this week in music

SYMPHONY SPACE 2021 GALA CONCERT

Who: Kate Baldwin, Roz Chast, Britney Coleman, Jane Curtin, Nikki Renée Daniels, Santino Fontana, Jason Gotay, Melora Hardin, Jane Kaczmarek, Jeff Kready, Colum McCann, Patricia Marx, Laura Osnes, George Saunders, Rashidra Scott, Nathaniel Stampley, Sally Wilfert, Meg Wolitzer, Tony Yazbeck, more
What: Virtual gala fundraiser
Where: Symphony Space Zoom
When: Thursday, May 13, $35, 7:00
Why: On January 7, 1978, conductor Allan Miller and playwright and director Isaiah Sheffer staged the free twelve-hour concert “Wall to Wall Bach” at an Upper West Side building on Broadway that was formerly the Astor Market, the Crystal Palace Skating Rink, and the Symphony Theatre. The event was such a success that they decided to start Symphony Space, an arts venue that for more than forty years has hosted music, storytelling, film, theater, readings, lectures, dance, and much more. The pandemic lockdown had closed the institution’s doors, but they will reopen for the 2021 annual gala fundraiser on May 13 in a hybrid livestream featuring an all-star lineup performing onstage at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater and sharing memories from home over Zoom. “When I got a text that the first rehearsal for the dance piece in the space had happened and gone well, it was thrilling — we had arrived at that long-awaited moment when artists were once again gracing our stages,” executive director Kathy Landau said in a statement. “Before the pandemic, every corner of our building pulsated with art and ideas, with people meeting in the hallways and the wings. The theater itself is almost its own character in the life of Symphony Space — and what makes it come alive is the community we have built in and around it. And while we had so much engaging virtual programming, the theater had been sitting almost entirely empty. For the gala, there was a lightbulb moment where we realized, ‘Wait, there’s a way to safely and responsibly and comfortably bring this energy back,’ for this event to be our first step before bringing audiences in. It had to be quintessential Symphony Space: to be multidisciplinary, to have that unique-to-this-one-evening, in-the-moment immediacy, to have that magical alchemy that occurs when artists come together at Symphony Space to create, collaborate, and celebrate.”

The evening of cocktails, concert, and conversation, produced and directed by Annette Jolles and Joel Fram, will feature performances by Kate Baldwin, Britney Coleman, Nikki Renée Daniels, Jason Gotay, Jeff Kready, Laura Osnes, Rashidra Scott, Nathaniel Stampley, Sally Wilfert, and Tony Yazbeck in addition to a new dance piece by Sara Brians (performed by Saki Masuda, Michelle Mercedes, and Devin L. Roberts) as well as appearances by Roz Chast, Jane Curtin, Nikki Renée Daniels, Santino Fontana, Melora Hardin, Jane Kaczmarek, Patricia Marx, Colum McCann, George Saunders, Meg Wolitzer, and others. The house band consists of conductor Fred Lassen on piano, John Romeri on flute, Keve Wilson on oboe, Nuno Antunes on clarinet, Eric Reed on horns, Nanci Belmont on bassoon, Laura Bontrager on cello, George Farmer on bass, and Clayton Craddock on drums. Tickets for the concert are $35 and go up to $1,000 to $40,000 for special breakout rooms and tables with guest artists and a Party in a Box.

La MaMa MOVES! DANCE FESTIVAL

Mei Yamanaka will be part of Tiffany Mills Company presentation at 2021 La Mama Moves! Dance Festival

Who: Tiffany Mills Company; Hadar Ahuvia and Tatyana Tenenbaum; J. Bouey; Morgan Bullock, Gerald Casel, Daudi Fayar, BamBam Frost, and John Scott; Ricarrdo Valentine/Brother(hood) Dance!; Jasmine Hearn; Sugar Vendil; more
What: Digital and in-person dance festival
Where: La MaMa online and at Downtown Art/Alpha Omega
When: May 12–23, free – $25 (pay-what-you-can)
Why: The 2021 edition of La MaMa Moves! will be a hybrid dance festival, consisting of workshops, discussions, and performances streamed live from the Ellen Stewart Theatre and the Downstairs Theatre at its home at 66 East Fourth St. as well as held in front of a limited audience at Downtown Art/Alpha Omega at 19 East Third St. “Performing artists have always proven to be resilient and resourceful even during the most challenging times,” La MaMa Moves! curator Nicky Paraiso said in a statement. “Since the pandemic began last March, dance practitioners have been both taking time to reflect and going ahead in doing the creative work they are always doing. This past year has certainly been painful and frustrating, both mentally exhausting and physically debilitating. Dance artists have, however, continued to make work, and I believe that the artists participating in this season’s La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival are making work that is essential and true to this pivotal moment in time.”

