.

Daisy is the focus of the musical and she’s played in this concert by Jodie Steele (Six The Musical). Ross William Wild (Million Dollar Quartet) plays Gatsby. Tom Buchannan is played Liam Doyle (Wicked). Blake Patrick Anderson (Be More Chill) plays Nick Carraway with Joe Frost and Emma Williams playing George and Myrtle Wilson. (You don’t need a synopsis, do you? Didn’t we all read this in high school or college?)

Reviews in 2012 were mostly positive, though some said it was more like a play with music rather than a musical. Even if that’s true, if we’re about to embark on our own roaring twenties, wouldn’t it be great to get lost in all the decadence from a century ago?

There are three performances available: Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 PM EST/11:30 AM PST. Tickets, which must be purchased in advance, are £22 which equates to approximately a little over $31.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Jupiter String Quartet – Kranner Center for the Performing Arts – February 26th – 1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST

The first weekend of this month I included the Reflection and Renewal series with Jupiter String Quartet in my Best Bets. I’m including them again as the series comes to an end with Friday’s concert. On the program are works by Felix Mendelssohn, George Walker and William Bolcom.

The last two are what makes this concert the most interesting to me personally. Walker was the first African-American composer to receive be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. His Lilacs was named the recipient in 1996. Jupiter String Quartet will be performing Lyric for Strings, written when the composer was 24 as a tribute to his recently deceased grandmother.

Bolcom’s Three Rags for String Quartets is an arrangement of three popular piano pieces the composer wrote: Poltergeist, Graceful Ghost and Incineratorag. In this concert, Jupiter String Quartet will be playing the last one.

If you’ve missed any of the four performances from Krannert Center you have until March 5th to view them all. Each episode runs 20-30 minutes. There is no charge to do so.

JAZZ: Paula West: Great American Politic – SFJAZZ – February 26th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

Jazz singer Paula West took to the stage at SFJAZZ in 2018 with this show as a musical response to he who was once president. Among the songwriters she relied on to express her views were Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Simon and Garfunkel.

You’re probably thinking, do I really need to end my week with a politically charged show? If you’ve heard Paula West before you already know the answer to that question. If you don’t know her, hopefully this clip will persuade you to take a look.

Tickets are $5 (which gives you access to a full month of Fridays at Five concerts). You can also get an annual membership for $60 (which give you access for 52 weeks).

OPERA: Courtney Bryan’s Blessed – Opera Philadelphia Channel – Debuts February 26th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

Opera Philadelphia continues their fascinating new series of digital commissions with Blessed by composer Courtney Bryan.

Bryan regularly came back to a bible verse from Matthew 5 as protests about policy brutality grew in frequency and intensity around the country.

The verse, a rather popular one, says, “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Blessed is her musical response to that verse.

Performing are soprano Janinah Burnett and vocalist Damian Norfleet. The film, directed by Tiona Nekkia McClodden, was shot in New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia. Collaborating with McClodden was sound designer Robert Kaplowitz to create what press materials are calling “sonic quilting.”

Tickets range from $10 for a seven day rental to $25 for a digital package.

OPERA: Verdi’s Falstaff – San Francisco Opera – February 27th – February 28th

Conducted by Nicola Luisotti; starring Bryn Terfel, Ainhoa Arteta, Heidi Stober and Meredith Arwady. This Olivier Tambosi production is from the 2013-2014 season.

Two of Shakespeare’s play served as the inspiration for Verdi’s Falstaff: The Merry Wives of Windsor and sections from Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. Arrigo Boito adapted the plays to create the libretto. 

Falstaff had its world premiere in 1893 at La Scala in Milan. This was Verdi’s final opera and only his second comedic opera.

Simply put, Sir John Falstaff tries everything he can to woo two married woman so he can assume their husband’s vast fortunes. He’s rather bumbling in his efforts and the machinations in place to thwart his endeavors leave him with nothing short of a major comeuppance.

I’ll be watching this production just to see Bryn Terfel in this role.

Joshua Kosman, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, said of Terfel’s performance, “His performance as the fat knight has everything that makes Falstaff irresistible – grandiose self-regard, improbable charisma and a vein of deep poignancy, all conveyed through singing of great power and flexibility.

“And as Falstaff says of himself, Terfel was not only a great onstage wit but the cause of wit in others. His very presence seemed to spur his fellow performers to find both the buoyant humor and the rich emotional undercurrent in the piece.”

The production becomes available at 1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST and remains available through the end of Sunday, February 28th PST.

JAZZ: Mark Winkler/David Benoit Record Release Party – Feinstein’s at Vitello’s – February 27th – 9:00 PM EST/6:00 PM PST

I’ve written about singer/songwriter Mark Winkler before. In fact, you can see my interview with him from August 2019 here. He has teamed up with pianist, composer and KKJZ radio host David Benoit for a new album called Old Friends which was released on Tuesday.

The new recording finds the duo performing three songs they co-wrote along with well-known tunes such as “The Shadow of Your Smile,” “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” and the title song (originally performed by Simon & Garfunkel). I’ve heard the album and think it’s quite good.

To celebrate the album’s debut they are holding a live-streaming release party from Feinstein’s at Vitello’s in Los Angeles. Joining Winkler and Benoit for this performance are Gabe Davis on bass, Clayton Cameron on drums and Pat Kelley on guitar.

There is the main show at 9:00 PM EST/6:00 PM PST with a ticket price of $31.75. There’s also an Encore After Show scheduled for 10:45 PM EST/7:45 PM PST which will find Winkler and Benoit in conversation with Brad Roen. Tickets are $18 for the after show.

POSTPONED DANCE: Firebird – Dance Theatre of Harlem – rescheduled to March 13th

Dance Theatre of Harlem’s month-long Winter 2021 Virtual Ballet Series concludes this week and they’ve saved the best for last.

In 1982, DTH premiered John Taras’ choreography to the classic score by Igor Stravinsky. Instead of Russia the setting is the Caribbean. Geoffrey Holder created the sets and costumes.

When the work first debuted 39 years ago, Anna Kisselgoff in her New York Times review proclaimed, “It is filled with amusing inconsistencies but it does one thing other versions do not – send its audience into a whooping spell of delirium. When the firebird figure drove out the forces of malice last night, the house cheered as if it had just seen an adventure yarn. And so it had. Good conquered evil and did so in an action-packed continuum.”

There is no charge to watch the ballet.

Firebird will be available for one week on DTH’s YouTube Channel.

BROADWAY/CABARET: An Evening with Ali Stroker – Kean Stage – February 27th – 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST

Ali Stroker was the recipient of the 2019 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Ado Annie in the revival of Oklahoma. She made her Broadway debut in the 2015 revival of the musical Spring Awakening.

For this live-streamed show from Enlow Recital Hall at Kean University in New Jersey, Stoker will be performing songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Stephen Sondheim, Carole King, Stephen Schwartz and, of course, Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Tickets are $25 with a discount available to members of the Kean University family (you have to e-mail to acquire that discount.)

Ado Annie is just a girl who can’t say no. How can you say no to this concert?

JAZZ: Artifacts Trio: …and Then There’s This – REDCAT – February 27th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

What began, perhaps, as a one-off collaboration amongst cellist Tomeka Reid, flutist Nicole Mitchell and drummer Mike Reed in 2015 has blossomed into one of the most vital trios working in jazz.

This live-streamed concert through REDCAT in Los Angeles is required viewing for those who like their music on the more adventurous and experiment side. You probably knew that when you read the configuration of cello, flute and drums.

Tickets are $15 for general admission; $12 for REDCAT members and students and $8 for CalArts students, faculty and staff. There will be a post-performance discussion with Reid after the concert ends.

ROOTS MUSIC: Joachim Cooder and Amythyst Kiah with Special Guest Ry Cooder – Skirball Cultural Center YouTube Channel – February 27th – 11:00 PM EST/8:00 PM PST

Every once in a while a concert comes along that doesn’t fit easily into what Cultural Attaché does, but seems too good not to mention. Quite often those events come from the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

Saturday’s concert by Joachim Cooder with his father Ry Cooder as a special guest is just such a concert. And for added measure vocalist Amythyst Kiah is also part of this concert.

What can you expect? A little bit roots rock, some folk influences, definitely some blues, a little bit of country and a whole lot of great music.

Ry Cooder might be known to some as the composer of the scores for such films as Paris, Texas and Alamo Bay. He was also the producer of the album that put the Buena Vista Social Club on all of our radars. Above all, he’s a supremely talented musician.

Joachim’s most recent album was last year’s Over That Road I’m Bound, a collection of songs by country artist Uncle Dave Macon. He’s a singer, drummer, keyboardist who has collaborated with his father and also released two other solo albums.

Kiah – you just need to hear this woman sing. Truly. Earlier this year she released a single called “Black Myself” that, well, just has to be heard. She’s got an amazing voice.

