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Boston Modern Orchestra
Project and Opera Boston present
Angels in America
A new opera by PETER EÖTVÖS
Based on the play by TONY KUSHNER
Libretto by MARI MEZEI
North American Premiere
Gil Rose, conductor
Steven Maler, stage director
FEATURING
Thomas Meglioranza (Prior Walter)
Anne Harley (Harper Pitt)
Drew Poling (Roy Cohn)
Amanda Forsythe (The Angel)
Matthew DiBattista (Louis Ironson)
Nikolas Sean-Paul Nackley (Joseph Pitt)
Ja-Naé Duane (Hannah Pitt)
Matthew Truss (Belize)
The Virginia Wimberly Theatre
Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts
Duration: 2 hours, 25 minutes
There will be one intermission.
The opera is sung in English.
 |
Angels
in America is presented by Opera Unlimited, an award-winning collaboration
between Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Opera Boston. |
Performance
Schedule and Tickets
Venue Information
Angels Unlimited: A Heavenly
Party
Free Related Events
Biographies
Synopsis
Program Notes
Press Contact
About Opera Unlimited
About Angels in America
Links
Sponsors
Performance
Schedule and Tickets
Friday, June 16, 2006 6:30pm (opening night benefit)
Saturday, June 17, 2006 8pm
Tuesday, June 20, 2006 8pm
Saturday, June 24, 2006 3pm
A pre-performance talk will take place one hour before each performance
(excluding June 16).
Tickets are $45 and $65.
Tickets for the opening night events begin at $150, and sponsorships are
available at higher levels.
Half-price student rush tickets are available with valid student ID, subject
to availability two hours before performance time (cash only).
Student rush tickets are not available for the June 16 performance.
617-933-8600
TTY 617-424-0694
www.bostontheatrescene.com
BOX OFFICE LOCATIONS:
Boston University Theatre (264 Huntington Avenue)
Stanford Calderwood Pavilion (527 Tremont Street)
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Venue
Information
The Virginia Wimberly Theatre is ADA compliant.
For more information about the venue call (617) 266-0800.
DRIVING DIRECTIONS:
The Stanford
Calderwood Pavilion is located at 527 Tremont Street in Boston's South
End.
From the North: Take I-93 South into Boston, exit onto
Storrow Drive.
Take the Copley Square exit on your left. At the light make a left onto
Beacon Street and a quick right, following the path of all traffic, onto
Arlington Street. Follow Arlington for approximately one-half (1/2) mile,
crossing over the highway into the South End. Turn right onto Tremont
Street at the light in front of the CVS. The Calderwood Pavilion is on
your right at 527 Tremont Street.
From the South: Take I-93 to the Mass. Ave. exit. Turn
right onto Mass. Ave. north. Turn right at the fifth light onto Tremont
Street. The Calderwood Pavilion is located on the left at 527 Tremont
Street.
From the West: Take I-90 into Boston. Get off the highway
at the Copley Square/Prudential exit. Follow signs for Copley. Stay straight
go onto Stuart Street. Go two blocks then turn right onto Arlington Street
at the light. Go over the highway. At the light in front of the CVS, turn
right onto Tremont Street. The Calderwood Pavilion is on your right
at 527 Tremont Street.
PARKING:
Garage
at 100 Clarendon: Park for $9.00 between 5pm and 7am Monday-Friday
and all day Saturday and Sunday. We will validate your parking ticket
before the show at the Calderwood Pavilion Box Office (validation needed
for weekend parking only, if you forget to validate your ticket pre-show,
please contact a Front of House staff member for assistance). Entrance
on Clarendon Street, between Stuart Street and Columbus Avenue, before
Back Bay Station, across the street from the Hard Rock Cafe.
Atelier|505 Parking Garage: Located under the Calderwood
Pavilion. Enter on Warren Avenue, at the rear of the facility.
John Hancock Parking Garage: Located at the John Hancock
building at 200 Clarendon Street.
Open
Lots on Berkeley: There are two open parking lots on Berkeley
Street at Columbus Avenue. Open until 10pm.
PUBLIC
TRANSPORTATION:
Orange
Line to Back Bay station. Exit onto Clarendon Street.Turn right.
Go four blocks on Clarendon Street, then make a left onto Tremont Street.
The Calderwood Pavilion is on your left just past the Cyclorama.
Green Line to Copley Square station. Exit onto Boylston
Street and walk with traffic (Boylston is one-way). Take a right onto
Clarendon Street and walk seven blocks, then make a left onto Tremont
Street. The Calderwood Pavilion is on your left just past the Cyclorama.
No. 43 bus to Tremont Street. The No. 43 bus travels
between Park Street Station (on the Green Line) and Dudley Square in Roxbury.
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Angels
Unlimited: A Heavenly Party
The opening night of Angels in America on June 16 will be part
of a gala event at the Calderwood Pavilion to benefit the AIDS Action
Committee of Massachusetts, Opera Boston, and the Boston Modern Orchestra
Project. The evening, which will begin with "Angels Unlimited: A
Heavenly Party" in the Nancy and Edward Roberts Studio Theater prior
to the performance, will honor Larry Kessler, Founding Director of the
AIDS Action Committee, as we mark 25 years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Tickets
for the opening night events begin at $150, and sponsorships
are available at higher levels. For more information about the gala, contact
Miguel Rodriguez at Opera Boston at 617-451-3388.
