Welcome to the operamission weblog!
Our lovely audience for Keith Jameson/Cabaret Songs this past Friday enjoyed a fabulous evening. Keith sang approximately nine million words and won all hearts. Thank you all for coming and supporting operamission and the Greenwood Music Festival.
Great news — the Gershwin Hotel now has a liquor license, so grab a glass of wine and sample of cheeses from the café off the lobby to enjoy your next performance experience even more.
Please see support page to make your tax deductible contributions which will go towards our next two shows:
HANDEL at the Gershwin – Wednesday 3 March 2010 at 8:00 pm
Six magnificent voices in gems and rarities from George Frideric Handel’s London Operaswith baroque instruments
sopranos Amy van Roekel and Caroline Worra mezzo-soprano Alteouise deVaughn countertenor Daniel Bubeck tenor Matthew Garrett bass David Salsbery Fry
baroque violins Joan Plana and Beth Wenstrom baroque viola Audrey Selph baroque cello Ezra Seltzer led from the harpsichord by Jennifer Peterson
and then, in April…
graphic courtesy of Tim Hill Images and Kate Burns Design
OPERA IN FLIGHT: new scenes and one-acts
‘Margot Alone in the Light’ composer CLINT BORZONI librettist EMILY CONBERE based on Ray Bradbury’s ‘All Summer in a Day’ featuring soprano Martha Guth as Margot‘Anniversary’ composer and librettist EDWARD FICKLIN featuring soprano ELIZABETH BROOKS as Claire
excerpts from ‘Paradises Lost’ (in-progress) composer STEPHEN ANDREW TAYLOR librettist MARCIA JOHNSON based on the novella by Ursula Le Guin featuring mezzo-soprano KIMBERLY SOGIOKA as Hsing
and ‘Forms of Flight’ by George Flynn for solo clarinet featuring CORY TIFFIN
two performances – Friday and Saturday, April 2 & 3, 2010 at 8:00 PM
all co-presented by Neke Carson at 
News has just arrived that operamission now has fiscal sponsorship to aid in our fundraising efforts. Upcoming events at the Gershwin Hotel will be drawing in a nice mix of public – we’re doing cabaret, we’re doing Handel, and we’re doing new operas. So there is truly something everyone can support, and now your monetary contributions are tax-deductible.
We are proud to be a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of operamission may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
To donate by check, please make it out to “Fractured Atlas” and send it to:
operamission 853 Seventh Avenue, Suite 2A New York, NY 10019Checks for $1,000 or more must be accompanied by a Major Gift Letter.
And to donate online, please click here.
And come to a performance! You’ll be glad you did….
Thank you for supporting operamission. And as our friends at Fort Worth Opera recently tweeted, “…we are all on the opera mission!”
Planning phase in full swing for three more operamission events:
1 – Friday, January 29, 2010, 8pm – KEITH JAMESON / CABARET SONGS – tenor Keith Jameson joins operamission and pianist Jennifer Peterson for a memorable one-night-only cabaret concert at the Gershwin Hotel. Proceeds to benefit operamission and the Greenwood Music Festival. Click to view the press release.
2 – Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 8pm – HANDEL at the Gershwin, featuring six more Handelians: sopranos Amy van Roekel and Caroline Worra, mezzo-soprano Alteouise deVaughn, countertenor Daniel Bubeck, tenor Matthew Garrett, and bass David Salsbery Fry. Baroque violinists JOAN PLANA and BETH WENSTROM return, as well as EZRA SELTZER and JENNIFER PETERSON on continuo. More details coming soon…
3 – Friday & Saturday, April 2 & 3, 2010, 8pm – OPERA IN FLIGHT: new scenes & one-acts – composers Clint Borzoni, Edward Ficklin, George Flynn, Stephen Andrew Taylor – performers Sharin Apostolou (soprano), Alteouise deVaughn (mezzo-soprano), Martha Guth (soprano), Kimberly Sogioka (mezzo-soprano), Cory Tiffin (clarinet), Lisa Williamson (soprano) – directors Scott Embler, Emily Howard – adaptations of Ursula Le Guin, Ray Bradbury – staged with orchestra – MORE INFO COMING SOON…
‘HANDEL at the Gershwin’ was an all-around success this past Friday, and operamission cruises into the holiday season as a happy, healthy infant.
Composer Edward Ficklin captured the spirit of the evening here. If you missed it, and would like to peruse the printed program (yes, we hit on twelve Handel operas) go ahead and click on this pdf.
Due to all the generous sounds made by the performers, the full house of receptive fans, and general all-around enthusiasm, the Gershwin Hotel has invited us back; plans are afoot for the next showing.
I want to personally thank the incredibly talented and cooperative musicians who put in so much time and care, and who believed in the mission in order to make it happen:
Sharin Apostolou, Eva Gerard, Tim Hill, Jennifer Hines, Joan Plana, Ezra Seltzer, Gerald Thompson, and Beth Wenstrom.
THANK YOU ALL for ‘playing’ — and for doing something that’s never quite been done before.
Thank you John Miller from Pinnacle Arts Management, Inc. for stepping in as our master of ceremonies.