There is no charge to watch this show. However, if you make reservations for the concert by February 26th, you’ll get access to program notes and more. And if you can’t watch the show as it streams on Saturday night, it will be available on Skirball’s YouTube channel.

BROADWAY/CABARET: Brian Stokes Mitchell with Seth Rudetsky – Seth Concert Series – February 28th – 3:00 PM EST/12:00 PM PST

During the pandemic you’ve probably seen video of Tony Award winner Brian Stokes Mitchell serenading his neighborhood with “The Impossible Dream” from the musical Man of La Mancha in support of hospital workers during the pandemic.

Stokes, as his friends and colleagues call him, has appeared on Broadway in Jelly’s Last Jam, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ragtime (originating the role of Coalhouse Walker), Kiss Me, Kate, King Hedley, Man of La Mancha and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. He won his Tony for his performance as Fred Graham in Kiss Me, Kate.

He is also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for The Actors Fund. In other words, he has plenty to talk and sing about.

If you can’t watch the show live at the time listed about, there will be an encore showing at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST. Tickets for either time are $25.

*TOP PICK* GALA: The Gathering for Harry (Belafonte) – The Gathering For Justice – February 28th – 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

This gala fundraiser for The Gathering For Justice is advertising this is a “surprise” event celebrating the 94th birthday of legendary actor, activist, singer and songwriter Harry Belafonte. But does that matter? They are celebrating Harry Belafonte.

I grew up with my mother and my aunt talking about how much they loved Belafonte and his music. His records were played regularly by them both. I won’t go into their other, more personal, comments about him.

He’s a Tony Award winner for his performance in John Murray Anderson’s Almanac, a three-time Grammy Award winner, an Emmy Award winner and the recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

While his most recent film appearance was in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman as an civil rights pioneer, it is his work as an activist that he is perhaps best known. Which makes this event with The Gathering For Justice a perfect fit. The organization’s focus on ending child incarceration and the systemic racism within our criminal justice system.

That Belafonte founded the organization also helps (and makes this whole surprise thing a little, well, surprising.)

Amongst the artists coming together to celebrate Belafonte’s birthday are Aloe Blacc, Common, Danny Glover, Tiffany Haddish, Jay-Z and Susan Sarandon.

Tickets begin at $25 but sponsorship packages go for as much as $100,000.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Telegraph Quartet – Noe Music – Debuts February 28th – 10:00 PM EST/7:00 PM PST

Last September San Francisco-based Telegraph Quartet was scheduled to perform at Noe Valley Chamber Music. The pandemic forced some changes. First was the date. Second was the name of the festival, which is now called Noe Music.

The new date is upon us as violinist Eric Chin and Joseph Maile; violist Pe-Ling and cellist Jeremiah Shaw perform a program of music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Johannes Brahms on Sunday.

Korngold is best known for his rousing film scores, but he also composed classical music. His four-movement String Quartet No. 3 had its world premiere in Los Angeles in 1949 as part of the Evenings on the Roof series at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. It’s a stunning work.

Brahms’ String Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 was composed in 1873. Along with the composer’s String Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, they were both published as companion pieces Op. 51. The piece performed in this concert actually had its premiere prior to the Brahms’ String Quartet No. 1. Also a four-movement work, this quartet with its use of canons, shows the influence of Johann Sebastian Bach on Brahms.

Tickets are $20 and the concert is expected to run 90 minutes.

Those are my official picks as Best Bets: February 26th – February 28th, but a few reminders:

Saturday’s Met Stars Live in Concert features soprano Sonya Yoncheva in a performance from Germany.

Also from the Metropolitan Opera are the last three productions streaming in celebration of the late baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. They are all works by Verdi: La Traviata from the 2011-2012 season on Friday; Un Ballo in Maschera from the 2012-2013 season on Saturday and Il Trovatore, the final production in which he appeared at the Met from the 2014-2015 season.

Larry Powell’s The Gaze…No Homo is available for free streaming this weekend only from Center Theatre Group. Beginning Monday, March 1st, it will be available for streaming on demand for $20 through March 25th. I’ve written about this show before. I strongly recommend it. Last December I published a two-part interview with Powell. You can read part one here and part two here.

That’s it for my Best Bets: February 26th – February 28th. Have a terrific weekend and I’ll see you in March (on Monday) with next week’s line-up of streaming productions from the Met.

