SIXTH ANNUAL NEW YORK OPERA FEST

The New York Opera Alliance
May 1 – June 30, free – $60
newyorkoperafest.org

I have a confession to make: Everything I know about opera I learned from Warner Bros. cartoons: The Rabbit of Seville, Long-Haired Hare, What’s Opera Doc? In my nearly twenty years of covering New York City events, I’ve been to only a handful of performances at the Metropolitan Opera, and mostly because of my interest in multidisciplinary artist William Kentridge.

But during the pandemic, I discovered that there’s a vibrant, experimental side to the four-hundred-year-old classical art form. Since April 2020, I have watched several dozen operas made for Zoom, filmed onstage and in the nooks and crannies of theaters, outdoors, in virtual cities, and in a trailer by a forest. Opera Philadelphia’s Soldier Songs followed a military man with PTSD. White Snake Projects’ Alice in the Pandemic employed cutting-edge technology to send Alice into a dark, virtual wonderland. On Site Opera’s audio-only To My Distant Love presented a Beethoven song cycle over the telephone. Boston Lyric Opera’s The Fall of the House of Usher reimagined Philip Glass’s work using puppets and stop-motion animation. City Lyric Opera’s adaptation of Brecht and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera featured audience participation. And HERE Arts Center’s all decisions will be made by consensus was the first Zoom opera, with performers in boxes.

So there is much to look forward to in the New York Opera Alliance’s sixth annual New York Opera Fest, which takes place online and in person through June 30, consisting of more than two dozen events that stretch the bounds of what opera can be. “This year’s festival transformed its lineup entirely due to performative restrictions,” NYOF chairwoman Megan Gillis said in a statement. “Having to reinvent itself as a virtual festival, the range of work being presented is astounding. We are pleasantly surprised to learn of so many innovative productions on tap this year, as well as the essential courage, energy, and hard work required from their respective staff members and artists. We are honored to provide this unique platform at a time when both artists and audiences are starving for live performance.”

Among the highlights of the 2021 festival, which honors bass-baritone Antoine Hodge, who died from Covid-19 on February 22 at the age of thirty-eight, are encores of Prototype’s self-guided Modulation and Times3 (Times x Times x Times), the latter a collaboration by Pamela Z and Geoff Sobelle best experienced in Times Square; On Site Opera’s The Road We Came, an immersive musical walking tour through local Black history; Heartbeat Opera’s workshop production of the Brooklyn-set futuristic dark comedy The Extinctionist; New Camerata Opera’s The Brooklyn Job, an interactive virtual museum heist in which the audience can order at-home cocktail kits and party favors; the return of HERE’s fun live serial space opera Only You Will Recognize the Signal; and Divaria Productions’ Rival Queens, about Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I.

Below is the full schedule in chronological order; all presentations are available through June 30 unless otherwise noted:

dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, “Songs from Hibernation,” winter and spring recital series on YouTube led by artistic director Chris Fecteau, through August 31, free

Divaria Productions, Rival Queens, biopic about Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I, directed by Antón Armendariz, cinematography by Fabián Jiménez Asis, and music direction by pianist Sergio Martínez Zangróniz from Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, with Ashley Bell as Mary, Anna Tonna as Elizabeth, and Michal Gizinski as the narrator, $20

Experiments in Opera, Aqua Net & Funyuns, podcast operas with music by Tariq Al-Sabir, Jason Cady, Kamala Sankaram, Aaron Siegel, and Michi Wiancko and librettos by Cady, Cara Ehlenfeldt, Annie-Sage Whitehurst, and Daniel Shepard, free

HERE Arts Center, Only You Will Recognize the Signal, serial space opera composed by Kamala Sankaram, directed by Kristin Marting, with libretto by Rob Handel, and performed by Paul An, Christopher Burchett, Hai-Ting Chinn, Adrienne Danrich, Joy Jan Jones, Joan La Barbara, and Jorell Williams, $5-$50

Hunter Opera Theater, the Richard Burke Pocket Opera at Hunter College, featuring The Taxi Driver (libretto and music by Joe Young), The Blue Bird Opera: The Pursuit of Happiness (libretto and music by Alyssa Regent), Panic Room (libretto and music by Deshawn Withers), and Prince Danila Govorila (music by Matthew Sandahl, libretto by Alkiviades Meimaris), free

Lighthouse Opera, Mozart’s Die Zauberfloete (“A Distant Flute”), conducted by Stephen Francis Vasta and directed by John Tedeschi, and excerpts from Verdi’s La Traviata, free

No Dominion Theater Company, Hindsight: Behind the Lens, exploration of true crime opera based on the Leopold and Loeb case, libretto by Bea Goodwin, music by Felix Jarrar, with singers Gabriel Hernandez and Joseph Beutel, free

