Feature: WE'VE GOT OUR EYE ON YOU at SUNY New Paltz

"We've Got Our Eye on You" A New Opera Workshop Performance

March 1 and 5 at 8pm The Julien J. Studley Theatre SUNY NEW PALTZ

David Cote is truly a renaissance man. When he is not providing critical commentary on New York's enormous theatrical scene (certainly a gargantuan task!), he steps into a nearby phone booth and emerges as David Cote Opera Librettist extraordinaire!

But that's really just scratching the surface of this multi-talented artist's many lives. A member of the New York Drama Critics Circle and chief drama critic for Time Out New York, Mr. Cote also contributes to The New York Times, The New York Sun, Opera News and Maxim. As if that is not enough - he regularly appears on NY1 as theater critic.

Mr. Cote's passion (and considerable talents) for opera will be on display at the Julien J. Studley Theatre of SUNY New Paltz, Saturday night at 8pm as his new opera, "We've Got Our Eye on You" is performed as the culmination of a workshop dedicated to the new piece.

"Three sisters. A hunky Greek demigod. And a mantrap. Throw in a diva-the Oracle at Delphi-and you have We've Got Our Eye on You." Is how the show is being billed, but Mr. Cote prefers to refer to the work as a "post-modern-ancient-Greek-romp!"

We've Got Our Eye On You is very loosely based on Ancient Greek myth, made infamous in the "Stygian Witches" episode from 1980 camp classic Clash of the Titans. Taking inspiration from Gilbert & Sullivan, Monty Python, Stephen Sondheim and Aretha Franklin. "It's a little bit opera, a little bit operetta, a little bit Broadway musical," says Cote of the piece he had created with composer Nkeiru Okoye (Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom)

"I'm a narrative artist," says Cote. "I want people to say: 'And then what happened?' 'And then what happened?' and I think this work has that quality. Speaking as a lyricist, I set out to create 'word-forward' piece that's also audience-friendly."

At seventy minutes in length, the opera should be very amenable to opera audiences used to a single act of that length. "The work is comprised of several very different musical styles, so it should be consistently interesting to today's younger audiences who may not have the patience to sit through five hours of Meistersinger! It's comic, but broad and enjoyable."

The opera takes place in and around a cave inhabited by the Graeae, or Gray Sisters-Enyo, and it explores the unchained desires of these three highly unusual sisters torn between dignity and desire.

"We've Got Our Eye on You" is presented in celebration of Women's History Month, Performances will take place March 1 and 5 at 8pm at the Julien J. Studley Theatre (1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz,NY), featuring a student cast, an orchestra of students and faculty, and the New Paltz Chamber Singers under the baton of Edward J. Lundergan (Dept of Music and Director of Choral Activities).

New operas are few and far between these days, and the opportunity to witness one in the making is even more rare. This weekend, SUNY New Paltz is clearly the place to be!

Tickets are available now at the box office or at https://www.newpaltz.edu/music/concertseries.html

Peter Danish

Classical Editor