Photo: Harry Belafonte with Martin Luther King, Jr. (Photo courtesy Mr. Belafonte’s Facebook page)

Update: On Friday afternoon, February 26th, I received word that Dance Theatre of Harlem’s Firebird was being postponed until March 13th. This post has been updated to reflect the postponement and a new Top Pick was selected.

The post Best Bets: February 26th – February 28th – REVISED appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Our top pick this week is Heartbeat Opera’s Breathing Free, a powerful 45-minute film that is having its West Coast debut courtesy of The Broad Stage. Opera, spirituals, movement and imagery combine to explore the challenges Black men have of simply breathing without fear. I saw the film last year and can tell you this is easily one of the strongest works you’ll see all year.

If you are a fan of The Supremes and want to catch quite possibly Mary Wilson’s last performance (she passed away earlier this week), you will want to catch A Catalina Soulful Valentine fundraiser on Friday night.

It’s not all dance and topical issues this week, in fact, our first listing might find you mixing your own cocktails. Get your ice out of the freezer, get your cocktail shaker on standby and dig in!

Here are my Best Bets: February 12th – February 15th (we’re including Monday since it’s also a holiday weekend):

PLAY: Dixie’s Happy Hour – Segerstrom Center for the Arts – Now – February 21st

Dixie Longate hosting a happy hour? That will certainly have heavy emphasis on the happy. And probably on the adult side, too. Dixie, though a Southern girl at heart, has a quick wit and is never shy about sharing her thoughts.

With everything that has gone on the world since Dixie was last selling Tupperware locally, I can only imagine what she’ll have to say.

And what drinks she’ll make. I don’t believe Dixie has been in the Alabama slammer, but I bet she knows how to make a fierce one! Actually, she does have a pre-show margarita recipe to share.

There are performances every night through February 21st at 7:00 PM PST. Tickets are $35.

BALLET: Digital Program 02 – San Francisco Ballet – Now – March 3rd $29 for 72 hour access

The world premiere of Colorforms, a new work by Myles Thatcher, is featured in San Francisco Ballet’s Digital Program 02. The work, set to Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings by Steve Reich, seeks to illuminate the parallels between the creation and consumption of art. The film, directed by Ezra Hurwitz, was shot in multiple San Francisco locations including the War Memorial Opera House where the San Francisco Ballet regularly performs.

Opening the program is Dwight Rhoden‘s Let’s Begin at the End which features music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Philip Glass and Michael Nyman. The work was created for SF Ballet’s 2018 Unbound and had its debut on April 26th of that year.

Closing out the program is Sandpaper Ballet by Mark Morris with music by Leroy Anderson. The work was created in 1999 for San Francisco Ballet. Composer Anderson is probably best-known for having written the popular holiday song, Sleigh Ride. Sandpaper Ballet was composed in 1954.

Tickets are $29 and allow for 72 hours of streaming.

BALLET: Raymonda Act III – Royal Opera House – Now – March 14th

Marius Petipa’s ballet, Raymonda, had its world premiere in St. Petersburg in 1898 and is set to the music of Alexander Glazunov. In 1948 the Kirov Ballet revived the ballet with new choreography by Konstantin Sergeyev. This latter choreography is the one most commonly used in performances of the ballet.

Ballet star Rudolf Nureyev dance the ballet with the Kirov. He would later stage a full-length version for the Royal Ballet in 1964. Five years later he tweaked the very popular third act. It is that version that will be seen in this film which comes from a 2003 tribute to Nureyev. (The event took place ten years after his death.)

The two acts leading up to the segment being presented depicts the story of two lovers, Raymonda and Jean de Brienne who plan to get married. Unfortunately Abderman shows up at her birthday party and makes his intentions clear. Jean de Brienne does not arrive for one more day. He does arrive just in time (in Act 2) to break up Abderman’s kidnapping attempt of Raymonda. A duel ensues between the two men and Abderman is killed.

So what’s left in Act III? A big celebration. The full ballet isn’t performed as often as is this third act.

Pavel Sorokin conducts with Natalia Osipova as Raymonda and Vadim Muntagirov as Jean de Brienne.

Tickets to stream this performance are £3 which at press time equals approximately $4.15

THEATRE TALK: Virtual Halston – Cast Party Network on YouTube – February 12th – 5:00 PM EST/2:00 PM PST

Fans of the original cast of The Producers will certainly recognize Julie Halston’s guests for this week’s Virtual Halston: Cady Huffman (who originated the role of Ulla and won both the Drama Desk Award and the Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical) and Brad Oscar (who originated the role of Franz Liebkind). Oscar would later assume the role of Max Bialystock (the role Nathan Lane created) as the show continued its successful run on Broadway.

