‘OPERA IN FLIGHT: new scenes & one-acts’

Join us at 8:00 on April 2 and 3 at the Gershwin Hotel

World première of the one-act opera

music by Clint Borzoni, libretto by Emily Conbere

based on Ray Bradbury’s ‘All Summer in a Day’

AND:

Anniversary – a one-act opera

music and libretto by Edward Ficklin

AND:

three scenes from the opera-in-progress

Paradises Lost

music by Stephen Andrew Taylor, libretto by Marcia Johnson

based on Ursula K. Le Guin’s novella by the same name

AND:

‘Forms of Flight’ for solo clarinet

by George Flynn

performed by founding member of Anaphora Ensemble

clarinetist Cory Tiffin

for more details, read the press release

tweet it

visit the Facebook event page

and send your support.

This is a co-presentation of

and Neke Carson at

]]> http://operamission.org/2010/03/10/opera-in-flight/feed/ 0 operamission MargotBlackmid margot logo rays logotag operamission gershwinlogo http://operamission.org/2010/03/07/587/ http://operamission.org/2010/03/07/587/#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:47:40 +0000 operamission http://operamission.org/?p=587 ]]> Welcome to the operamission weblog!

We did lots more Handel.

countertenor Daniel Bubeck

Thank you Dan. Thank you Caroline, David, Matthew, Amy, Alteouise – you were all fabulous. Thank you to the HANDEL Band – Joan Plana, Beth Wenstrom, Audrey Selph, and of course the unfailingly smooth continuo support of cellist Ezra Seltzer. Very special thanks to Scott Embler for helping with the set-up and creating the mood. And of course thanks to Neke Carson for hosting us again at the wonderful Gershwin Hotel. We’ll be back soon!

It seems as if the program itself was one of the hits of the evening, so here it is for those of you who missed it – a PDF of the program.

And here is a lovely blog review from Abigail Wright.

We are very hard at work at the next presentation – a big one. So stay tuned for OPERA IN FLIGHT: new scenes and one-acts. Here is the Facebook Event Page, with more PR goodies coming soon.

And if you are liking what you are hearing & seeing, and want to hear/see more, send us your support today!

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

and then, in April…

graphic courtesy of Tim Hill Images and Kate Burns Design

OPERA IN FLIGHT: new scenes and one-acts

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:

Checks 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!”

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…

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!

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.

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.

-  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  -