Ingenuity And Innovation Headline On Site Opera's Ninth Season Despite Continued COVID Closures

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?"

To post a comment, you must register and login.