Thank you, artist Neke Carson, for hosting us at the Gershwin, and also for the jazz harpsichord jam send-off.
And of course, those dedicated ‘operamissionaries’ who volunteered their time and energy in helping with the logistics on Friday: Brian Anderson, Clint Borzoni, Scott Embler, Melissa Fogarty, Luis González, and Sarah Pillow — thank you for helping!
William Hogarth (1697-1764)'s portrait of Handel
And thank you, Mr. Handel. You knew we could do it!
We are pleased to announce our upcoming presentation…
In marking the 250th Anniversary of the end George Frideric Handel’s massive accomplishment, we are bringing some of the hottest highlights of Baroque Opera to New York City.
Please join us Friday, November 20, 2009 at 8:00 P.M. at the Gershwin Hotel for the vocal talents of…
soprano SHARIN APOSTOLOU 
contralto JENNIFER HINES 
countertenor GERALD THOMPSON
bass-baritone TIM HILL 
with BAROQUE INSTRUMENTS
holding it all together…
master of ceremonies ARTHUR LEVY
and leading from the harpsichord JENNIFER PETERSON
We will present 90 minutes of steamy scenarios from Handel’s London Operas…
from Rinaldo 
to his last opera, Deidamia 
The Gershwin Hotel is a bright warm space adjacent to the Museum of Sex, so come check it out, and enjoy the Handel!
More details here.
Tenor Keith Jameson just sent photos from our cabaret fundraiser for the Greenwood Music Festival this past Monday, October 12:
Preparing was a blast…from Irving Berlin to Stephen Sondheim with many more favorites along the way. The packed-in audience of 104 fervent South Carolina arts supporters were beaming, glowing, and comparing notes on how many times they had been moved to tears — by the end of the beautiful one-hour program.
Keith is a remarkably good host for these kinds of events, and his festival is thriving in its fourth season. The commissioned festival artwork, “Rose” by artist Trina McNeill-Smith was unveiled as part of the cabaret, and will be featured on the season’s postcards and other promotional materials.
September and October involved generous doses of Philip Glass, Henry Purcell, Robert Schumann, and the ever-welcome Borzoni & Handel, of course. Claude Debussy and Fernando Obradors popped in for a couple of weeks; please stay tuned for announcements on where & when to catch their respective unveilings.
If you haven’t heard about Eric Malson’s wonderful NYC restaurant blog, ‘Mahlzeit!’ — take a visit. Twitter-buddy and music theater pianist José Simbulan has proven to me once again that one never knows what we can gain from twitter. The two of us seem to be along for the ride of Eric’s brilliant discovery of some of the most inexpensive, spiciest, and rarest finds in NY’s ethnic cuisine scene.
José takes the photos and Eric writes the blog. I’m not sure what my job assignment is, but Chinatown-Flushing-Queens is a very easy trip on the Q-44 bus, so I’m fine with that! If you’ve always wondered what a sea worm is, ‘Mahlzeit!’ will tell you.
And next…looking forward to a few days with my father, in from San Luis Obispo, CA, doing his own ‘East Coast Tour’ — welcome, dad.
ANTINOUS
We are very excited about the continuing progress on Clint Borzoni’s new opera Antinous and Hadrian.
Composer Clint Borzoni, librettist Rochelle Bright, dramaturg Chuck Hudson and I held a nice productive meeting this past week. Clint and Rochelle have spent the summer hammering out a fully detailed synopsis. Rochelle has done brilliant work in fleshing out all of the characters and their relationships with each other, and has also ingeniously created some gripping thematic organization.
The opera will clearly have structure and pacing to its moments of tension and repose. And anyone who has ever worked with Chuck knows that he asks exactly the right questions to take the drama to the next level.
On top of all this impressive work, Clint has composed an orchestral introduction to Act II, scene 1 which did not fail to bring goosebumps on first hearing, second, and third. He and Rochelle have also done extensive revision work on this same scene.
Rochelle is capturing a tone in her use of language that is neither too heightened not too casual, yet this is one of the big questions. So we may bring some performers in next week in order to hear the words in other voices.
This is thrilling work. Please stay tuned for the next chapter of our progress. Very soon we will have a synopsis we can share. Rochelle thought to create a concise one-pager, as well as a thorough detailed one, which will smoothly feed into the actual sung text.
An evening of OPERA UNDER THE STARS
- Saturday, August 22, 7:00 pm -
Phoenicia Parish Field, nestled in the heart of the Catskill Mountains
featuring international opera stars:
MARIA TODARO
LOUIS OTEY
KERRY HENDERSON
full chorus
joined by pianists JUSTIN KOLB and JENNIFER PETERSON
- OPERA and MUSICAL THEATER HITS -
Although somewhat after-the-fact, I thought I’d make accessible the PROGRAM NOTES from operamission’s first major presentation.
If any other singers out there are keen on putting together this kind of program, please don’t be shy about contacting operamission. This work is vital, need I say more.
Soprano Alissa Rose and I produced this concert with assistance from American Opera Projects on March 1, 2009. The recording is posted right here on this site, under “sounds.”
Click here, happy reading:
