Festival Preview: Kicking the Tires

Superconductor breaks down this year's Prototype Festival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Images from four of the operas at this year's Prototype Festival:
(clockwise from upper left: Fellow Traveler, Acquanetta, The Echo Drift and IYOV).
All images © 2018 Prototype Festival.

The two weeks of the New York-based Prototype Festival are the first important event of the new calendar year. Here is the cutting edge: fearless contemporary composers presenting bold, brilliant new works (OK sometimes they're less than brilliant) but they are always at least interesting. Superconductor offers this short field guide to this year's Festival, which opens on Sunday, January 7th with this year's Festival Soirée. The operas are....

Opera Review: Curtains for a Super-Spy

The Prototype Festival stages Mata Hari.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Dancing undercover: Tina Miller (center) in a scene from Mata Hari.
Photo by Benjamin Heller © 2017 HERE and the Prototype Festival.

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle MacLeod, known to history as "Mata Hari", is an ideal subject for opera. And now, thanks to the Prototype Festival, she is. Friday night marked the second New York performance of Mata Hari, created by the team of composer Matt Marks and Paul Peers and kicking off this January celebration of modern operatic works.

Festival Preview: 2017 Prototype Festival

Femme fatales, infidelity, gross anatomy and yes...opera!
by Paul J. Pelkonen

This conceptual image for Julian Wachner's Rev. 23 promises a hot two weeks
of avant-garde opera at the fifth annual Prototype Festival.
Image © 2017 Prototype Festival.

New York's celebration of avant-garde opera in the dead of winter returns for its fifth season with the eagerly awaited New York premiere of Breaking The Waves as the marquee event. There are six new works being performed, plus one being workshopped. In addition, the Festival offers pop-up concerts, music, dance, multimedia presentations and the odd swanky soirée.

Festival Preview: The Prototype Opera Festival

Four new operas and three concerts offer the best of new opera in New York.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Image from La Reína by Jorge Cano, © 2016 Prototype Opera Festival.

Let's face it. Things are not good for opera this year. The New York City Opera is showing signs of revival (we'll know more after the Jan. 20 premiere of NYC Opera Renaissance's Tosca) and the Gotham Chamber Opera upped and folded its movable tents last October. Into that void steps Prototype, the downtown opera festival that has inspired  attendees for three straight years. Its fourth season, opening Jan. 6, boasts seven shows that aim to push the envelope of contemporary opera for listeners. Perhaps there are more interesting things going on than endless revivals of Puccini?