Randall Eng joins us for a look at Florida, which is a collaboration with Donna Di Novelli. We also talk about pre-concert talks and Parsifal. Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the baton at the met and Anita Rachvelishvili dazzles as Azucena.

NOTES

• Randall Eng
  • Professor and graduate of NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program
• Nixon In China
• The Ghosts of Versailles
• Prototype Festival 2018
  • Fellow Travelers
  • Acquanetta
• Written On Skin
  • Opera Philadelphia
• Il Trovatore
  • Metropolitan Opera
  • Verdi
  • Azucena
  • Anita Rachvelishvili
• Operas with great stories a modern audience can understand
  • Tosca
  • Carmen
  • La Boheme
• Written On Skin
• Once On This Island revival
  • Lea Salonga plays Erzulie
  • Norm Lewis plays Agwe
  • Alex Newell plays Asaka
  • Tamyra Gray plays Pape Ge
  • Michael Arden, Director
  • Jerry Dixon and La Chanze are original Broadway cast members
• Parsifal
  • Metropolitan Opera
  • Richard Wagner
• Pre-concert talks, how do they set their audience up to understand and experience the operas. Is the usual academic method of talking about opera getting in the way of engaging younger audiences, or audiences new to opera?
  • Opera News
  • Glyndebourne Festival
  • Royal Opera House Covent Garden
  • Das Rheingold
  • Arthur Schopenhauer
  • Sigmund Freud
  • Great Concert Lecturers
    • William Berger
    • Cori Ellison
  • Companies should do pre-show drinks and talk
  • Discuss what’s going on in the opera in terms of the characters relationships in society, of that time and how it relates to our current time.
  • Wagner’s use of harmonic language supports the storytelling.
  • Parsifal Overture may intentionally feature horns and reeds that are tuned slightly off to create an idea of the upcoming stories emotional undercurrents.
  • This opera’s score has been labled the “Gateway” to 20th Century Atonality.
    • Glass
    • Einstein On the Beach
    • Cage
• Yannick Nézet-Séguin, incoming Music Director for Metropolitan Opera
  • Conductor of this Parsifal performance
• Is there something essentially wrong with the Parsifal Prelude?
  • It sits in an uncanny valley position between Tonality and Modern Atonality
• Florida, a new opera very loosely inspired by an actual event
  • Randall Eng, composer
  • Donna Di Novelli, librettist
  • UrbanArias based in Arlington, Virginia
    • Atlas Performing Arts Center
  • Sharin Apostolou will be performing Florida
  • Kevin Newbury, director
  • Lyric Opera of Cleveland produced a workshop of the opera 10 years ago
  • Work started as a very stylized play by Di Novelli about 20 years ago, which included a character based on the actress Eve Arden
  • Current roles are: Florida, One Dead Mother, Marc, Redwood Male, Redwood Female, Redwood Son, Redwood Daughter
  • City Opera Vox Program
    • Mark Adamo
  • Public Theater
    • New Works Now Festival
  • Adam Guettel
  • Jason Robert Brown
  • Jeanine Tesori
• Is there a difference in styles and stories for contemporary developed between American composers and British composers?
  • Bollywood
  • Nico Muhly
  • Charles Wuorinen
  • Dead Man Walking produced in Madrid
  • Mark Anthony Turnage
• Both the style of singing and presentation may explain the difference between what is a musical and what is considered an opera, but the edges are blurring fast. It will also set up the expectations of your audience.
• Kelly O’Hara
• Audra McDonald
• Kristin Chenoweth
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder
  • Steven Lutvak, composer
  • Robert L Freeman, book and lyrics
• Caroline or Change
• The Light In the Piazza
• Robert Wood, conductor of Florida & General Director of Urban Arias
  • Gregory Spears
  • Fellow Travelers
  • Other contemporary operas produced by Urban Arias:
    • As One
    • Paul’s Case
    • Three Decembers
  • Following production for Urban Arias
  • Why Is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me?: A Love Story
  • Jeffrey Dennis Smith, composer
  • David Johnston, librettist
• Randall Eng has a new piece in Our America, a program celebrating music by immigrants
  • MasterVoices
  • Ted Sperling, Conductor
• 5 Opera Seria by Giaochino Rossini (Or at least dramas)
  • Semiramide
  • Guilliame Tell
  • Ciro in Babilonia
  • Tancredi
  • Otello
  • The Pearl Fishers
  • Cendrillion
• Caramoor Festival
• The Barber of Seville
• La Cenerentola
• Madama Butterfly
• Escape to Margaritaville, a new Broadway musical using Jimmy Buffet’s songs
• The Amateurs by Jordan Harrison
  • Vineyard Theatre
• A Quiet Place by Leonard Bernstein
  • New orchestration
  • Curtis Opera Theatre at Hunter
• NYU short operas based on The Dinner Party art installation by Judy Chicago
• In conjunction with American Opera Projects
• Jordan Rutter

Credits: Peter Szep, Chuck Sachs, John Lynd (Audio Engineer), Peter Szep (Editor)