The two will be reunited on this Friday’s virtual happy hour with Halston. It’s a holiday weekend, your work is being mostly done by remote, why not mix a drink early and join in the fun?

PLAY: Yorick, La Historia de Hamlet – REDCAT – February 12th – February 14th

Hamlet’s soliloquies form the basis for this one-man show created by and starring Chilean actor Francisco Reyes. Yorick, the late court jester in Shakespeare’s play, is the narrator of Yorick, La Historia de Hamlet. Co-creator Simón Reyes wrote the script.

Joining Reyes in the performance are puppets that he manipulates. The puppets were created by Ismael Reyes.

The film is also uniquely lit by only candlelight. Music was composed by Miguel Miranda with songs by Rocío Reyes.

The work is performed in Spanish with English subtitles. There are only three showings of this highly-acclaimed film by Reyes. Friday, February 12th at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST; Saturday and Sunday at 6:00 PM EST/3:00 PM PST. Tickets range from $8 for students up to $15 for general admission.

JAZZ: SF Jazz Collective – SFJAZZ – February 12th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

This weekend’s Fridays at Five concert celebrates the work of two very influential and different artists: Sly and the Family Stone and Miles Davis. As befitting such groundbreaking artists, this concert runs nearly two hours.

The San Francisco Jazz Collective, an octet, performs music from Stand! and Davis’ In a Silent Way. Both albums were released in 1969.

This concert, from November 2019, celebrates the 50th anniversary of both works. Stand! featured the songs I Want to Take You Higher and Everyday People. Davis was more austere with his recording – it only had two tracks, but ran 38 minutes.

The members of the SF Jazz Collective are bassist Matt Brewer; trumpeter Etienne Charles; drummer Obed Calvaire; vocalist Martin Luther McCoy; guitarist Adam Rogers; tenor saxophonist David Sánchez; pianist Edward Simon and vibraphonist Warren Wolf.

There is also a cameo appearance by Family Stone drummer Greg Errico. 

Tickets are $5 (which includes a one-month digital membership) or $60 (which includes an annual digital membership). This concert will stream just once.

JAZZ/CABARET: A Catalina Soulful Valentine – February 12th – 9:00 PM EST/6:00 PM PST

Los Angeles nightclub, Catalina Jazz Club, has been severely impacted by the pandemic. They are doing everything they can to keep the doors open and amongst them is Friday night’s A Catalina Soulful Valentine.

For weeks they have been touting the appearance of Mary Wilson of The Supremes as one of their performers. Of course, she passed away earlier this week. But, her set was filmed in advance and will be seen in its entirety to both support Catalina Jazz Club and to honor her.

Sally Struthers and singer/musician Mr. Chris Norton serve as hosts. The list of performers includes Lucie Arnaz, Carole J. Bufford, Linda Purl, James Snyder, Nita Whitaker and more.

The show will air on Catalina’s Facebook page and Chris Isaacson Presents’ YouTube channel. There is no charge to watch the concert, but donations are definitely encouraged.

JAZZ: Douglas J. Cuomo’s Seven Limbs featuring Nels Cline and Aizuri Quartet – CAP UCLA – February 12th – 10:00 PM EST/7:00 PM PST

Composer Douglas J. Cuomo’s Seven Limbs was meant to have its world premiere last year. We all know what happened to preclude that. This digital performance of the work had its world premiere earlier this week from The Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech.

UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance is making the film available on Friday with on demand opportunities beginning on Sunday for one week.

What is Seven Limbs? It is a 75-minute work for electric guitar and string quartet. Cuomo composed this specifically for the artists who perform it: Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and the Aizuri Quartet.

But what is it? Best to let the composer describe it for you:

“This piece is inspired by an ancient Buddhist purification ceremony called The Seven Limbs. It’s part of a meditation practice I do every day. The practice has lots of words; the piece has none. The feel of this ceremony is what I kept going to as I composed, and then at some point I realized I was setting text without using words. For me Seven Limbs is a dream-like piece; I can look inward to a new terrain and find out what’s there. Stillness, turmoil, suppleness, euphoria, high drama. I wrote it for Nels Cline and the Aizuri Quartet because, for composers, to write for great players is another kind of dream. Together, we offer you our dream, in the hope it makes some connection with you.”

CAP UCLA is making this performance free to view.