The sixteenth annual festival kicks off May 12 with an intergenerational discussion in recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with Yoshiko Chuma, Sophia Gutchinov, Potri Ranka Manis, Paz Tanjuaquio, and Sugar Vendil, moderated by choreographer and writer Maura Nguyen Donohue. Tiffany Mills Company will offer a Zoom workshop for kids on May 13, Hadar Ahuvia and Tatyana Tenenbaum will perform Prayer of the Morning on May 13 and 15, J. Bouey will present untitled: an exploration of grief on May 14 and 16, and Morgan Bullock, Gerald Casel, Daudi Fayar, BamBam Frost, and John Scott will participate in a Virtual International Showcase on May 18. Tiffany Mills Company will give a sneak peek at the excerpts-in-process Home Project on May 20 and 22 (with Mills, Jordan Morley, Nikolas Owens, Emily Pope, and Mei Yamanaka), Ricarrdo Valentine/Brother(hood) Dance! shares All About Love about Black healing on May 21 and 23, and, on May 22 and 23 at 4:00, La MaMa moves to the nearby Downtown Art/Alpha Omega for outdoor performances of Jasmine Hearn’s Songs from Pleasure Memory and Vendil’s Test Sites. All events require advance RSVP and are either free or pay-what-you-can ($5-$25).

SIXTH ANNUAL NEW YORK OPERA FEST

New Camerata Opera’s The Brooklyn Job is one of numerous cutting-edge productions in 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

Heartbeat Opera’s The Extinctionist takes place in person and online

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

SOCIAL! THE SOCIAL DISTANCE DANCE CLUB

Park Ave. Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
April 9-22, $45 ($35 standby tickets available)
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

Twister is the most physical of board games. The more people come into contact with one another on the plastic mat — which contains colored circles that participants must touch with one of their hands or feet depending on what the spinner tells them to do — the more fun it is to play and to watch. The same can be said for dancing, a social activity that brings people together in numerous ways. In a 2015 study, Bronwyn Tarr, Jacques Launay, Emma Cohen, and Robin Dunbar explained, “All human cultures perform and enjoy forms of music and dance in a group setting. Dancing involves people synchronizing their movements to a predictable, rhythmic beat (usually provided by music) and to each other. In this manner, dance is fundamentally cooperative in nature, and may have served the evolutionary function of encouraging social bonds, cooperation, and prosocial behaviors between group members. To date, empirical support for this social bonding hypothesis is based mainly on a link between synchrony (i.e. performing the same movement at the same time) and bonding.” In a twist on both Twister and dancing, the Park Ave. Armory commission Social! the social distance dance club incorporates people, colorful circles on the floor, and synchronous bonding in an immensely boisterous evening of interaction that features no touching whatsoever.

The armory was supposed to kick off its Social Distance Hall series with Bill T. Jones’s Afterwardsness, but several positive Covid tests in the company led to its postponement until May, after Party in the Bardo, a collaboration between Laurie Anderson and Jason Moran running May 5-9. Conceived by choreographer Steven Hoggett (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), Tony-winning set designer and solo show specialist Christine Jones (American Idiot, Here We Are: Theatre for One), and multidisciplinary artist David Byrne (Talking Heads, American Utopia), Social! takes place in the fifty-five-thousand-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill, where nearly one hundred ticket holders spend fifty-five minutes moving and grooving in their own private circle.

