così – the cast and more

operamission will present ‘Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required’ at the Gershwin Hotel in New York, August 17-22, 2010.

For this one-of-a kind event, the operamission returns to the Gershwin Hotel at 27th & 5th at the invitation of Neke Carson, this time bringing along dramaturg Cori Ellison and a number of other Mozart ‘instigators.’

Please join us for any or all of the sessions:

postcard

press release

To join in the discussion of the pre-preparation, look for operamission on twitter. People are traveling in from all over the U.S. to play in the orchestra. If you’re interested in playing, please see next entry (below) — we still have room for more.

The cast will change for each session:

mezzo-soprano JENNIFER BERKEBILE – Dorabella (Parts 1, 2 and 3) / baritone JAMES BOBICK – Guglielmo (Parts 1 & 2) / soprano KERRI MARCINKO – Fiordiligi (Part 2) / baritone DENNIS BLACKWELL – Don Alfonso (Parts 1 & 2) / tenor BRIAN ANDERSON – Ferrando (Part 1)

tenor ASITHA TENNEKOON – Ferrando (Part 2) / mezzo-soprano TOBY NEWMAN – Dorabella (Part 4) / soprano JENNIFER AYLMER – Despina (Parts 2 & 4) / tenor JOHN CARLO PIERCE – Ferrando (Parts 3 & 4) / soprano KRISTEN PLUMLEY – Despina (Part 3)

baritone GREGORY GERBRANDT – Guglielmo (Parts 3 & 4) / soprano CAROLINE WORRA – Fiordiligi (Parts 1, 3 & 4) / bass-baritone ANDREW NOLEN – Don Alfonso (Parts 3 & 4)

Cori Ellison has graciously allowed me to post her fantastic and fun Così program notes here, thanks Cori!

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call for orchestral players

Call for Orchestral Players -

operamission is presenting Così fan tutte August 17-22.

A reading orchestra is being assembled for four sessions to jam through Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte with a spectacular cast of singers at New York’s Gershwin Hotel on 27th St & 5th Avenue.

Qualified players of the following instruments are invited to sign up:

(UPDATE: we still need violins! and one oboe for Fri/Sun)

flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon
horn, trumpet, timpani
violin, viola, violoncello, contrabass

Players may participate in any number of sessions. We will cover 30-40 minutes of music in each session.

Four hosts – a conductor (Jennifer Peterson), a stage director (Ned Canty), a dramaturg (Cori Ellison) and an Italian language master (Marco Nisticò) will lead the audience through the musical and dramaturgical assembly of the work.

Parts will be available in advance. Final seating & chair assignments are at the discretion of the conductor.

Four three-hour sessions

Act I, Part 1 – Tuesday, August 17, 7-10pm (7:30 downbeat)
Act I, Part 2 – Wednesday, August 18, 7-10pm (7:30 downbeat)
Act II, Part 1 – Friday, August 20, 7-10pm (7:30 downbeat)
Act II, Part 2 – Sunday, August 22, 4-7pm (4:30 downbeat)

To sign up, contact Jennifer Peterson at operamission in one of the following three ways:

email – operamission@gmail.com
twitter – http://twitter.com/operamission
website – leave a comment here at www.operamission.org

Facebook event ‘Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required’ displays full details, but a facebook RSVP is unofficial if not confirmed via one of the above three media.

Click to view the postcard.

Please join operamission for this event!

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summer 2010

Friday, July 16 operamission is teaming up with Classical Revolution NYC for a Chamber Music Performance & Jam Session at

Visit Classical Revolution NYC’s facebook event page, RSVP to participate.

To participate as an innocent audience member, just show up!

7 East 27th Street, just east of 5th Avenue, 7-10 pm
$10 cover – food, wine & beer available just off the lobby at Birch Coffee

followed by a mid-August Mozart escapade, not to be missed . . .

Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required

Mozart’s Perfect Italian Comedy, Presented in Four Parts

4 hosts in 4 evenings will take a sublime cast and an unrehearsed orchestra through the process of putting a Mozart opera together before a live audience. This will not only show how it’s put together, but it will show how it’s put together. Y’see? Plan on coming.

And you can even bring your laptop – wifi at the venue (the Gershwin Hotel) will allow us to share scores, manuscripts, Mozart’s letters, not to mention some live-tweeting and other participatory media adventures.

The concept has evolved out of the brainstorms of many opera-obsessed creative minds. The timing is strategic, to coordinate with the tail end of NYC’s MostlyMozart Festival (before you go on vacation) and as a little ‘audience prep’ for maestro William Christie’s Metropolitan Opera debut conducting this very opera.

www.cathiekingphotography.com

We will assemble the opera in four sessions, taking half of an act (between 30 & 40 minutes of music) each session, with a complete run of the half-act at the end of the evening:

Act I, Part 1 - Tuesday, August 17, 7:00 pm
Act I, Part 2 - Wednesday, August 18, 7:00 pm
Act II, Part 1 - Friday, August 20, 7:00 pm
Act II, Part 2 - Sunday, August 22, 4:00 pm

Attend any number of sessions – $10 cover, or $5 per session if attending more than one.

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post-flight storms

Clint Borzoni’s Margot Alone in the Light received a ‘re-mount’ on Friday, April 16. Anne Ricci’s Opera on Tap brought the operamission world premiere cast and orchestra to the Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

operamission is now cooking up what’s next…there have been more serious Handel talks…

But first, the Mozart brainstorms are brewing, and what we’re putting together to finish up the summer is something outlandishly complicated in concept, yet couldn’t be any more straightforward. As soon as we are set, we will spill the details.

In the meantime, please visit operamission’s new YouTube channel for excerpts from March’s ‘HANDEL at the Gershwin’ and soon hopefully some of Keith & Margot.

And the long-term ‘next’ is the continuation of operamission’s commission – a full-length opera-in-progress. Composer Clint Borzoni and librettist Edward Ficklin are cranking it out. Any update I blog about here will be superseded by the work they do each day. You can follow Eddy and Clint on twitter as well as operamission if you’d like to see live updates of their trials and tribulations. Suffice it to say, we will be fitting fresh music to living, breathing singers any day now.

Many more important bits have happened and are happening.

OPERA IN FLIGHT was delightfully well-attended. Participating, we had ‘visiting dignitaries’ in from as far away from Seattle (librettist Emily Conbere) and Toronto (librettist Marcia Johnson) with four others from the great state of Illinois: composers George Flynn and Stephen Andrew Taylor, as well as the two spectacular founding members of Chicago’s Anaphora: violinist Aurélien Pederzoli and clarinetist Cory Tiffin. And composer James Borchers totally brought the percussion from Boston. The NY casts of singers made their phenomenal contributions in bringing the composers’ music to life, as did a chamber orchestra of ten players. Rehearsals and performances went smoothly due to the high degree of cooperation and commitment from all of these immensely talented artists. And the audience seemed to notice.

Next week I will travel west for the Chintimini Chamber Music Festival to perform works by J.S. Bach, Kenji Bunch, and Charles Martin Loeffler — looking forward to some Oregon time!

Then returning quickly to put on another new work at Galapagos in July, this one by my friend Daniel Felsenfeld.

Looking for Handel this month…? It’s in Princeton. I highly recommend this cast….

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opera in flight

‘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

check out the postcard – front & back

tweet it

visit the Facebook event page

and send your support.

This is a co-presentation of

and Neke Carson at

Tickets are $20 general admission.

Come early to grab a seat, and enjoy the cafe off the lobby - Birch Coffee – beer, wine, delicious cheeses, salads, sandwiches, and more.

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march mission

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!

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handel march 3 and more

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 Operas

with 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…

margot in flight

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 fromParadises 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 clarinetist CORY TIFFIN

two performances – Friday and Saturday, April 2 & 3, 2010 at 8:00 PM

all co-presented by Neke Carson at




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