After managing to provide live performances to small audiences (with free live streams to larger ones) during the difficult days of the pandemic, Pittsburgh Opera has announced more ambitious plans for its upcoming 83rd season. The proposed season comes mightily close to matching the ones we’ve known in recent years, in terms of the number of productions offered, and is a creative combination of new works, one that was canceled in the early days of the pandemic, and one that was necessarily postponed from the season just ended.
“We are proud of the way our company responded to the challenges COVID-19 posed this past season,” Christopher Hahn, General Director of Pittsburgh Opera, told us with the announcement. “To perform three different operas spanning 18 total performances, indoors, with live audiences, while keeping everyone involved safe was a significant accomplishment. That being said, we’re understandably thrilled about being able to return to the Benedum Center this fall, as well as make our debut at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center next spring.”
The Benedum Center will be the venue for the two operas salvaged from the past season and the one preceding it – Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Bizet’s Carmen.
Mozart’s tuneful, phantasmagorical classic will open the season, Saturday, November 6, with the usual repetitions on Tuesday and Friday evening and the Sunday matinee. Antony Walker will conduct, and what a treat it will be to hear the long silent chorus under Mark Trawka again. Dan Rigazzi will direct the Arizona Opera production. The zany libretto will be sung in an English translation by a large cast including David Portillo (Tamino), Adelaide Boedecker (Pamina), Kathryn Bowden (The Queen of the Night), Benjamin Taylor (Papageno), Véronique Filloux (Papagena), Madeline Ehlinger, Antonia Botti-Lodovico, Maire Therese Carmack (The Three Ladies), Tom McNichols (Sarastro) and many others.
Carmen, the first victim of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, will return to the Benedum in the spring of 2022, with four performances, March 26 and 29, and April 1 and 3. Antony Walker will conduct, and Garnett Bruce will direct the Lyric Opera of Kansas City production. Zanda Švēde, the mezzo-soprano who has received glowing reviews for her interpretation of the title role, has been restored to the announced cast, after dropping from it before the production was ultimately canceled by the pandemic. She, along with Scott Quinn, the announced Don José, will make their Pittsburgh Opera debuts. Others in the cast will be Michael Todd Simpson as Escamillo, and the always delightful Danielle Pastin as Micäela.
The winter months will bring two new operas to the George R. White Opera Studio at the company’s headquarters in the Strip District. I gained a new respect for this venue during the past season, possibly because it was the only game in town, possibly because the space seemed more effectively used than ever before, but probably it was a combination of the two. First up will be the Pittsburgh premiere of The Rose Elf, with words and music by David Hertzberg, based on the fairy tale “The Elf of the Rose” by Hans Christian Andersen. “A carefree Elf witnesses a despicable crime,” the press release tells us. “Forever changed, he resolves to give closure to the victim’s Beloved.” Developed through Opera Philadelphia’s Double Exposure program, The Rose Elf premiered on June 6, 2018 in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. The four performances scheduled for January 22, 25, 28 and 30, 2022 will be the opera’s second-ever staging. At this early date we know that the cast will include Resident Artists Madeline Ehlinger, Véronique Filloux and Jeremy Harr, with additional production details to be announced.
The world premiere of In A Grove will be the second production at Pittsburgh Opera Headquarters, with six performances – February 19, 22, 25, 27 and March 1 and 3, 2022. With music by Christopher Cerrone and an English libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann, the opera is based on the short story by RyūnosukeAkutagawa. “A silent, expectant grove. A violent encounter between a man, a woman, and a notorious brigand… Seven testimonies, each proposing a different perspective on the crime. Akutagawa’s classic short story In a Grove, which inspired the plot of Kurosawa’s renowned film Rashomon, offers a searing investigation into the impossibility and elusiveness of truth.” Antony Walker will conduct, Mary Birnbaum will direct, and the premiere cast will include Yazid Gray, Madeline Ehlinger, Chuanyuan Liu and others.
One of last season’s disappointments was that Charlie Parker’s Yardbird could not be staged at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, as had been the original plan. But the 2021-22 season will end there with the Pittsburgh Opera premiere of Blue. “Tony Award®–winning composer Jeanine Tesori and NAACP Theatre Award–winning librettist Tazewell Thompson’s new opera is inspired by contemporary events and Black literature. Exploring race, violence, and reconciliation, Blue places timely issues at the forefront of modern opera and invites audiences to the emotional epicenter of their impact.” Five performances will be given – April 23, 26, 28, 29 and May 1, 2022. Glenn Lewis will conduct, TazewellThompson (the librettist) will direct, with Cindy C. Oxberry as Associate Director. The cast will include Kenneth Kellogg, Briana Elyse Hunter and Aaron Crouch – all reprising roles they created when the work received its world premiere at the Glimmerglass Festival on July 14, 2019.
As usual, we’ll have more information in our previews of each work as the performance dates draw closer, and the customary reviews. It’s important to keep in mind that, for the ongoing safety of its audiences, artists, staff, and related personnel, Pittsburgh Opera will continue adhering to the ever-shifting COVID protocols and recommendations from the CDC, State, and County Health Departments, in consultation with a local epidemiologist. Pittsburgh Opera will update its site regularly with current protocols and policies. I sincerely hope that we continue to move in the right direction in the return to life’s simple pleasures.
With all that in mind, much more than the operas are currently planned. Special events include “The Return to Magic” costume party celebration, featuring the Diamond Horseshoe Dinner at the Omni William Penn and the Magic & Spirits party hosted by the Pittsburgh Opera New Guard at Pittsburgh Opera Headquarters, October 30, 2021; The Fashion Show, April 4, 2022, at Pittsburgh Opera Headquarters, and the Maecenas Ball XXXVII, May 14, 2022, also at Pittsburgh Opera Headquarters. The “Pre-Opera Talks” will return, one hour before the Benedum and August Wilson Center performances. Tuesday evening performances will once again be “Meet the Artists” nights.
There will be other free and low-cost events, so for more information – and tickets – visit Pittsburgh Opera.