Audience members must arrive about an hour before showtime to have a Covid-19 shallow-swab rapid response test. While waiting for the results — anyone who comes up positive will need to immediately leave the building with the rest of their party (and will be refunded the $45 ticket price) — groups of about twenty-four waited in different locations in the historic armory, where monitors displayed quotes about dancing from a March 2021 Financial Times article, “Covid will not squash our deep-seated need to dance,” by Will Coldwell, who references the above study in his piece, along with YouTube videos of men, women, and children from around the world dancing with joy. (For example, “Dance provides us with a universal language — one deeper and more emotional than words — that helps us to bond with other, often unfamiliar, people.”) Eventually we audience members were marched into the drill hall in formation, and each was sent to an assigned spotlight, spaced at twelve-to-fifteen-foot intervals. (The lighting design, which includes the projection of abstract shapes and a disco ball, is by Kevin Adams; the above videos are © DBOX.) In the center, on a slowly revolving raised platform, is DJ Mad Love (Tony nominee Karine Plantadit), who spins tunes on two computers (mixed by DJ Natasha Diggs) while Byrne’s disembodied voice guides us, suggesting specific movements and encouraging self-expression. (His instructions were done in conjunction with choreographer Yasmine Lee.)

To songs by D-Train, Daft Punk, James Brown, Benny Goodman, Olivia Newton-John, Fatback, Byrne, and others, the former Talking Heads leader prompts us through various scenarios (hands waving in the air, weaving through a subway car, balancing at the edge of your circle, swaying slowly, etc., although some of it is hard to hear amid the thumping beats) before leading up to the grand finale, a unified dance that we were advised to rehearse in advance via a video in which Byrne demonstrates the moves.

The drill hall is a judgment-free space; no one is going to laugh at your dancing, and you’re not going to laugh at anyone else’s. It’s a time to kick loose and let it all go, immerse yourself in a worry-free hour of nonstop exhilaration. It’s not always easy — several people in my vicinity had to take rests, and one woman spent much of the show sitting in her circle — but the more you are able to put into it, the more you will get out of it. (Coldwell explains, “As we now know so well, it’s far easier to start dancing than it is to stop.”) And when you are taken back to your seat, a small, relevant little gift is waiting for you, one last reminder that even if we can’t be together in a physical way — Twister might not be on the menu for a bit longer — we can now gather safely and bond, as long as we’re tested, masked, socially distanced, and ready to have a blast.

TELEPHONE 2021

Telephone connects artists from around the world (screenshot by twi-ny/mdr)

TELEPHONE
Opened April 10, free
phonebook.gallery
satellitecollective.org

In April 2015, New York City–based Satellite Collective launched its unique take on the game of Telephone; instead of people forming a line and whispering phrases to one another to see how much the words change, the project connected more than 300 artists from 42 countries, each developing a new piece based on multiple works they were sent, inspired by the sentence “O god, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” Five years later, Telephone is back, bringing together 950 artists from 70 countries and 5 continents during a pandemic that has seen arts venues shuttered and travel decreased significantly. Starting on March 23, 2020, a message was given to one artist; the text of that message has not been revealed. It was passed via multiple art forms — painting, photography, music, film, dance, poetry, sculpture, prose — creating a vast network of artists primarily selected by word-of-mouth. An online grid allows viewers to explore one work, complete with image/video, artist bio and statement, and map placing where they are from. You can then follow the branch in one of two directions to see what each piece inspires or navigate the game by artist, discipline, or location.

“It took me a while to let the message reach me. I listened again and again. But I heard an echo, and the work I created is exactly that: a soft, natural response to what was sent my way. I hope it keeps moving and changing,” explains Elizabeth Schmuhl of Detroit, whose watercolor is connected to artists from Helsinki, Los Angeles, and Ulster County. “Translating another’s work is harder than expected, especially from a field different from the one you practice. I translated a written work into an illustrator after a lot of sketching and reading between the lines, and then, when making my own drawing, I had to make sure with myself between time to time that I’m still on the right track and conveying the message I believed I have been given,” writes Keren-or Radiano of Tel-Aviv, whose black-and-white piece links to Lauren Baines of San Jose and Timothy Ralphs of Vancouver, who in turn says about his song, “I have to admit that my own work can sometimes be a bit dark and brooding, but because I wanted to honor the spirit of the works that were forwarded to me, I knew I’d have to (at least temporarily) put that pessimism aside. As I meditated on the works, I began to see them as not only being about inspiration but as being an inspiration in themselves. There was a real sense of delight in creation in those works, and I felt touched by the artists’ generosity of spirit. I only hope I was able to pass on some of that to those that come after me.”

