2020-21 Season Announcement
INGENUITY AND INNOVATION HEADLINE ON SITE OPERA’S NINTH SEASON DESPITE CONTINUED COVID CLOSURES
From Mail Order Melodies, to an On-Foot Opera Experience, TV, Telephone and more, Music Continues Around the Globe into the New Year
NEW YORK, September 17, 2020 – On Site Opera, New York’s pioneering opera company rooted in site-specific storytelling and the immersive experience, announces its unconventional and inventive
2020-2021 season. Following 200 sold out performances of the first-ever telephone opera throughout the Spring and Summer, the company continues to re-imagine the operatic experience through two core productions; the three-part The Beauty That Still Remains: Diaries in Song, beginning in mid-November, and the three-part The Road We Came, in May. The company will also present The Tale of the Silly Baby Mouse on BronxNet TV to celebrate World Opera Day, October 25, along with additional exciting events outside of New York and abroad in Australia.
On the heels of their sold-out telephone production of To My Distant Love that closed last month, the company is taking music to the mail with The Beauty that Still Remains: Diaries in Song this November and December. Incorporating the music of Leoš Janáček and the text of Ozef Kalda in The Diary of the One Who Vanished, the music of Dominick Argento and text by Virginia Woolf, in From The Diary of Virginia Woolf, and the music of Juliana Hall and text from Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl in A World Turned Upside Down, this serial production provides ticket holders with keepsake diaries by mail with texts, articles, program notes and more, directing recipients to an audio experience of music, story-telling and nostalgia. Purchased as 3 separate experiences or together in a keepsake box to house all three, each piece will premiere separately and be available for a limited time following its release. The first diary in this first-ever opera experience to be performed using the mail and corresponding keepsakes will ship in mid-November and will continue through the holiday season.
On Site Opera continues to re-define the immersive and site-specific experience next Spring with The Road We Came, a new opera-and song-based project that explores the composers, musicians and places that define the rich Black history of New York City through a series of self-guided, musical walking tours. Celebrating a collection of never recorded and seemingly lost classical compositions by Black composers, The Road We Came will use filmed musical performances and spoken narration to connect audiences to the musical timeline of Harlem, upper midtown neighborhoods and lower Manhattan. From the home and texts of the prolific poet Langston Hughes, to the life and times of Malcom X, to the grounds of Lincoln Center and beyond, The Road We Came will open windows to the past and re-frame the present. The Road We Came is a multi-media collaboration between On Site Opera, Ryan & Tonya McKinny’s Keep the Music Going Productions, award-winning historian and Harlem native Eric K. Washington, and critically acclaimed baritone, Kenneth Overton, who will be the featured soloist of the tours. Each self-guided tour will be an hour long immersive musical experience that patrons can access via a web-based platform. The three walking tours, each exploring a variety of composers, sites, and historical narratives, will go on-sale in the Spring of 2021.
Additionally, the company’s production of The Tale of the Silly Baby Mouse which was first performed at The Bronx Zoo in 2012, will receive an encore airing on BronxNet TV to celebrate World Opera Day, October 25, and a free cabaret style recital celebrating gratitude with baritone Mario Diaz-Moresco and pianist Spencer Myer will stream live through the Greenwich Public Library on November 12. The company is also proud to partner with Australia’s Gertrude Opera Company, who will be presenting To My Distant Love, the phone-based immersive song cycle conceived and created On Site Opera’s Artistic and General Director Eric Einhorn and team, to Australian residents only, October 17-25. Lastly, the company is forging a new partnership with Baldwin Wallace University to commission a series of micro operas with established composers and librettists to provide new experiences for students and emerging artists later this Spring.
“Continued theater closures and restrictions faced by the entire artistic community have stoked the fires of innovative thinking at On Site Opera. That innovative thinking attracted audiences for our last telephone-based project from 30 states and 6 countries. We are excited to continue bringing music to audiences around the world as well continuing to keep artists working,” explains Eric Einhorn, General and Artistic Director of On Site Opera. “There are inherent risks in each unorthodox project we present, but the rewards of connecting audiences and artists, especially in these socially-distant times, are well worth those risks. If we, as artists, don’t take risks, especially in times like these, how else will we grow and work towards realizing the full connective potential of the art we make?”
SEASON SCHEDULE AND DETAILS
October 17-25: To My Distant Love presented by Gertrude Opera. Tickets are available at https://www.gertrudeopera.com.au/to-my-distant-love. This production is exclusively available to residents of Australia.
October 25: The Tale of the Silly Baby Mouse on BronxNet TV, broadcast on channels 67, 68, 69, 70, 951 and 952 on Optimum and on 2133, 2134, 2135, 2136, 2137 and 2138 on Verizon Fios in the Bronx, and online worldwide at https://www.bronxnet.org.
November 12: A Recital of Gratitude, streamed live, courtesy of Greenwich Public Library at https://www.greenwichlibrary.org
November 16: The Beauty That Still Remains: Diaries in Song
Each performance is 30 minutes and includes a keepsake diary. Tickets will go on sale in October at https://osopera.org
May: The Road We Came
Each walking tour performance is approximately 60 minutes. Tickets will go on sale in the spring at https://osopera.org
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ABOUT ON SITE OPERA
Founded in 2012, On Site Opera is the leading presenter of site-specific operas in non- traditional venues throughout New York City. Rooted in collaboration and storytelling, On Site Opera celebrates the connection between artist and audience through highly curated experiences led by seasoned opera artists and bold and innovative creative teams. To date, OSO has produced 18 operas in as many unique locations to critical acclaim, including Shostakovich’s The Tale of The Silly Baby Mouse using large-scale puppets in performances for families at the Bronx Zoo; Gershwin’s Blue Monday in the historic Cotton Club of Harlem; and Rameau’s Pygmalion in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, which explored new technology in opera through the use of Google Glass supertitles. Each production invites New Yorkers to explore their city in new and unique ways, while cultivating a new generation of opera audiences.
