DC Theatre Scene: This coming weekend Washington National Opera will showcase its most vital work: insuring the future of the form by developing young creative talent through its American Opera Initiative (AOI), a process that includes getting short operatic gems up on their feet.
Artistic Director Francesca Zambello and her company invite the audience into this process January 19-21. The mini-festival promises to be an exciting three days where artists and audience together witness the birth of three twenty-minute operas and the world premiere of the hour-long Proving Up.
1 comment:
I am sad that our break was not a couple weeks longer, so that I could have seen this festival while I was home for break. I am all for diversifying the stories told through opera and the voices that tell them. I am not at all surprised to hear that within the opera community there is stigma against writing for music-theatre type productions. I do not know if it is just the type of person attracted to writing music, but I went to high school with a couple of kids who went on to study composition, and all of them were quick to judge everybody for anything. I do think, though, that such strict separation by genre-- whether it be writing for orchestra, opera, music-theatre, or more popular genres-- only serves to further divide these genres. I feel that the most successful classical, musical theatre, and pop music takes elements from many different genres to make a wonderful fusion of sound. Now, the most relevant musicals write not only in the "style" of musical theatre, but pull inspiration from jazz, funk, hip hop, and many others. Opera could learn from that practice of fusion.
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