I was a bit skeptical that the theme of Robert Johnson’s life, the man who created the blues and the basis for rock and roll, would be a subject which lent itself to an opera. How wrong I was! The Faustian idea of selling one’s soul to the Devil in exchange for music immortality is a natural for an opera. {…}
(Photo credit: Rachel Hadiashar) Two likeminded creative souls, while working in the production of the Met’s “Porgy and Bess,” met over coffee, serendipitously, decided to collaborate on a work based on the life of Robert Johnson, and the legend surrounding his life. The resulting opera is “Delta King Blues” and the men in question are composer Damien Geter and librettist Jarrod {…}
(Photo: Bayou Elom) Following the invention of opera in Florence around the year 1600, its popularity spread throughout Italy. The early works of Peri, Caccini and Monteverdi offered a rebirth of Greek Drama with an attempt to find a way to understand the text through recitative and aria. These innovations made it possible to stage works whose texts could be {…}
IN Series Opera, a regional opera company based in Washington, DC has presented many remarkable works this season. Almost all the works have represented new operas or new versions of opera in contemporary settings. I have been to the downtown locations of the company near Arena Theater, the Edlavitch DCJCC, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Library and the {…}
IN Series Opera is set to present the American debut of Louis Talma’s “The Alcestiad.” Set to take place on July 20, 2025, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, the production will conclude the 2024-25 season and stars Brian Arreola, Joseph Haughton, Rob McGinness, and Elizabeth Mondragon. Moreover, this concert performance will spotlight the third act of the {…}
IN Series has announced its 2024-25 season, “Illicit Opera.” First up is “The Cradle will Rock” starring Marvin Wayne Allen, Melanie Ashkar, Teresa Ferrara, Daniel Fleming, Jacob Heacock, Rob McGinness, Cecelia McKinley, Daniel Smith, and Louisa Waycott. Shanara Gabrielle directs and Emily Baltzer conducts. Performance Dates: Oct. 5-20, 2024 Then comes “Rigoletto” in a production directed by Timothy Nelson and featuring {…}
IN Series Opera is teaming up with the Mexican Cultural Institute to present “Las Místicas de México.” The experience, which is slated for March 9-10 at Dupont Underground, March 15-16 at the Mexican Cultural Institute, and March 23-24 at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Baltimore, will feature a new rendition of a 12th century chant opera by Anna Deeny Morales. {…}
IN Series Opera is set to bring its 2022-23 season to a close with “CHUCK AND EVA,” a performance that spotlights the Great American Songbook. The event, which will be performed on June 1 and 2, 2023, and then on June 24, will feature works by Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy from their only album “The Other Side.” “The performance {…}
IN Series has announced the streaming premiere of its animated, Afro-Latinx reimagining of Puccini’s beloved classic, “BOHEME in the Heights” on Dec. 20, 2021. The work will be available for FREE at https://invision.inseries.org/productions/boheme-in-the-heights. The opera is colorfully depicted in a fictionalized Columbia Heights during the winter and spring of 2020 and celebrates the exuberant creative power of youth and the {…}
IN Series is set to premiere its animated, Afro-Latinx reimagining of Puccini’s “BOHEME in the Heights.” The work will screen accompanied by live music on Oct. 29, 2021, at Creative Alliance in Baltimore, and Oct. 30 and Oct. 31at GALA Hispanic Theatre in Washington DC. The work takes place in a fictionalized Columbia Heights during the winter and spring of {…}
IN Series has announced the premiere the opera film, “Boheme in the Heights.” The animated, Spanish-language, Afro-LatinX reimagining of Puccini’s classic opera will premiere on Thursday, May 27, at 7:00 pm on INVISION: The Logan Operahouse Without Walls. The film was created by young Baltimore animators and set in Washington, DC’s Columbia Heights neighborhood in the Winter and Spring of {…}