OPERA: Save the Boys – Opera Philadelphia – February 12th

Last week our top pick was musician/composer Tyshawn Sorey’s two-night gig at the Village Vanguard. He returns to our Best Bets this weekend with the debut of his twenty-minute song cycle Save the Boys.

Sorey uses Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s 1887 poem of the same name as the inspiration for this work.

Harper was an Black women’s rights activist and abolitionist.

Performing Save the Boys is the vocalist for whom it was written: countertenor John Holiday. If his name sounds familiar, perhaps you saw him on the most recently concluded season of The Voice. In 2019 I interviewed Holiday. You can read that interview here.

Holiday is accompanied on the piano by Opera Philadelphia’s Grant Loehnig.

Tickets are $10 which allows for a seven-day rental.

OPERA: Cosí fan tutte – San Francisco Opera – February 13th – February 14th

Conducted by Nicola Luisotti; starring Ellie Dehn, Susannah Biller, Marco Vinco, Francesco Demuro and Philippe Sly. This revival of the 2004 John Cox production is from the 2012-2013 season.

Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte had its world premiere in Vienna in 1790. Lorenzo Da Ponte, who wrote the libertti for The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, wrote the libretto.

Ferrando and Guglielmo are vacationing with their fiancées, Dorabella and Fiordiligi. They are sisters. Don Alfonso challenges the men to a bet revolving around the women and their ability to be faithful. Using disguise, deception and a wicked sense of humor, Mozart’s opera ends happily ever after for one and all.

Joshua Kosman, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, raved about Sly’s performance as Guglielmo , “In the ensemble cast of six, the standout performance was the precocious and phenomenally assured company debut of Adler Fellow Philippe Sly as Guglielmo. Adler Fellows don’t often get cast at this level, but then again, Adler Fellows this gifted and accomplished are rare indeed.

“Sly’s singing was at once robust and lyrical, with a beautiful range of tonal colors and the ability to combine virility and tenderness in a single phrase.”

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Anna Clyne’s Stride – Detroit Symphony Orchestra – February 13th – 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST

It must be daunting for a composer to have a world premiere or relatively new work precede one of the stalwart compositions in classical music. Such is the status of British composer Anna Clyne who’s Stride will be performed by members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra prior to their performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major, BWV 1051.

But it is Clyne’s composition that is most interesting about this concert. The Australian Chamber Orchestra commissioned Clyde to write a piece as part of their celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s Birth. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of many of their performances last year, but they were able to return on November 14th with the world premiere of Stride.

The work weaves themes from Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata throughout and also includes nods to other composers, most notably Bernard Herrmann (best known for his film scores for director Alfred Hitchcock).

Tickets are $12 to stream the concert.

DANCE: John Henry – Dance Theatre of Harlem on Stage Access – Debuts February 13th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

Dance Theatre of Harlem gave the world premiere performance of Arthur Mitchell’s John Henry on June 28, 1988. Before getting into her review, Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times reported, “…its premiere at the company’s opening at the City Center Tuesday night roused cheering fans out of their seats during the curtain calls. Mr. Mitchell, the troupe’s founder and artistic director, stayed in the spirit of things by throwing himself into a choreographed clog dance to acknowledge the applause.”

With music by Milton Rosenstock, Dance Theatre of Harlem will make available, via Stage Access, a performance filmed in Denmark at Danmarks Radio. The performance will remain available through February 19th.

Stage Access offers up a 7-day free trial with two subscription options: an annual plan of $69.99 or a monthly plan of $7.99

TOP PICK: OPERA/MOVEMENT: Breathing Free – The Broad Stage – February 13th – 10:00 PM EST/7:00 PM PST

Earlier this week I published an interview with Michael Blakk Powell, a formerly incarcerated man who was a member of the Kuji Mens Chorus at Marion Correctional Institute in Ohio. Through his participation in that chorus, he found himself learning German to perform music from Beethoven’s Fidelio.

One of the two pieces in which that performance can be seen and heard is in Heartbeat Opera’s powerful Breathing Free. This 45-minute film combines movement and opera to explore the challenges Black men in particular face in simply being allowed to breathe freely.

Joining the Beethoven heard in Breathing Free are works by Black composers and lyricists Harry T. Burleigh, Florence Price, Langston Hughes, Anthony Davis and Thulani Davis. The project also uses Negro spirituals.

The cast includes bass-baritone Derrell Acon, tenor Curtis Bannister, soprano Kelly Griffin and dancers Randy Castillo, Tamrin Goldberg, Brian HallowDreamz Henry. Breathing Free was directed by Ethan Heard. Music Direction was by Jacob Ashworth and Daniel Schlosberg (who also did the arrangements of the music from Fidelio).

