Victory Hall Opera to Present Deaf Opera Production of ORPHEUS & ERICA in March
Performance dates are March 21, 23 and 25, 2023 at 8pm.
By: Blair Ingenthron Feb. 11, 2023
The culmination of VHO's 2020 Breaking the Sound Barrier workshop, Orpheus and Erica is a fully-staged, full-length Deaf opera production. Taking the themes of the Orpheus myth into the 21st century, we witness a young couple (played by prominent deaf stars of film, television and stage, John Maucere and Amber Zion) battle illness and fertility, intervening with fate using modern medicine, in the hands of Warren "Wawa" Snipe as their doctor. Gluck's opera is a framework where the mythological characters are guests in the modern characters' story.
Orpheus & Erica (based on Gluck's opera Orpheus and Eurydice) is the result of a long-term collaboration between Victory Hall Opera and a team of Deaf theater practitioners. The new texts written by Miriam Gordon-Stewart, and poetry by Gregory Orr will be performed in ASL (translation by Willy Conley). The interwoven opera will be sung in Italian. English supertitles are provided.
In the roles of Orpheus and Eurydice, VHO presents international opera stars Brenda Patterson and Jennifer Zetlan (Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Hamburg State Opera, Santa Fe, Seattle etc) joined by two-time Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition semifinalist, countertenor Chuanyuan Liu as Amore.
The production will be co-directed by Alek Lev and Miriam Gordon-Stewart, and conducted by renowned early music specialist Christine Brandes, with the UVA Chamber Singers as the chorus, prepared by chorusmaster Michael Slon.
Orpheus & Erica is made possible by grants from: The Jefferson Trust, the Joseph & Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, the UVA Directors of DEI, a UVA Arts Enhancement Grant from the Office of the Vice-Provost for the Arts, and the UVA ASL Program. We are also grateful for the support of the UVA McIntire Dept. of Music.
Performance dates: March 21, 23 and 25, 2023 at 8pm
Venue: Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia
Tickets on sale from 12pm, Feb 1st, 2023 through UVA Arts Box Office: Adults $35/ Students free (tickets required)
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