Roulette releases its spring 2026 season. This article only features opera-related events. “Perfect Lives: A Benefit for Roulette” features a screening of Robert Ashley’s video opera and a pre-show introduction from members of the original production. Performance Date: April 2, 2026 The Interpretations Series returns with an evening featuring baritone Thomas Buckner and composer, bassist and multi-instrumentalist James Ilgenfritz. Performance Date: {…}
(Photo: Whitney Browne) “Celestial Excursions” by Robert Ashley was featured at Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedium Sept. 10-12, 2025 and was commissioned by Performing Artservices, Inc. as part of the national series of works of Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA, which is made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and the Catherine {…}
(Credit: Matilde Chambon) Mimi Johnson is founder and director of Performing Artservices (1972) and Lovely Music (1978). She was married to composer Robert Ashley and continues to produce and tour his work, including all of Ashley’s operas, from “Perfect Lives” (1978-81) through “Crash” (2013-15) and “Quicksand “(2011-16). OperaWire reviewed Johnson’s most recent productions of Ashley’s operas, including “Improvement (Don Leaves {…}
Roulette has announced its programming for fall 2025. Only opera events are included in this article. Robert Ashley’s opera “Celestial Excursions” takes the stage. It is coproduced by Roulette Intermedium and Performing Artservices. Performance Dates: September 12 – 14, 2025 Aruán Ortiz’s “A Transatlantic Journey to Afro-diasporic Contemporary Music” features scenes from Ortiz’s opera, “Je renais de mes cendres.” Performance {…}
(Photo: Whitney Browne) Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedium presented Robert Ashley’s “Foreign Experiences” (1994) on Saturday, May 11th, 2024 to an audience full of familiar faces in appreciation of avant-garde and experimental music. This work is part of Ashley’s opera tetralogy, “Now Eleanor’s Idea,” which also includes “Improvement (Don Leaves Linda),” “eL/Aficionado” and the stand-alone opera, “Now Eleanor’s Idea.” I have been {…}
It’s easier to appreciate Robert Ashley’s 1983 “Perfect Lives” by simply accepting it on faith as an “opera” rather than try to cram it into the narrow definition established for the genre. There’s quite a bit of text, some singing, a story with characters, and perhaps too much of a visual spectacle. Purists with preconceived notions about how exactly these {…}
Performing Artservices, Inc. is set to revive “eL/Aficionado,” an opera by Robert Ashley on May 21-24, 2020 at New York Live Arts. The opera, which was written in 1987, has not been performed since 1995. It is scored for four voices and an orchestra of electronic voices and tells the story of a person on trial for her character and {…}
Before experiencing Robert Ashley’s “Improvement (Don Leaves Linda)” live for the first time, one can imagine that Ashley wants listeners to be changed in some way by what he wrote in 1990. Whether one’s evolution involves the understanding of new perspectives of cultural awareness or the witnessing of new opera ideals in a live setting, Ashley intentionally leaves no stone {…}