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Free
Related Events
New events will be added on an ongoing basis. Check back soon
for more information,
or call BMOP at 617-363-0396.
All satellite events are free and open to the public on a first-come,
first-served basis.
Saturday, June 17, 2006 |3-4pm| Deane Hall at the Calderwood
Pavilion
Concert performance of one-person operas and arias.
Program includes Elizabeth Keusch, soprano, performing Judith Weir's King
Herald's Saga, and performances by the Angels in America vocal
trio: Kristen Watson, Krista River and Donald Wilkinson.
Saturday, June 17, 2006 |4-5pm| Deane Hall at the Calderwood
Pavilion
Talk with Steven Maler, (stage director) Gil Rose (conductor) Clint Ramos,
(scenic & costume designer) and Christopher Ostrom, (lighting designer)
of Angels in America.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006 |6-7pm| Deane Hall at the Calderwood
Pavilion
AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts presents The History Project's
highly acclaimed photo exhibit on 25 years of AIDS. Commentary by Pat
Cozemba (co-chair of The History Project) and Richard Dickinson (exhibition
designer).
Saturday , June 24, 2006 |6-7pm| Wimberly Theatre at
the Calderwood Pavilion
Talk with the cast of Angels in America.
Saturday, June 24, 2006 |9-10pm| Deane Hall at the Calderwood
Pavilion
BMOP Club Concert and Cast Party. Angels in America orchestra memebers
Alicia DiDonato (flute) Robert Schulz (percussion) and Kate Vincent (viola).
A cash bar will be available throughout the performance.
All programs are subject to change.
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Biographies
Seth Bodie
(Hair and Makeup designer).
Mr. Bodie currently works as a costume designer and wig/ makeup designer
in the greater New England area. Recent credits include: Susan And
God at the Mint Theater (off broadway); Lucretia Borgia, L'Etoile,
and The Consul for Opera Boston; The Man Who Came to Dinner and
Die Fledermaus for the Boston Conservatory. Mr. Bodie's work can also
be seen in such publications as National Geographic.
Zachary
Borovay (Projection Design)
Mr. Borovay's projection credits include A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth
Bishop (Primary Stages, NYC), JAP: The Princesses of Comedy (Florida),
The Music of Bernard Hermann (London), Behind the Limelight
(NY Stage & Film), Pilobolus Dance Theater's BUGonia (National
Tour), and Dead Man Walking (NYC). Additional credit include: Wendall
Harrington: Grey Gardens (Playwrights Horizons), The 60's Project
(NYC), In My Life (Broadway) The Good Body (Broadway), Anna
Karrenina (Royal Danish Ballet), and concert tours for Simon &
Garfunkle and John Fogerty; With Batwin + Robin: Golda's Balcony
(Broadway), Sinatra (Radio City), Radiant Baby (Public Theater),
Harlem Song (Apollo Theater), and Tommy Tune's Paparazzi;
With David Gallo: Radio Golf (Yale Rep), Dance of the Vampires
(Broadway), and Thoroughly Modern Millie (Broadway). Upcoming projects
include Stage Entertainment's The Wiz in Holland. Visit him on
the web at www.borovay.com.
Alison
d'Amato (Rehearsal Pianist)
Praised as "supple" by The New York Times and "an expert
pianist" by The Boston Globe, Alison d'Amato has built a reputation
as a dynamic and versatile musician. She is equally committed to solo,
vocal, and instrumental music, and is involved in a wide variety of innovative
projects. Ms. d'Amato is Co-Artistic Director of Florestan Recital Project,
an enterprising song organization, and she is committed to working with
musicians to create new collaborations in colleges and conservatories.
A prolific recitalist, Ms d'Amato enjoys partnerships with many of today's
most exciting performers, and is sought after as a pianist and artistic
advisor for recitals across North America. She has also worked with many
of today's leading composers. In 2002, she received the Grace B. Jackson
Prize from Tanglewood acknowledging her "extraordinary commitment
of talent and energy." This fall, Ms. d'Amato will begin a new Visiting
Professor position at University at Buffalo.
Matthew
DiBattista (Louis Ironson)
A recently returned Boston native, Tenor Matthew DiBattista will soon
appear as Goro in Madame Butterfly under the baton of Keith Lockhart
with Boston Lyric Opera, as well as Jack O'Brien in The Rise and Fall
of the City of Mahagonny with Opera Boston. Last season Mr. DiBattista
appeared as soloist with the Boston Classical Orchestra, Coro Allegro,
the Masterworks Chorale and performed as George Hancock in Margaret
Garner at Michigan Opera. Singing opposite his wife, Megan Tillmann,
Mr. DiBattista was Martin in The Tender Land at Opera Omaha, Rinuccio
in Dorothy Danner's production of Gianni Schicchi at Skylight Opera,
and Nanki-Poo in The Mikado at Mississippi Opera. Career highlights
include the role of Wesley in the Emmy-nominated Central Park (Glimmerglass
Opera) on PBS' Great Performances, and Hyacinth from Apollo at
the "100 Days Festival" in Lisbon, Portugal, written for Mr.
DiBattista and recorded on Vienna Modern Masters.
