The Muse
350 Moffat St.
Friday – Saturday, June 16-17, 23- 24, 30, and July 1, 7-8, $30, 8:30
www.loftopera.com
themusebrooklyn.com
LoftOpera was founded in 2013 by Bed-Stuy twentysomethings Dean Buck, Daniel Ellis-Ferris, and Brianna Maury to bring the hoity-toity art form down to earth in professional and affordable site-specific productions in unusual spaces. The company has presented Verdi’s Macbeth in the MAST Chocolate Factory at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia at LightSpace Studios, Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia in the Green Building, Puccini’s La Bohème in the 1896, and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni in the Gowanus Loft. LoftOpera is now offering staged performances of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, along with works by his eighteenth-century contemporary Antonio Vivaldi, at the Muse, a warehouse performance space in Bushwick. Running Friday and Saturday nights from June 16 to July 8, the show, directed and choreographed by John de los Santos, features soprano Heather Buck and countertenor Randall Scotting, dancers Constance Nicolas, Julie Carter, Megan Guinta, and Taylor Tucker, costumes by Christian Joy, and lighting by Joan Racho-Jansen. The orchestra, led by concertmaster Ravenna Lipchik, consists of Alicia Bisha, Michael Mandrin, Amy Gardner, and Jessica McJunkins on violin, Jules Lai, Eva Gerard, and Dan McCarthy on viola, Eric Allen, Jessica Wang, and Madeleine Bouissou on cello, and Ben Murphy and Pat Swoboda on bass, conducted by music director Brian Gilling. Tickets are a mere $30 and come with complementary water; patrons can also purchase ice-cream sandwiches, beer, and wine and enjoy them at their seats. It’s far more informal than going to the Met; there’s even loud music during pauses and intermissions to maintain a kind of unstuffy party atmosphere. Stabat Mater will be followed in September by Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and in December by Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle.