American Opera Projects And Mark Morris Dance Group Present ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD 11/20-11/21

American Opera Projects And Mark Morris Dance Group will present Herschel Garfein's opera ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21, 4 PM. Director/choreographer Mark Morris (The Met's Orphee et Euridice, NYCO's Platée and King Arthur) directs a public workshop of scenes from the new opera by Herschel Garfein (librettist, Elmer Gantry; composer, Places to Live, American Steel) -- ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, the first opera ever to be adapted from a play by Tony-winning playwright Tom Stoppard (The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia). Cast includes Keith Phares (San Francisco Opera, Glimmerglass Opera), and Matthew Burns (Met Opera, NYCO) in the title roles. Performances will take place as part of OPERA America's 2009 National Opera Week. at the Mark Morris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Ave. in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Across the street from the Brooklyn Academy Of Music.

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD represents the first collaboration between the Mark Morris Dance Group and American Opera Projects, two artistic pillars of the BAM Cultural Community in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Adapted and composed by Herschel Garfein, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD is based on the 1967 Tony Award-winning play that retells the story of Hamlet from the point-of-view of two minor characters in the Shakespeare play. Allowed only a highly restricted view of the tumultuous events of Hamlet unfolding around them, and deceived by nearly everyone, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern play games to pass the time and tirelessly devise strategies to make sense of their place in the grander scheme.

Launched with the presentation of the 2009 NEA Opera Honors in Washington, D.C., National Opera Week (Friday, Nov. 13 through Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009) will celebrate the art form and bring the inventiveness and excitement of opera to a national audience. ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD will be a highlight of National Opera Week allowing new audiences to discover how operas are created in an intimate setting and to personally discuss the work with the artists.

 

For over 20 years, American Opera Projects (AOP) has been creating, developing and presenting exclusively new American opera and music Theatre Projects that have appeared at the Royal Opera House, London, the Lincoln Center Festival, Skirball Center at NYU, the Guggenheim Museum, Symphony Space, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and many other national and international venues. AOP, based in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, has presented over 15 world premiere operas including Lee Hoiby's This is the Rill Speaking (2008), Stefan Weisman's Darkling (2006), and Paula Kimper's Patience & Sarah (1998). Upcoming world premieres of AOP-developed projects include Séance on a Wet Afternoon, the first opera by Stephen Schwartz, at Opera Santa Barbara in 2009 and Jorge Martín's Before Night Falls at Fort Worth Opera in 2010. For more information, please visit www.operaprojects.org/rgdead.com and www.mmdg.org.

 

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