Ja-Naé
Duane (Hannah Pitt)
Mezzo-soprano Ja-Naé Duane most recently was praised by The Boston
Herald for her portrayal of Regina Giddens in Blitzstein's Regina.
"Steely, forceful, Ja-Naé Duane commanded the stage."
A natural "go-getter," this Metropolitan Opera Council Audition
Regional Semi-Finalist is equally comfortable performing opera, jazz,
and musical theater. She has performed in such places as the White House,
Mariinsky Theatre, Lincoln Center, Boston's Esplanade, Jordan Hall, Woolsey
Hall and the Fleet Center. Ms. Duane's recent engagements include Dorces
Hoar in The Crucible (Chautauqua Opera), Dowager Duchess in
La Vie Parisienne, Ezda in L'Etoile, and Susanna Walcott in
The Crucible (Opera Boston), Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto and
the Third Lady in The Magic Flute (both with Granite State Opera),
Jo in Little Women and the title role in Regina (both with Boston Opera
Project), Carmen in La Tragédie de Carmen, Hermia in A
Midsummer Night's Dream, and Baba in The Medium, all with the
Boston University Opera Institute. In May 2003, she performed in concert
in St. Petersburg, Russia, in collaboration with young artists from the
Mariinsky Opera. She was also featured on Joseph Summer's What a Piece
of Work is Man. In addition to her busy performance schedule, Ja-Naé
is much sought-after as a public speaker, and is President/Founder of
Wild Women Entrepreneurs, an innovative networking group for women. She
has won the NATS competition, is a recipient of "Who's Who Among
American College Students," Carnegie Mellon's Award for "Graduate
Vocal Excellence" and the "GUSH Award."
Benjamin
Emerson (Sound Designer)
Amanda
Forsythe (The Angel)
Soprano Amanda Forsythe has been praised by Opera News for her "pure
tone," "wonderful agility and silvery top notes." She has
been a winner of the George London Foundation Awards, and in January 2006
was sponsored by them in her New York recital debut. She has also received
prizes from the Liederkranz Foundation and the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg
Foundation. Ms. Forsythe sang in Purcell's Fairy Queen with Boston
Baroque in March 2006; with that ensemble, she has also performed the
roles of Bastienne in Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne, Oberto in
Handel's Alcina, Lieschen in Bach's Coffee Cantata, and
Serpina in Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona. Recent debuts include
Young Margarita in Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, Cendrillon in Viardot's Cendrillon with the Caramoor Festival,
Orff's Carmina Burana with the Rhode Island Philharmonic,
Mozart's Mass in C Minor with The Handel and Haydn Society, and
Mozart's Exultate Jubilate/ Vivaldi's Nulla in Mundo pax sincera
with the Omaha Symphony. Upcoming projects include premieres by Elena
Ruher and John Austin, a recording project with the composer Ken Sullivan,
return engagements with Boston Baroque, The Providence Singers, and the
Omaha Symhony, as well as debuts with Apollo's Fire and The Boston Early
Music Festival.
Anne Harley
(Harper Pitt)
Soprano Anne Harley is an avid performer of contemporary and early music,
appearing across North America and Europe, with ensembles such as Opera
Boston, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the American Repertory Theatre,
the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and Boston Camerata. In
1999, she débuted in Europe at Amsterdam's Conzertgebouw as the
lead in Handel's Acis and Galatea, and has since toured in Europe
several times. The London Times praised her performance in Monteverdi's
Vespers with the Handel & Haydn Society as "sublimely
sensual" and The Boston Globe lauded her performance as Madame Mao
in BMOP and Opera Boston's 2004 production of Nixon in China: "Soprano
Anne Harley offers a spitfire Mme. Mao, machine-gunning high D's."
The ground-breaking early Russian music ensemble, TALISMAN, which she
co-founded with Oleg Timofeyev in 2000, was featured at the Boston Early
Music Festival 2005 with the program "A Tribute to Stesha: Russian
Gyspy Diva." Gramophone dubbed her voice "sumptuous" in
their rave review of TALISMAN's first CD, Music of Russian Princesses
from the Court of Catherine the Great. She has taught at the Longy School
of Music and Boston University, and several years ago founded The Voice
Institute, an interdisciplinary institute for voice training, which hosts
workshops in extended voice performance training and voicework for actors.
This spring, she was invited to join an international voicework exchange
at the Moscow Art Theatre and San Diego State University. In the fall,
she will join the music faculty of University of North Carolina at Charlotte
as Assistant Professor.
Karin
Hartmann Ludlow (Stage Manager)
Ms. Ludlow recently stage managed Opera Boston's L'Etoile this season.
She made her Boston stage management debut at Boston Lyric Opera with
Maria Stuarda. She has stage managed productions for many area
companies, including The Nora Theatre Company, five seasons as Production
Stage Manager at The New Repertory Theatre and ten seasons as Production
Stage Manager at Lake George Opera. Favorite credits include three seasons
for Sarasota Opera where she stage managed Tosca, Die Fledermaus, The
Flying Dutchman, and various works of the Verdi cycle; Boston
Lyric Opera's Carmen on the Common; and I Hate Hamlet at
the New Rep Theatre.
