YOUNG VERDI IN LOVE
SPRING RECITAL
THE REEF
Music by Anthony Davis
Libretto by Joan Ross Sorkin
WORKSHOP PERFORMANCE
LOCATION
Saint James Place
352 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA
DATE
Sunday, April 27 at 2:00 PM
DURATION
2 hours (including one intermission)
The performance will be followed by a reception for premium ticket holders
Giuseppe Verdi, the composer of La Traviata, was a man of incredible passion and creativity who transformed the world of Italian opera. And he did it while writing some of the world’s most captivating and beautiful music! Join a few of opera’s up-and-coming stars, along with BOF’s Artistic Director and Co-Founder Brian Garman, as they take you on a tour of the many facets of love through Verdi’s music.
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ARTISTS
CREATORS
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Librettist
Joan Ross Sorkin is a playwright, musical theatre bookwriter and lyricist, opera librettist, and screenwriter. Her opera credits include Strange Fruit with Chandler Carter, developed by New York City Opera and Golden Fleece Composers' Chamber Theatre and commissioned and premiered by Long Leaf Opera. Joan has been the long-time President of the Board of The York Theatre Company and a member of The Dramatists Guild (and DG Opera Committee), The BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, ASCAP, The League of Professional Theatre Women, and New Victory Theater's LabWorks Project.
Composer
Anthony Davis was the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera The Central Park Five. His first opera, X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, with a libretto by Thulani Davis, had its world premiere at the New York City Opera in 1986. A revised version of X, which debuted at Detroit Opera in May 2022, was presented at the Met in 2023. Davis’ fourth opera, Amistad, also with a libretto by Thulani Davis, premiered at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1997. His other works include the music for the Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America as well as music for orchestra and chorus. Davis is currently a distinguished professor of music at the University of California, San Diego.
ARTISTS
CREATIVE TEAM
SYNOPSIS
Adapted from the Edith Wharton novel of the same name, the story of the opera has been reset at Les Alizés (Trade Winds), a wealthy French sugar cane plantation on the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1911. The opera tells the tale of unrequited love, doomed by the strict conventions of society that breed intolerance based on race and class. Anna Leath, an American widow, is trapped on the plantation with her aristocratic French mother-in-law and falls in love with an American diplomat whom she knew in New York. Unbeknownst to her, he has had an affair with her young daughter’s mixed-race nursemaid. Anna’s stepson is also in love with the island girl, who cares more for the diplomat. The mother-in-law forbids the union with her grandson, and although Anna supports the marriage, the toxic fumes of prejudice bend even her will. When Anna discovers the nursemaid is carrying the diplomat’s child, she knows her love is forever tainted. After the accidental death of her stepson, Anna chooses propriety over passion by sending her lover away, consoled only by the thought of keeping his yet unborn child in her care.
Throughout the opera, the collective conscience of the island is represented by the “Invisibles,” a Greek chorus of islanders who observe the action through a lens magnified by the inequalities of race and class between the island workers and the aristocratic plantation owners. In addition to providing social commentary of those in the “Great House,” they echo the thoughts, fears, and desires of the characters. They also represent the forces of nature that govern the island — water, wind, heat, and light, the oppressors and disruptors of life and love.
Synopsis provided by Joan Ross Sorkin
PERFORMANCE SPONSOR
This recital is made possible by the generous support of Noreen Doyle
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