The Superconductor Preview: September, 2016

We launch a new monthly preview feature...right now. 
(isn't that exciting?)
by Paul J. Pelkonen

We at Superconductor celebrate a new monthly preview feature launching with a....

The clock of the classical music season starts running early this month, just two short days after Labor Day. As we prepare to fire the starting gun on the 2016-17 season here are five don't miss events for September, 2016.



BAM NextWave: the loser
David Lang's one-act opera about a pianist who happened to be in the same competitions as Glenn Gould is the opening work of the 2016 BAM NextWave Festival. Starts Sept 7. at the Howard Gilman Opera House.

New York City Opera: Aleko/Pagliacci
The resurgent New York City Opera launches its first fall season since 2009 with this twin bill, pairing Rachmaninoff's first opera Aleko with the classic Leoncavallo work. The story of a vendetta among Gypsies should dovetail nicely with the familiar tale of a knife-wielding clown on a killing spree. At the Rose Theater in the Time Warner Center, starting Sept. 8.

An iconic shot from Woody Allen's Manhattan.
© 1979 Woody Allen, MGM/UA

New York Philharmonic: The Art of the Score
The Philharmonic season actually opens with a gala concert on Sept. 21, but that will be prefaced with the annual The Art of the Score film festival, featuring the orchestra playing Leonard Bernstein's score for West Side Story (Sept. 13-15) and the George Gershwin-fuelled score of Woody Allen's black and white classic Manhattan. (Sept. 16)

LoftOpera: Cosí fan tutte
For some opera companies, the season never ended. LoftOpera returns with their stripped-down and saucy version of Mozart's Cosí fan tutte, mounted at its new location 101 Varick Ave. in  East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Stage image from the Met's new Tristan und Isolde.

Metropolitan Opera: Tristan und Isolde
The Met opens its season Sept. 26 with the ultimate feel-bad Wagner opera, a tragic love story here presented in a new production. If you can't get tickets for the opener, go to Times Square and watch it for free on the giant televisions, where Wagner's music should stun a few tourists. Other early Met shows this year include Don Giovanni and the perennial revival of La bohéme.

Opera Review: God Strikes Back

Chelsea Opera premieres The Mark of Cain.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

God (Tom McNichols) marks Cain (Brace Negron) in The Mark of Cain.
Photo by Robert J. Saferstein © 2012 Chelsea Opera.

In a city that has forced itself to overcome long odds in the wake of recent events, the game Chelsea Opera company opened its season this week in St. Peters' Church on W. 20th St. Considering that their entire neighborhood was without power for most of last week, this opera company should be noted for its doggedness. Some singers even had to pedal all the way home from Brooklyn after performing rehearsals without heat.

There are advantages and disadvantages to writing opera based on the Bible. In the plus column, there's a lot of unmined stories, because of the Catholic Church's longstanding prohibition on putting religious stories on the stage. The minus: a certain sameness of voice. Musical clichés that include: dissonant, crashing chords for acts of great evil, a slinky, minor-key "Asiatic" mode for woodwinds, chiming triangles and divided violins for the twin concepts of goodness and redemption.

All of these musical clichés are present in Matthew Harris's The Mark of Cain, the one-hour one act opera presented this weekend by Chelsea Opera. Happily, an interesting libretto by Terry Quinn found new depths in the familiar story of Cain and Abel, and a strong cast of young singers did much to overcome the score's musical conventions.