Steven
Maler (Stage Director)
Thomas
Meglioranza (Prior Walter)
Baritone Thomas Meglioranza is in high demand for his singing of new music,
Lieder, Baroque music, opera and the American songbook. He was a winner
of the 2005 Naumburg Competition and the 2002 Concert Artists Guild Competition.
This season he performed on Broadway with Sting and Joshua Bell in
Twin Spirits: the Story of Robert and Clara Schumann, helping to raise
over $150,000 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. He also made his
debut with MET Chamber Ensemble singing the music of Milton Babbitt. Mr.
Meglioranza portrayed Chou En-lai in BMOP and Opera Boston's production
of Nixon in China and the title role in Don Giovanni with
the Aspen Opera Theater. A regular soloist with the New York Collegium,
he has also appeared with such orchestras as Orpheus, Philharmonia Baroque,
and the National Symphony. Described by the New Yorker as an "immaculate
and inventive recitalist", he is the Official Lieder Singer for the
2006 American Pianists Association Competition this year in Indianapolis,
and will record an all-Schubert CD in 2007.
Nikolas
Sean-Paul Nackley (Joseph Pitt)
Baritone Nikolas Sean-Paul Nackley has been acclaimed by the Boston media
for his "rich, ringing tone and robust stage presence." Mr.
Nackley's young career has seen him featured on both the opera and concert
stages in New England as well as in California and abroad. Most recently
he essayed the roles of Assan in The Consul and Alfred in La
Vie Parisiene, both with Opera Boston. A proponent of new music, he
was also recently heard as the Postman in Hoiby's The Scarf with
the New England Chamber Opera Series as well as the world premiere of
Roger Rudenstein's Grace with the orchestra of Emanuel Music, with
whom he also performed the title role in Don Giovanni under Craig
Smith. Other recent credits include Tom/John in the Face on the Barroom
Floor, Commander Harbison in South Pacific, Papageno in Die
Zauberflöte, Mercurio in La Calisto, Claudio in Beatrice
and Benedict, and Dr. Pangloss in Candide. Opera engagements
include various New England venues such as Granite State Opera, Boston
Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, and Opera Aperta. His concert appearances range
from Bach to Berio and include solos in Bach'sSt. Matthew's Passion and
Monteverdi's Vespers with the Carmel Bach Festival, Bach's St. John's
Passion with the New Hampshire Master Chorale, Duruflé, Fauré,
Mozart, and Michael Haydn Requiems with the Dartmouth Handel Society,
Fine Arts Chorale, and Heritage Chorale as well as numerous performances
of Handel's Messiah with orchestras throughout New England. This past
season he was a featured soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society at
Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall. In the past two years he was a semi-finalist
in the Oratorio Society of New York competition as well as a finalist
in the American Bach Society solo competition. Mr. Nackley recently recieved
his Masters of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music.
Christopher
Ostrom (Lighting Designer)
As Resident Lighting Designer since 1997, Christopher has designed over
30 productions for Opera Boston, including recent productions of Lucrezia
Borgia, L'etoile, The Crucible, Alceste, Nixon in China, and the inaugural
Opera Unlimited in 2003. Other credits include: The Crucible and Stiffelio
(Chautauqua Opera), The Crucible (Mobile Opera), Tosca (Opera
Providence), Albert Herring (New England Conservatory), Kismet
and The Wild Party (Boston Conservatory), Permanent Collection
(New Rep), Winter Wheat (Cape Rep), and The Intelligent
Design of Jenny Chow, McReele, Pugilist Specialist, and Bug (Wellfleet
Harbor Actors Theater). Additionally he has created lighting for The Lyric
Stage Company of Boston, Worcester Foothills Theater, Provincetown Repertory
Theater, Snappy Dance Theater, Revels, and The Walnut Hill School.
Drew Poling
(Roy Cohn)
A performer of astonishing versatility, baritone Drew Poling appears with
equal ease on opera, concert, and recital stages as well as those of the
musical theater. His opera roles draw on repertoire from all musical periods
from Aenaes to Henry Kissinger, including Count Almaviva, Dandini, Rossini's
Figaro, Hérode, Gianni Schicchi, and Albert Herring's Mr. Gedge.
An avid performer of new music he has sung the American debuts of several
major new works. In 1999, he debuted George Benjamin's Sometime Voices
at Tanglewood, in a performance The Boston Globe called "unspeakably
beautiful." He made his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut in Oliver
Knussen's Where the Wild Things Are, with Oliver Knudsen conducting,
and was featured to critical acclaim as the First Lion in Lucas Foss's
Griffelkin with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Mr. Poling
reprised his role on the world premiere recording of the work recently
released on the Chandos label. As a recitalist, Mr. Poling has appeared
internationally in the UK, Spain, and Amsterdam with pianists Darleen
Lawrence and Jeffrey Arnold. In 1998, he was invited by the Chinese Ministry
of Culture to perform opera and lieder in Beijing and Shanghai. Mr. Poling
most recently appeared in Boston in the Florestan Recital Projects "FrancisFest,"
and a marathon concert series presenting the complete songs of Francis
Poulenc. Mr. Poling is a resident of New York City where he is a member
of the Gotham Knights Rugby Football Club.
Clint
Ramos (Set and Costume Designer)
Mr. Ramos designs scenery and costumes for Opera, Theater, Dance and Film.
