“Rhiannon Giddens is a folk revivalist who knows that old stories can still have a powerful and painful relevance” —The Guardian
“Striking…Matthew Schickele’s [music is] a harmonically rich, polyphonic web.” —The New York Times
“In every generation there are always a few individuals who, through their singular foresight and hard work, make contributions to the musical art that not only advance and develop music in a wide-ranging assortment of musical endeavors but also transcend the music of the time. Add to this short list Frank London.” —Thomas Erdmann
Rhiannon Giddens
OMAR
Matthew Schickele
Marymere
Frank London
Hatuey: Memory of Fire
Opera Cowgirls
Excerpts from three new American works that fuse opera with folk music presented by Spoleto Festival USA, The American Opera Project and Music-Theatre Group.
Omar by Rhiannon Giddens, Michael Abels, Co-Composer
A scholar living in West Africa is captured and forced to board a ship bound for is sold as a slave in Charleston, South Carolina.
Marymere by Matthew Schickele
A folk opera about love, loyalty and murder on the American frontier.
HATUEY: Memory of Fire by Frank London and Elise Thoron
A soaring Cuban-Yiddish opera, tells a love story set in a Havana nightclub in 1931.
Special performance by Opera Cowgirls.
Presented as part of the OPERA America New Works Forum 2020. Presented in cooperation with BAM.
DOORS OPEN: 8:00 PM
PERFORMANCE: 8:30 PM
RUN TIME: 1hr 35min
GENERAL ADMISSION: $45
MARYMERE presented by The American Opera Project
Music and libretto by Matthew Schickele
In 1888 an odd, quiet man named John Sargent moved from Maine to Wyoming. Within a few years he was penniless, alone, suspected of murdering both his wife and his business partner, and his children had been removed from his care. He fled Wyoming. Later John Sargent returned to Jackson’s Hole with a new bride. Edith enjoyed sunbathing nude, sitting in trees, and playing violin. Often all at once. This strange couple’s brief, troubled time in the shadow of the Teton mountains is the subject of the chamber opera Marymere. The story centers on Edith Sargent and her struggle to live in an unfamiliar land with a sad, possibly dangerous man. A composer and the guitarist of an old-time string band, Matthew Schickele uses the talents of both classical and folk musicians to tell the story of an unusual couple, out of place in America’s last frontier.
Performances by
Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano (Edith Sargent)
Jesse Blumberg, baritone (John Sargent)
Steve Hrycelak, bass (Dr. Noble, Narrator)
Men & Women of Jackson Hole, Wyoming:
Maria Stacey Lindsey, soprano
Caitlin McKechney, mezzo-soprano
Brent McBeth, baritone
Mila Henry, piano/conductor
Joe Brent, mandolin
Eileen Mack, clarinet
Philippa Thompson, fiddle and vocals
Sara Caswell, violin
Caleb Burhans, viola
Andrew Ryan, double bass
HATUEY: MEMORY OF FIRE presented by Music-Theatre Group
Composed by Frank London
Libretto by Elise Thoron
HATUEY: Memory of Fire is a soaring Cuban-Yiddish opera, a love story set in a Havana nightclub in 1931. Oscar, a young Jewish writer who escaped the pogroms in the Ukraine to make a new home in Cuba, falls in love with Tinima, a beautiful singer and passionate revolutionary of Taino descent. As Oscar pens an epic poem about Cuba’s legendary 16th century freedom fighter, Hatuey, Tinima draws him into her fight against the corrupt Machado regime. This vibrant fusion of Afro-Cuban and Yiddish music and culture is also a powerful celebration of freedom performed in English, Yiddish, and Spanish with English supertitles. World Premiere September 2018 https://www.peakperfs.org/event/hatuey-opera/2018-09-14/
OMAR presented by Spoleto Festival USA
Composed by Rhiannon Giddens / Co-composed by Michael Abels
Libretto by Rhiannon Giddens
A new full-length opera by MacArthur Fellow and Grammy Award-winner Rhiannon Giddens, based on the life and autobiography of Omar Ibn Said—an enslaved Muslim-African man who was brought to Charleston in 1807.
World Premiere May 2020: https://spoletousa.org/a-world-premiere-in-2020/