Multidisciplinary artists gain inspiration from participants in online game of Telephone (screenshot by twi-ny/mdr)

Poet Rebecca Williams of Fort Collins describes, “Writing this piece was in some ways challenging. Usually, I don’t write given a prompt. I normally avoid it. Having participated in a similar telephone game recently for which I wrote a song, I was eager to participate in this one of a global scale. I participated because creating in the circumstances which we face (a global pandemic) has been challenging. My band has been forced to a complete standstill and it puts you face-to-face with the question of why you are actually creating in the first place. Of course, in the end, it is the love and passion for creation, and without it, I truly feel empty. I think my apprehension comes from a kind of distaste for mediocrity. Something which I have always battled and struggled with. I was given such a beautiful work of art to be inspired by, and while I looked at it, and studied it, I asked myself what it meant to me, then the words came easily. Perfection doesn’t exist. Mediocrity does, but beautiful things are always a bit imperfect.” And writer, musician, and Torah teacher Alicia Jo Rabins of Portland, Oregon, points out, “All art is translation, transcription, and transmission. It was fun to collaborate with a mysterious fellow translator/transcriber/transmitter — at the risk of sounding totally woo, it made me feel more grounded in the source of the great flowing stream of art and consciousness that happens at all times. It’s easy to feel alone and it was nice to have company. I think I got what the previous artist was trying to convey. I hope I get to meet them someday.”

Conceived, developed, designed, edited, directed, engineered, and curated by Kevin Draper, Katelyn Watkins, Matt Diehl, Ben Sarsgard, Kelly Jones, Ramon M. Rodriguez, Jennifer Spriggs, Sergio Rodriguez, Madeline Hoak, Sean Tomas Redmond, and Nathan Langston, Telephone can occupy you for hours on end, looking at different ekphrastic works or visualizing it as one giant multidisciplinary, collaborative canvas that expresses our never-ending deep desire for creativity, inspiration, and connection, especially in times of isolation and doubt.

THE WANDERING

THE WANDERING
April 15 – May 15, $24.99 – $29.99
experiencethewandering.com

Every spring for more than forty years, the Schubertiade has celebrated the work of Austrian composer Franz Schubert through concerts, exhibitions, lectures, and discussion. Overlapping with the 2021 Schubertiade, which runs April 28 to May 2, is an unusual, immersive hybrid production called The Wandering, available online April 15 through May 15. The multimedia presentation uses film, music, props, postcards, and photography to explore Schubert’s creativity and sexual orientation.

In his 1992 New York Times article “Critic’s Notebook: Was Schubert Gay? If He Was, So What? Debate Turns Testy” about a 92nd St. Y symposium on the composer, Edward Rothstein wrote, “As for the issue of homosexuality, Mr. [Maynard] Solomon’s case is compellingly argued, but I defer to scholars for a final verdict. The most vexing problems arise in judging the musical importance of the composer’s sexuality. Mr. Solomon asserts, for example, that Schubert’s homosexuality demonstrated a ‘resistance to compulsion’ and that it revealed a ‘heroic region in Schubert’s personality.’ But while Schubert obviously possessed a profound knowledge of suffering and isolation, heroism seems alien to his compositions, imported from some contemporary views of sexual ‘unorthodoxy.’”

Conceived by actor and curator Calista Small, baritone and actor Jeremy Weiss, designer Charlotte McCurdy, theater artist Christine Shaw, filmmaker Lara Panah-Izadi, and animator Zach Bell, The Wandering, which delves into Schubert’s suffering, isolation, heroism, and sexuality in abstract ways, is meant to take place over four days, although you can proceed at your own pace. Each day features a short film starring Weiss as the Wanderer, a curious man traversing a strange landscape, with music by Schubert played by pianist Marika Yasuda and German lyrics sung by Weiss. (English translations by Julian Manresa are available.)