Recent credits include Un Ballo In Maschera and La Traviata
(Noorlaand Operan, Stockholm) and Noli Me Tangere (Cultural Center
of the Philippines). He has also designed for Opera Theatre of St. Louis,
Juilliard, Fokoperan (Stockholm), Rijksteatern, Ballet Stuttgarter and
others. Associate design credits include Mother Of Us All (New
York City Opera), Biblical Stories (De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam),
Tales of Hoffmann (Virginia Opera). Theater: NY Public Theater,
Culture Project, Foundry Theater, Mint Theater, Baltimore Center Stage,
Ma-Yi Theatre, New York Theater Workshop, Speakeasy Stage, and seven seasons
with Boston's Commonwealth Shakepeare Co. Upcoming: Taming of the Shrew
(CSC), Here Lies Love by David Byrne (B.A.M. Next Wave 2007). Film:
Passion of Helen (History Channel), The Lost Item (Sundance
'04), Bleach (Sundance '00), Kim Chi, Psychopathia Sexualis.
Television: Oxygen, MTV, Lifetime, VH1, History Channel and A&E. MFA
in Design from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
Gil Rose
(Conductor)
Gil Rose is recognized as one of a new generation of American conductors
shaping the future of classical music. His orchestral and operatic performances
and recordings have been recognized by critics and fans alike. In 1996,
Gil Rose founded the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), one of the
few professional orchestras in the country dedicated exclusively to performing
music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Under his leadership,
BMOP's unique programming and high performance standards have attracted
critical acclaim and earned the ensemble eight ASCAP awards for adventurous
programming and the 2006 John S. Edwards Award for Srtongest Commitment
to American Music. Since 2003, Mr. Rose has also served as Music Director
of Opera Boston, an innovative opera company in residence at the historic
Cutler Majestic Theatre. Opera Boston has been named "Best in Boston"
by The Boston Globe for seven consecutive years. As
a guest conductor, Mr. Rose made his Tanglewood Festival debut in 2002
conducting Lukas Foss' opera Griffelkin, a work he recorded for
Chandos and released in 2003 to rave reviews. Last year he made his guest
debut with the Netherlands Radio Symphony conducting three world premieres
as part of the Holland Festival. He has led the American Composers Orchestra,
the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra in the Czech Republic, the Warsaw
Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra of the Ukraine and the Cleveland
Chamber Symphony, as well as recent appearances with the Boston Symphony
Chamber Players including a performance with this renowned ensemble at
the Seiji Ozawa Hall 10th Anniversary Concert. At the 2003 Opera Unlimited
festival, Mr. Rose led the world premiere of Elena Ruehr's Toussaint
Before the Spirits, the New England premiere of Thomas Ades' Powder
Her Face, as well as the revival of John Harbison's A Full Moon
in March with "skilled and committed direction" according
to The Boston Globe. Also recognized for interpreting standard operatic
repertoire, Mr. Rose's production of Verdi's Luisa Miller was hailed as
an important operatic event. The Boston Phoenix said "Gil Rose proved
himself a superb Verdian, thinking out both the subtle details of small
phrases and the sweep of entire scenes." The Boston Globe recognized
the production as "the best Verdi production presented in Boston
in the last 15 years." Mr. Rose's recording of Samuel Barber's Vanessa
for Naxos (the first recording since the premiere) has been hailed as
an important achievement by the international press. He was recently chosen
as the "Best Conductor of 2003" by Opera Online. Also recognized
for his recordings of American orchestral repertoire, Gil Rose's discography
includes world premiere recordings of music by George Rochberg, Eric Chasalow,
Tod Machover, Lee Hyla, Reza Vali, Steven Mackey, Bernard Rands, Lukas
Foss, and Stephen Paulus. Upcoming releases include works by composers
Michael Gandolfi, John Harbison, Elena Ruehr, and Gunther Schuller. His
world premiere recording of the complete orchestral music of Arthur
Berger was chosen by The New York Times as one of the "Best CD's
of 2003."
Matthew
Truss (Belize)
Countertenor Matthew Truss, a native of Indianapolis, Indiana makes his
debut with Opera Boston and Boston Modern Orchestra Project as Belize
in Opera Unlimited 2006s production of Angels in America. This
past February, Mr. Truss was the recipient of the 2006 John Moriarty Encouragement
Award in the New England Region Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Also in February, Mr. Truss sang the role of Oberon, in the Boston Conservatory
Opera's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream by Benjamin Britten,
directed by Sanford Sylvan and conducted by Frederico Cortese. Mr. Truss
recently received his undergraduate degree from The Boston Conservatory
with an emphasis in opera performance. While there, he made his operatic
debut in the title role of Akhnaten by Philip Glass, directed by
Sanford Sylvan and conducted by Beatrice Affron. Mr. Truss has been privileged
to perform in master classes with world-renowned guests like Paul Sperry,
Daniel Helfgot, Lisa Saffer and Christine Brewer. Mr. Truss studies with
Victor Jannett.
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Synopsis
Part I
Scene 1 We
meet Louis, unable to admit his homosexuality to his family, and his AIDS-stricken
lover, Prior, who has just discovered his first lesion caused by AIDS
("The wine-dark kiss of the angel of death").
