Concert Review: Monsters Under the Earth

Two operas end The Angel's Share's first season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Never turn your back on a monster! Tenor Brian Cheney (l) is menaced by Joshua Jeremiah
in Sketches from Frankenstein. Photo by Kevin W. Condon © 2018 Unison Media.

As David Byrne once said, "there is water underground." On Wednesday night, there was whiskey above it, as the final concert of The Angel's Share got underway. Presented by the enterprising Andrew Ousley's Unison Media, this is a unique music experience held in the gloomy depths of the Catacombs, deep within the leafy embrace of Green-Wood Cemetery. For the season finale, Mr. Ousley booked a surefire double bill, with two dramatic works by the promising composer-pianist Greg Kallor.

Opera Review: Poe-Faced

The American Modern Ensemble premieres a pair of chamber operas.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The composer and his title character.
Original photo of Stewart Copeland © 2015 by Shayne Gray. 

The spirit of artistic invention was in full flower on Saturday night, as American Modern Ensemble premiered its production of a pair of chamber operas at Dixon Place, the engaging bar and cabaret that hides a robust subterranean performance space on Chrystie Street. The operas were The Whole Truth by AME artistic director Robert Paterson and a new orchestration of The Cask of Amontillado by rock star turned composer Stewart Copeland.

Opera Review: Bird or Fiend?

Gotham Chamber Opera opens The Raven.
by Paul J. Pelkonen (with apologies to Edgar Allen Poe)

Singer Frederika Brillembourg (standing) and dancer Alexandra Ferri in The Raven.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2014 Gotham Chamber Opera/NY PHIL BIENNIAL.

In the opera world it's known, that on stages lights are shone
and composers look to poets for librettos for their scores.
It's to Edgar Allen Poe and his great poem of great woe
that the Gotham Chamber Opera's new The Raven owes its source.
'Twas by Toshio Hosokawa, and its New York premiere this was,
a new work washed on Gotham's shore.