Tickets prices range from $10 – $75 based on what you can afford to pay. I strongly urge you to consider carving out time on Saturday night to see Breathing Free.

CABARET: Laura Osnes – Seth Rudetsky Concert Series – February 14th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

You have to be a pretty versatile performer to believably portray Cinderella in one musical and Bonnie Parker in another. Add to that the ability to be Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Sandy in Grease. Broadway star Laura Osnes has done them all.

She received Tony Award nominations for her performances in Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella and also for Frank Wildhorn’s musical about the outlaws Bonnie and Clyde.

Osnes is Seth Rudetsky’s concert guest this week. In addition to Sunday’s live performance there is an encore presentation February 15th at 3:00 PM EST/12:00 PM PST. Tickets are $25 for either showing.

THEATRE: Justin Hicks’ Use Your Head for More – Baryshikov Arts Center – February 15th – March 1st

Looking at composer/creator/performer Justin Hicks’ website, he describes himself as “a multidisciplinary artist, and performer who uses music and sound to investigate themes of presence, identity, and value.” For this digital world premiere, Hicks has created a performance based on a transcript of a conversation he had with his mother. Use Your Head For More is offered up as a series of audiovisual portraits.

His work runs 30 minutes and was filmed at Hicks’ home in Bronx, New York. Two vocalists, Jasmine Enlow and Jade Hicks, collaborated with Hicks on Use Your Head for More.

There is no charge to watch Use Your Heard for More.

For those interesting in digging further into the project, there will be a live-streamed conversation between Hicks and Meshell Ndegeocello on February 24th at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST. You must register to watch the conversation. Registration for that opens up on February 15th.

CABARET/OPERA/JAZZ: Jim Caruso’s Pajama Cast Party – February 15th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

It’s sad that we don’t often have Monday listings, because Pajama Cast Party would be on the list every week. Which means you need to check out Jim Caruso and his fabulous guests. This week they include opera star Zachary James, jazz singer/songwriter Lauren Kinhan, actress/singer Avery Sommers and comedian Gianmarco Soresi. They will share stories, songs, jokes and more during the show.

Cast Party is a weekly ritual for New Yorkers and it takes place at Birdland. This is a modified version, but no less entertaining – just less physically tangible. It’s also the 45th episode Caruso has done…so far. No doubt he’d love to be back at Birdland as much as the rest of us would!

That’s the complete list of my Best Bets: February 12th – February 15th. But you know I’ve got a few reminders for you as well!

Pianist Richard Goode performs works of Bach and Claude Debussy on Saturday in a performance from New York’s 92nd Street Y.

The Metropolitan Opera concludes their second week of Black History Month with performances of Akhnaten by Philip Glass on Friday (strongly recommended); Berlioz’s Les Troyens on Saturday and Wagner’s Die Walküre on Sunday. Plus here’s an early preview of Week 49 at the Met. They will be celebrating Franco Zeffirelli and launch the week with the 2007-2008 season production of Puccini’s La Bohème.

This week’s episode of In Concert at the Hollywood Bowl is called Música sin Fronteras (Music without Borders) and concludes the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s series on PBS. (Check your local listings).

The films.dance festival continues with this week’s Pássaro Distante. They debut a new film, and one of my favorites, Match on Monday, February 15th.

That ends all my Best Bets: February 12th – February 15th. There’s culture to enjoy with the family; culture to enjoy with that special someone and certainly great options for those going solo this year. Whatever you choose, be safe and have a wonderful weekend.

Main Photo: An image from Breathing Free (Courtesy The Broad Stage)

The post Best Bets: February 12th – February 15th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

The opera was named the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2019.

A film was made of the opera and LA Opera is making that film available for free streaming through February 8th.

p r i s m tells the story of a mother and daughter who live in a Sanctuary and they shut out the outside world. Bibi, the daughter, suffers from an ailment to her legs. Her mother, Lumee, keeps her in this Sanctuary in an effort to heal her daughter. But each time when Bibi has to take her medicine, she hears the voices of her previous selves. As those voices grow louder, she starts to question her mother’s intentions.

The opera is an examination of trauma and the lengths one might go, regardless of the toll it may exact, to protect someone they love.

This opera was one of the true highlights in culture in 2018 and I strongly recommend seeing the film. It isn’t easy material, in fact there is adult content and nudity in this 82-minute film, but those who watch p r i s m will be richly rewarded.