Scene 2 (split
scene) Roy Cohn, a famous and sleazy prosecutor offers Joe a job at the
Justice Department. But Joe, acting according to his Mormon principles
refuses ("I have to ask my wife"). Meanwhile, Harper, a Valium
addict, waiting for her husband Joe to arrive, has an imaginary meeting
with Mr. Lies, who offers to take her to a destination of her choice ("Antarctica
I
want to see the hole in the ozone").
Scene 3 Harper
(still under the influence of Valium) and Prior meet in the course of
a shared hallucination ("You can see things
"). Harper
correctly guesses that Prior has AIDS and Prior tells her that her husband
is gay.
Scene 4 Just
as Louis seems intent on ending their relationship, Prior succumbs to
a fever attack, during which he hears the voice of an Angel ("Who
is that? - Prepare the way!").
Scene 5 ("Joe,
I have something to ask you.") Joe, back at last, refuses to pay
heed to Harper, claiming that she takes too many pills. He also denies
his homosexuality.
Scene 6 Roy
refuses to admit that he has AIDS and gives Henry, his doctor, the official
version: he has liver cancer ("Homosexuals are men
who have
zero clout. Does this sound like me, Henry?"). Ethel Rosenberg, sent
to the electric chair by Roy's trial prowess, makes her first appearance
("Oh god." "He doesn't hear you, I guess").
Scene 7 (split
scene) Louis, terrified by Prior's suffering, leaves the hospital in a
hurry. Prior talks to Belize (a gay nurse) about the Voice, which he has
heard again ("A marvelous work and a wonder we undertake").
Meanwhile, Joe calls his mother from a payphone ("Momma. I'm a homosexual").
But his admission falls on deaf ears.
Scene 8 Joe
walks closer to Louis, who is sitting on a bench. In spite of Joe's hesitation
("I'm just observing
"), they go back to Louis' apartment.
Scene 9 Hannah,
Joe's mother, arrives from Salt Lake City to be with her son. A somewhat
deranged homeless woman after a ranting monologue ("Have you read
the prophecies of Nostradamus?"), tells her how to get to the Mormon
Visitor's Center.
Scene 1o
(split scene) Louis admits to Prior that he is afraid of AIDS, and he
fearfully leaves the room to Prior's rebuke ("'Love
love!' Do
you know what love means?"). Meanwhile, Joe tries to justify his
nocturnal Central Park promenades. But Harper prefers the refuge of her
dreams ("This is so scary, I want this to stop") and she calls
out for Mr. Lies, who takes her away.
Scene 11
Prior, in the grips of a nightmare, sees a ghost of ancestors appear,
and then another one ("Are we having a convention?" "We
have been sent to declare her fabulous incipience"), both of whom
vanish as the Angel appears.
Part II
Scene 12
The messenger Angel is floating above Prior's bed. Prior, sexually aroused
by his vision, refuses to be the Prophet that the Angel makes him out
to be ("Open the suitcase. Remove the Book").
Scene 13
(split scene) Joe has his first homosexual experience with Louis, who
feels guilty at abandoning Prior ("You don't have these terrible,
terrible, horrible dreams") while Joe receives a hallucinatory visit
from Harper. Meanwhile, Hannah tries in vain to wrest Harper from her
lethargy ("I watched TV
It was a show about Antarctica").
And at the same time, Belize asserts that angels don't exist, even though
Prior was totally disturbed by this visitation ("Maybe the world
has driven God from Heaven").
Scene 14
Roy is suffering, and vents his racist and homophobic prejudices on Belize,
who leaves the room after tending to Roy. Ethel Rosenberg reappears ("I
decided to come here so I could see could I forgive you"). Roy, who
is dying, gets her to sing a nursery rhyme.
Scene 15
The Woman from the Bronx, coming for the free movies, enters the Mormon
Visitor's Center. Joe makes a failed attempt to visit his mother ("Nothing
surprising"). Prior, feverish, meets Hannah, who offers him the compassion
she refused her son, and takes him to the hospital.
Scene 16
Although initially skeptical ("People have visions"), Hannah
is finally forced to accept the existence of the Angel. Taken aback, she
urges Prior to fight with the Angel to obtain its blessing. Prior gets
the better of the Angel, who asks Prior to return the Book to Heaven ("You
have prevailed, Prophet. You
Choose").
Scene 17
The Angels noisily discuss the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Prior accuses God of abandoning mankind ("If all He has to offer
is death, you should sue the bastard for walking out"), and puts
the Book on the table because, even though ill, he still wants to live.
Scene 18
Five years later on, Prior is still alive. Louis, Belize, Hannah and Prior
embrace the future ("More life").
© Le Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris (France), Programme
book for the World Premiere of Angels in America, Paris, November 2004
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Program
Notes
THIS ONE INSTANT
by Volker
Hagedorn
Cuts? Actually,
all the creative folks hate them. It's such a shame to lose any of the
nice bits! But Peter Eötvös doesn't feel that way at all- he
willingly made cuts to keep his audience from getting tired. "I took
something out there", he says, and his hands lift a half inch off
the table, about ten inches apart, index and middle fingers forming scissors
which quickly and gently cut a section out of an imaginary score, the
extent and shape of which we're left to contemplate. The gesture lasts
but a few seconds and happens as if of its own volition. Eötvös's
hands often accompany his conversation so discreetly and precisely, so
elegantly and effectively. With these graceful hands the composer has
also achieved significant success as a conductor. For the world premiere
of his most recent work, the two-act opera Angels in America based
on Tony Kushner's AIDS drama, Eötvös himself led the musical
preparation at the Paris Châtelet.