On Site Opera, The Road We Came, three self-guided tours of the Black history of New York City featuring works by Black composers, multimedia collaboration between On Site Opera, Ryan & Tonya McKinny’s Keep the Music Going Productions, and Harlem historian Eric K. Washington, through July 31, $60 – $165

Prototype, Modulation, multimedia self-guided exploration of isolation, identity, fear, and connection, available for download, free

Prototype, Times3 (Times x Times x Times), site-specific sonic journey through Times Square by composer Pamela Z and theatre artist Geoff Sobelle, $5 and up

Regina Opera Company, “2021 Spring Concert,” with soprano Lisa Bryce, mezzo-soprano Galina Ivannikova, tenors Lindell Carter and Hyunho Cho, and pianist Dmitry Glivinskiy, filmed in the company’s Sunset Park theater, free

New Camerata Opera, The Brooklyn Job, written and directed by Sarah Morgan Ashey, with music direction by Dan Franklin Smith, and featuring sopranos Samina Aslam and Barbara Porto, mezzo-sopranos Eva Parr, Julia Tang, and Anna Tonna, tenors Erik Bagger and Victor Khodadad, baritones Stan Lacy and Scott Lindroth, and bass Kofi Hayford, May 6 & 8, 8:00, $40-$160

Fab Fulton/ART360° and the American Opera Project, Brooklyn Cultural Tours Kick-off, self-guided audiovisual tour led by Ron Janoff, with songs by contralto Nicole Mitchell, May 8, 11:00 am, Betty Carter Park, free

Bronx Opera, Mozart’s Impresario, Zoom broadcast on YouTube, directed by Benjamin Spierman, conducted by Michael Spierman, with pianist Eric Kramer and singers Blake Friedman, Halley Gilbert, Ben Spierman, Hannah Spierman, and Jack Anderson White, May 8-9, free

The American Opera Project and the Center for Fiction, “Note/Books: The Night Falls,” libretto reading with musical excerpts, book and lyrics by Karen Russell, music and lyrics by Ellis Ludwig-Leone, choreographed and directed by Troy Schumacher, and moderated by Joseph V. Melillo, May 13, 7:30, free

Brooklyn College Conservatory, Bizet’s Carmen, directed by Isabel Milenski, with music preparation by Dmitry Glivinskiy, performed by the Brooklyn College Opera Theatre on Facebook, May 14, 7:00, and May 18, 12:30, free

Bronx Opera and Bronxnet Community Cable, “Sunday Night at the Opera,” Sundays at 7:00 beginning May 16, free

Victor Herbert Renaissance Project, Heart O’Mine, including the Irish drinking song “Cruiskeen Lawn,” with music by Victor Herbert and his grandfather Samuel Lover, May 16-23, $20

Beth Morrison Projects, Next Generation concert featuring rising composers, singers, and artists, streamed digitally from National Sawdust in Brooklyn, May 27, 7:00, free

AS/COA, Ebbó, opera-oratorio by composer Louis Aguirre and librettist Rafael Almanza, online production commissioned by Americas Society from Dominican artist Yelaine Rodríguez, with solo soprano Estelí Gómez, Ahmed Gómez as the narrator, Jeremy Antonio Caro as Bird and Orula, Rayser Rafelina Campusano Rosario as Queen Apetebí, Michelle Wong on oboe, David Byrd-Marrow on horns, Pala Garcia on violin, Stephanie Griffin on viola, Jacob Greenberg on piano, and Haruka Fujii and Booby Sanabria on percussion, May 28, 7:00, free

Heartbeat Opera, The Extinctionist, music by Daniel Schlosberg, libretto by Amanda Quaid, directed, conceived, and developed by Louisa Proske, semistaged sneak peek at show about a potential Brooklyn apocalypse, with four singers and four multi-instrumentalists, performed live with a socially distanced audience and streamed online from PS21 in Chatham, New York, May 29, 7:30, and May 30, 3:00, $5

Little Opera Theater of NY, “Monteverdi & Other Treasures from the Seicento,” featuring Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, composed by Claudio Monteverdi, and music of the era by Barbara Strozzi and Dario Costello, with tenor Raúl Melo as the Narrator, music director Elliot Figg on harpsichord, violinists Manami Mizumoto and Rebecca Nelson, violist Majka Demcak, theorbist and guitarist Paul Morton, and viol de gamba and bassist Doug Balliett, livestreamed from St. John’s in the Village, June 4, 7:30, $5-$50

SAS Performing Arts Company and Studios, “A Night at the Opera,” music by Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, and Strauss, performed by members of SAS Performing Arts Concert Opera, June 5-12, 7:30, $15

Professional Women Singers Association, songs dealing with the current crisis, June 6-30, free

The American Opera Project, “Sing Together, Children!,” created and hosted by soprano Adrienne Danrich, with the Music as the Message (MaM) choir and Q&A, June 13, 4:00, free