Jeremy Weiss portrays the Wanderer in hybrid immersive production about Franz Schubert

In the Matthew Barney–like films, which can be viewed only once — there’s no going back after you start each one — cinematographer Frank Sun follows the Wanderer as he encounters a series of mysterious characters out on the road, in a forest, in the historic Tivoli Theatre in Downers Grove, Illinois, and at the landmark Wright in Kankakee home in the Illinois woods: Bambi Banks Couleé as the Performer, Ethan Kirschbaum as the Doppelgänger, Daria Harper as the Crow, Small as the Crystallography Denizen, and Josh Romero as the Gardener Denizen. Directed by Panah-Izadi, the films, ranging between six and ten minutes apiece, are beautifully shot tone poems incorporating music, theater, and dance, with choreography by Craig Black, sound by Jared O’Brien, costumes by Casey Wood (the Doppelgänger outfit is particularly impressive), sets by Rachel Cole, and hair and makeup by Erica Martens.

After watching each individual film, you open a packet you received in the mail (well worth the additional $5 cost) containing an object for you to interact with, poetry, letters, pre-addressed stamped postcards you can fill with drawings and/or words and send, QR codes for augmented reality (by Sahil Gupta), and various prompts surrounding your personal “wunderlich,” which can mean “wondrous,” “queer,” “odd,” “fantastical,” or “whimsical.” Several tasks involve going outside, taking a photo, and posting it to the gallery on the main site, known as the Prism (the web design is by TanTan Wang), which features a perennial meditative soundscape. There’s also a page where you can listen separately to the songs, which include “Wandrers Nachtlied,” “Die Krähe,” “Die Gebüsche,” “Nacht Und Träume,” and “Ganymed.”

Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797 and died there at the age of thirty-one, having produced more than 1,500 works, from orchestral overtures, operas, and symphonies to lieder, cantatas, and song cycles. In an 1822 letter the composer sent to his friend and maybe lover, Austrian actor, poet, and librettist Franz von Schober (and which is excerpted in the show’s packet), he describes a dream he had, explaining, “I wandered into a distant land. . . . For long, long years, I sang songs. When I wanted to sing about love, it turned to pain. When I wanted to sing of pain, it turned to love. Thus, love and pain divided me.”

Weiss responds with his own letter to Schubert, writing, “Your music was the first thing I turned to in a moment of crisis during a pandemic. Thank you for writing of your pain, and of your love. Did you ever learn not to let them divide you? Might we?” It’s a question a lot of us have been asking, especially during this last, tumultuous year.

THE CIVILIANS PRESENTS SHOWING UP

Who: The Civilians
What: Livestreamed music, art, and performance
Where: Civilians online
When: Friday, April 16, free with RSVP (suggested donation $15), 7:30
Why: In the spring of 2020, award-winning photographer Accra Shepp began taking pictures of Black Lives Matter activists on the front lines, posting them to Instagram; his Covid Journals started with “Contagion,” with “Hunger” and “Justice” to follow. Those portraits are now the basis for Showing Up, a livestreamed event led by Brooklyn-based “investigative theater” specialists the Civilians in which four actors (Becca Blackwell, Cecil Blutcher, Sheldon Best, and Marsha Stephanie Blake) and a group of musicians and singers (bassist Rashaan Carter with vocalist Anaïs Maviel; composer Jacinth Greywoode and singer-songwriter Rebecca Hart; Jamie Lozano, with Javier Ignacio; and Katie Madison and composer-musician Jarret Murray, with Deborah Cowell) will perform new material inspired by the New York City native’s photos and by interviews with some of his subjects conducted by Blake, Jesse Baxter, Bailey Jordan Garcia, Dee Harper, Matt Maher, and Riley Tollen.

“I was introduced to Shepp’s Covid Journals this past fall and was moved by his striking ability to connect with each subject,” Civilians artistic director Steve Cosson said in a statement. “In Shepp’s photos, I saw an individual assert their presence on his or her own terms, giving a human-scale dimension to these larger, collective events. I’m delighted that Shepp agreed to work with us on this project, offering an opportunity for the voice of the individuals in these photos to ‘show up’ through their conversations with our company of interviewers and the interpretation of their words by actors and musicians.” Copresented with the International Center for Photography and Alice Austen House and with the collaboration of the Alfred Stieglitz Society at the Met, Showing Up is directed by Colette Robert, with video direction by Sadah Espii Proctor; Nidra Sous la Terre serves as host. Admission is free with advance RSVP; a talk with Shepp bookends the evening. Up next for the Civilians is Black Feminist Video Game April 27 to May 9.