The day after
the premiere, the sixty year old, whose Palestrina beard evokes his distant
Renaissance colleague, sits in his third floor apartment, offers up chocolate
and seems so relaxed one would think he's having a nice vacation along
the Seine. So this is the border crosser from Transylvania, the man between
the styles who's perennially confounding the experts. Seven years ago
he achieved a breakthrough with his opera on Chekov's Three Sisters
that his complex scores had never won him before. Eötvös had
already been a known figure in avant-garde circles and also among the
European radio orchestras, including the BBC, but now a wider audience
was discovering this artist who essentially shuns the cultivation of a
recognizable image. He's always changing his style, his language-just
the opposite of the isolated and subjective creator who pours his very
identity into his work.
But he very
easily could have gone down that other path. At fourteen the prodigy had
already begun studying with the graying Kodály. "But when
I hit sixteen," says Eötvös, "I realized I could improvise."
When Peter Eötvös saw images, he heard their sounds in his head
and felt them in his fingers. The Theater Academy discovered the youngster
and let him improvise on Hammond Organ to their young directors' stagings
and short films. And in the movies "some things were permitted"-for
example the Western avant-garde- that otherwise certainly would not have
been in a Hungarian state still reeling from the after effects of its
failed uprising against the Soviet Union. Though Eötvös was
finished with Kodály at the Academy of Muisic, as a film musician
he could now put into practice what he'd heard of Boulez and Stockhausen,
voices from a Pandora's Box whose lid had been left cracked open. "The
politicians were clever enough not to forbid too drastically." And
he was clever enough not to provoke them. "I don't like to fight,"
says Eötvös, "I am careful and canny," something that
shows clearly in his outlook on life: "When something does not turn
out as one thought it would, it often turns out as something better."
And that is how it was for the composer, who, unlike his ambitious colleagues,
ended up working as a film composer. "My whole current interest in
opera is based on this time period-the experience of how one creates these
atmospheres." This doesn't happen by digging old sound costumes out
of the closet to match the hundred-year old Three Sisters, nor
by updating Chekov's drama to the present day. "The Russian feeling
of 1901", as Eötvös calls it, is rather a quality of sound
hidden behind the notes which connects across boundaries of time
STOCKHAUSEN'S
PERCUSSIONIST, BOULEZ'S CONDUCTOR
In one scene
of that earlier opera, Irina, one of the three sisters languishing in
their provincial hometown, listens to the drunk Baron Tusenbach's declaration
of love: "My life is transformed and seems so beautiful," he
says, in heavily slurred Russian. "Beautiful?" she retorts,
"Stop it!" But behind both of them, heavy and beautiful sounds
lie stretched out to the horizon, emerging from a nineteenth century which
only found its realization over the course of the twentieth. Out of the
dark strings twist oboe and horn lines in a gesture that suggests late
Romantic harmonies where they are no longer to be found. An intangible
melancholy extends out from the twilight between Irina and Tusenbach and
one can imagine them even without the stage, standing on the cusp of a
new century, helpless and sad. And the orchestra increasingly surrounds
the two with the love they can't consummate, a gently effective music
with no hint of affect. "Chekov," says Eötvös, "can
describe with love and eternal helpfulness-we're related in that way."
In fact, through the period of composition, he felt that he lived with
Chekov "as if with a member of the family."
Up to this
first opera at the age of 54, the composer's musical path was exceptionally
broad, from moving to Germany at the age of 22, working as Stockhausen's
percussionist and pianist in Cologne, and a stint as a guru in the Electronic
Music Studio of the WDR up until the discovery of his talent as a conductor.
As appreciated as he is among musicians for his modesty, Peter Eötvös
speaks of the "aura" that an ensemble leader has to communicate,
the ability "to establish a world in which the notes have their place."
This is more about one's bearing than about any specific conducting technique,
an area, incidentally, in which he is entirely self-taught.
When Boulez
needed a conductor for the opening of his new music studio, IRCAM in 1979,
Eötvös was his first choice, and from that engagement blossomed
a career that hardly left any time for composition. The only large scale
work he produced in the nineteen-eighties is a sparkling oversized toy
for orchestra called Chinese Opera."That was successful and
it works", says the composer, as if speaking of a car he'd constructed.
In an odd way, this piece served as the vehicle that led him to opera.
The conductor Kent Nagano assumed Chinese Opera was a work for
the stage, wanted to perform it and was disappointed to discover that
it lasts only twenty minutes and uses no singers. "Why don't you
write a true opera?" Nagano asked his colleague, and out of this
exchange came the commission to compose Three Sisters for Lyon.
The opening of this window to Chekov in 1998 caused a sensation that has
changed the course of its creator's life.