Beginning January 29th, LA Opera will also be making a short film called Lumee’s Dream available for free streaming. Darrah directed the film which takes a moment from p r i s m and expands the narrative. As Darrah told me recently, “p r i s m inspired another visual realm of its universe. That is a more sensory experience and it is long form.”

He went on to talk about his working relationship with his friend, composer Reid.

“Ellen is a good friend. The way she works, opera composers are supposed to disappear, write something and go away. Then there’s James Darrah and so and so’s production. We talked about how she made it, how Roxie wrote the libretto and hen we shaped it to the stage – together. More people should have the opportunity to wormlike that. Not just at REDCAT. Film, television and opera needs to get on that wave length.”

p r i s m is available now through February 8th.

Lumee’s Dream will be available from January 29th – February 11th.

Photo: Anna Schubert in p r i s m (Photo by Larry Ho/Courtesy LA Opera)

The post Ellen Reid’s Opera “p r i s m” is Now a Film appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

So began a series of e-mail answers to questions I posed Linder regarding the opera The Want which opens the CapUCLA season tonight with performances at REDCAT.

The Want was inspired by In the Solitude of Cotton Fields, a play written by  Bernard Marie-Koltès in 1985 and first performed in 1987. The play depicts, in very unspecific terms, the dealer/client relationship.

Linder used this play as the springboard for the opera which was composed by Ethan Braun. My initial question to Linder had to do with his first awareness of the play.

When did you first become aware of In the Solitude of Cotton Fields?

As the stars aligned, I learnt of this work by Koltès and it sparked desire to take this play that has always been performed in a conventional way – a very straight theatre mode – and turn it into an opera.

It isn’t often that a new opera is billed by the name of its choreographer. That leads me to believe that this wasn’t a traditionally structured collaboration. Can you tell me how the collective creative process for The Want took place?

Ethan Braun, the composer, and I met because I was looking for the right composer to work with me and as he is an irregular fit for the classical music world, that made him a natural fit for me. Shahryar Nashat, who designed the stage, is a different story. We’ve been in and out of each other’s work for years and he’s my boyfriend. Read the Bomb article; says it all.

I had a strong sense for the direction this opera should take, but it all got developed in the productive manner of leading with this vision whilst allowing enough space inside the working environment for these other artists to do their thing.

What resonated with you about how Koltès depicted the dealer/client relationship and how does that relationship allow you to comment, vis-a-vis The Want, about the world we live in today and the way relationships are bartered?

The work in its original form had just two people. My work is a very unfaithful reworking, so there is little of the original Koltès text in my libretto. It has always been staged as a two-person – two guys – play. In the way I have structured the work, Jess Gadani and Justin F. Kennedy are the Offerors, and Jasmine Orpilla and Roger Sala Reyner are the Offerees – but it becomes quite fluid. Just like the original play, it is never determined who wants what from whom and what it is they want and what it is they can offer. It’s always meddling in grey area. But I push the grey area of sexuality, race and gender (and spiritual identification) far more than the original.

You’ve spoken previously about not caring “about disciplines meeting, but about sensibilities criss-crossing.” How does The Want represent a criss-crossing of sensibilities?

Yes I spoke about that in relation to the empty term of inter-disciplinary. When you imagine the whole of a picture or the fullness of an experience, it is necessary to pull from different sensibilities, forms and histories, but it’s a singular approach and in my case it’s one that is foremost a choreographic one.

What excites you about the music Ethan Braun writes – both for this work and beyond The Want?

The fact that he’s from this specialized world of classical music, but has a background in performing and improvising a more jazz inflected repertoire. That he wrote his thesis on Stockhausen. And that he believes in expressivity and virtuosity.

Koltès says in his play that “we move along two distinct planes, and than in the end there is only the fact that you looked at me and that I caught that look or the other way around, and that, from the outset, absolutely the line you were moving on became relative and complex, neither straight nor curved, but fatal.”

Philosophically how do you respond to that line from the play and do you believe this is not just a philosophy, but a realistic way of looks at interactions between two people?

Koltès’ way of handling this politic of relation is to embellish the sense of existential mystery between two people. I think he considers that mystery as being just as expansive as it is fleeting; it could simply come down to catching a passing gaze but it could also unfold in never-ending circles of unnameable ambiguity between two. Koltès acknowledges this insurmountable duality.

For tickets go here.

All photos by Andrea Rossetti/Courtesy of CapUCLA and REDCAT

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