Opera Review: A Not-So-Distant Mirror

The Prototype Festival brings Fellow Travelers to New York.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A young, idealistic Fordham Ram: Aaron Blake as Timothy Laughlin in Fellow Travelers.
Photo by Jill Steinberg for the Prototype Festival. 

Despite the best efforts by the current party in power in Washington D.C., America is a very different place than it was in 1953. Today, gay relationships are socially acceptable and gay marriage is the law of the land, but those freedoms are threatened by political and religious leaders with very different ideas. That alone makes Fellow Travelers, the new opera by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce  the most powerful and politically relevant opera to be mounted in New York this season.

Opera Review: Into Her Hypercube

Prototype premieres Mikael Karlsson's The Echo Drift.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A clockwork redhead: Blythe Gaissertt as Walker Loats in The Echo Drift.
Photo by Olga Baranova © 2018 PROTOYPE Festival.

The set was simple: a spartan bed, a stool and a small desk, a cube-shaped prison cell on struts, trapped inside a larger cube that had a projection screen on one side serving as a wall. This assemblage was constructed on a swivel. It and the cyclorama at the back of the stage were the projected surface for minimal scenery rendered in stark white chalk lines. (The set was by co-librettist Elle Kunnos de Voss (credited as "Environment Designer") and the projections were by Simon Harding.)

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....

The Year in Reviews 2017: The Best Operas

Superconductor picks the ten best opera performances of 2017. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

We end the Year of the Rooster with ten clucky I mean lucky operas.

(For Part One of The Year in Reviews 2017 click here.)
It wasn't easy.

From the opening salvo of the Prototype Festival to the year-ending scandals that engulfed the careers and sullied the reputations of two internationally famous conductors, 2017 was a turbulent year in the opera world. A lot of performances had to be picked through for the following list of ten, and we're sure that we missed a couple of worthy honorable mentions.

Chronological order, and all links go to full reviews on Superconductor.

Opera Review: A Cabinet of Carnage

David Lang goes for the gut (literally) with anatomy theater.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

'This pity she's a corpse: Marc Kudisch and Peabody Southwell share
a tender moment in anatomy theater. Photo by Craig T. Mathew amd James Matthew Daniel.. 

It started with beer and sausage. On arriving at the downtown Brooklyn space BRIC, I checked my coat and was directed to the blacked-out "surgeon's lounge" for tankards of Brooklyn Lager and the aforementioned wurst, served on hard rolls slathered with mustard by pretty, in character serving-girls. Then a funeral drum beat its merciless tattoo and the waitresses turned savage. 

Opera Review: A Sea of Troubles

Breaking the Waves sails into New York.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Jan (John Moore) and Bess (Kiera Duffy) go to the altar in the first act of Breaking the Waves.
Photo by Dominic M. Mercier © 2016 Opera Philadelphia.

The Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier is a master of human misery, exploring the depths of men and women in a four decade career. His 1996 film Breaking the Waves is the inspiration for the opera of the same name by composer Missy Mazzoli. First mounted last fall at Opera Philadelphia, Waves is the centerpiece of the 2017 PROTOTYPE Festival, celebrating contemporary opera here in New York City. It is the second opera based on von Trier's "Golden Heart Trilogy", following Selma Jezková, which composer Poul Ruders based on Dancer in the Dark.

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.