He divides
it up: half the year conducting on the road and half the year composing
in Budapest. But he'd already undergone a previous upheaval: "The
Soviet Union just disappeared, from one day to the next. After seventy
years! A power like that!" This inspired him to an apocalyptic pandemonium
with brass combo, synthesizers and electric pianos, two string quintets,
dulcimer and singers: Atlantis. The audience is surrounded by outposts
of percussion and speakers. It begins with a rusty rankling and by the
end the air is sliced through with electro bombings casting craters in
the air with a cinematic effect somewhere between Mad Max and Matrix
and yet the effect is of a fragile, disintegrating and deeply moving composition.
Here Eötvös explores threat, angst, memory and hope, and incorporates
the "mean" sounds of the world into his work which, despite
their destructive power, engender a certain harmony among the scattered
pieces of our lives.
EÖTVÖS
MAKES AN OPERA OUT OF TELPHONE RINGS, SIRENS AND ELECTRIC GUITARS
Whoever has
heard it does not leave the hall in a sharper state of reality, he leaves
having discovered our own time under water. As far removed as the noises
of Atlantis are from the sound world of Three Sisters, so deceptively
harmless appears the opera Le Balcon. But here too Eötvös integrates
stark contrasts. The grotesque brothel drama based on Jean Genet transports
the France of 2002 back into the fifties. Chansons were once for Eötvös
"the only form of Western music available to us uncensored."
Shimmery, smoky bar music is now treated with Baroque recitative chords,
serial coloratura and minimal music patterns, with the lightest of touches
and none of the condescending tight-lipped smile with which others occasionally
cite "light music". Correspondingly, Genet's characters playing
out their fantasies in the brothel are caricatures, to be sure, but are
not put on trial. We understand them. The fringes of society appear here
in the foreground in all their vivid color. And like one walking through
a wall, Peter Eötvös leaves behind all notions of separation
between high and low brow music. With uncharacteristic wrath, he says
that these distinctions only ever mattered "because people are dumb."
The man who
loves chansons, jazz and the Beatles just as much as "the whole Monteverdi
neighborhood" and the electronic avant-garde, this gentle destroyer
of sectarianism is always moving on to something else. As the Théâtre
du Châtelet commissioned him for an opera he started looking for
material that would be fitting for Paris, something suitably urbane. Eötvös
read through thirty plays. With two or three of these he experienced what
he calls a "small explosion. Suddenly there's an entire concept of
sound, like a nucleus. The whole sound world is to be found in that one
instant. It's just the same with writers and painters-the instant when
you establish contact." The most intense of these "instants"
was experienced while reading Tony Kushner's brilliant Angels in America,
an attempt to come to terms with the AIDS shock of the nineteen eighties.
Eötvös immediately sensed a Broadway-influenced aesthetic framework,
went to New York and spent a week going to musicals. After this crash
course he composed an unusually discreet score that borders on a radio
play. Telephone rings, sirens, electric guitars all form a sharply cut
marquetry in a filigreed, digitally- manipulated continuum out of which
language arises in differing guises, from simple speech to the shimmering
song of angels appearing before the pained protagonists. In this context
one experiences how in fear and hope language assumes a particular contour.
"If one listens carefully," says Eötvös, then repeats
the sentence, his right hand drawing a curve through the air that floats
emphasis on the word "carefully." By the third time he repeats
the sentence, it has developed its own melodic shape: "If one listens
carefully, then the world sets itself to music."
Translated
by Benjamin Schwartz
Reprinted with permission from Hamburg Opera
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Press
Contact
Joyce Linehan
Ashmont Media/Ashmont Records
(617) 282-2510
joyce@ashmontmedia.com
Current press releases:www.ashmontmedia.com
Digital images are available on request.
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About Opera Unlimited
Founded in 2003 by Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Opera Boston, Opera
Unlimited has produced six operas, including the world premiere of Elena
Ruehr’s Toussaint Before the Spirits, the New England premiere
of Thomas Adès’s controversial opera Powder Her Face,
and the first new production of Nixon in China since the original
Peter Sellers production. Every Opera Unlimited production has played
to sold-out audiences, and The Boston Globe cited Opera Unlimited
as the Best Opera of 2003 and 2004. The collaboration was awarded a grant
for innovation by the City of Boston, and has been widely acclaimed by
local, national, and international publications including The New
York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix,
The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times.
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About Angels in America
A Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play and a multi-Emmy-winning film for
television, Tony Kushner’s epic Angels in America has also
become a major event in the world of contemporary opera. In June 2006
Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Opera Boston will present the highly
anticipated North American premiere of Peter Eötvös’s
opera Angels in America under the umbrella of Opera Unlimited,
an ongoing exploration of new chamber opera. Closely based on Kushner’s
work, Peter Eötvös’s opera has received rave reviews since
its European debut in November 2004. Dramatic, hallucinatory, poetically
beautiful, and hauntingly real, Angels in America is set against
the backdrop of New York City in 1985, and addresses issues ranging from
sexual orientation, to issues surrounding isolation, as well as the AIDS
epidemic. Taking a fresh new look at the play, composer Eötvös
concentrated on “the relationship of the main protagonists, and
the changing state between illusion and reality.” The New York Times
exclaims, “The angels are singing now… Eötvös has
produced from [Angels in America] a slippery and musically delightful
combination of opera and musical.”
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Links
Boston Modern
Orchestra Project
Opera
Boston
AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts
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Sponsors
The Boston Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
Randolph J. Fuller
The Gregory E. Bulger Foundation

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