Fort Worth Opera Announces Cast For BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

Fort Worth Opera (FWOpera) announced today the exciting cast and artistic team of Brief Encounters, a witty, gripping trio of 15-minute pocket operas about love and marriage to be featured during the 2018 Fort Worth Opera Festival. Part of the company's heralded, alternative venue series, Opera Unbound, Brief Encounters features selections by composer-librettist Mark Adamo (Little Women, Lysistrata), composer Jake Heggie (Moby-Dick, Dead Man Walking), and Fort Worth Opera Artistic Director Joe Illick (Emma, Gunpoint), who also serves as music director and pianist for the performances. Festival audiences will be invited to step onto the battlefield of love and witness three unique tales of desire, doubt, fear, and longing.

William Florescu, General Director of Florentine Opera in Milwaukee, directs a talented cast of rising and established opera stars. Soprano Maren Weinberger (The Barber of Seville, Buried Alive | Embedded), mezzo-soprano Kate Tombaugh, tenor Javier Abreu (Before Night Falls), and baritone Samuel Schultz, are joined by international operatic bass and Broadway actor Zachary James (The Addams Family, South Pacific) to bring these mini-operas to life. Performances of Brief Encounters will be held at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens.

In Avow, Mark Adamo highlights the pre-wedding jitters and comical inner monologues of a young couple about to walk down the aisle. Jake Heggie and librettist David Patrick Stearns' modern fable Again, explores the darker side of relationships and domestic violence, with a behind-the-scenes look at the four main protagonists of I Love Lucy. The lively trio concludes with Feel the Tango, Joe Illick and librettist Susan Westfall's hilarious portrait of a jaded married couple whose Friday night takes an unexpected turn once they step into their favorite Spanish restaurant.

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

Avow

Music and libretto by Mark Adamo

Again

Music by Jake Heggie; libretto by David Patrick Stearns

Feel the Tango

Music by Joe Illick; libretto by Susan Westfall

April 29, 30, May 1, 2018

Fort Worth Botanic Garden

Lecture Hall Auditorium

In English with no supertitles

CAST:

Avow

Katherine Tombaugh* (The Bride)

Samuel Schultz* (The Groom)

Maren Weinberger † (The Mother)

Javier Abreu (The Celebrant)

Zachary James* (The Ghost)

Again

Maren Weinberger † (Lucy)

Javier Abreu (Ricky)

Katherine Tombaugh* (Ethel)

Samuel Schultz* (Fred)

Feel The Tango

Maren Weinberger † (Sandy)

Samuel Schultz* (Joe)

Javier Abreu (The Waiter)

Katherine Tombaugh* (The Waitress)

ARTISTIC TEAM:

Joe Illick, music director and pianist

William Florescu, director

*denotes Fort Worth Opera debut season

† Former Hattie Mae Lesley Apprentice Artist

TICKETS: All seating for Brief Encounters is general admission. Tickets are $39 and on sale now. For more information, please call 817.731.0726 or toll-free at 1.877.396.7372. To purchase tickets online, go to www.fwopera.org.

ABOUT FORT WORTH OPERA: Founded in 1946, Fort Worth Opera is the oldest continually performing opera company in Texas, and one of the 14 oldest opera companies in the United States. The organization has received national attention from critics and audiences alike for its artistic excellence.

FWOpera has taken a leadership role in engaging audiences beyond the operatic stage, while producing cutting-edge, contemporary operas. Beginning in 2017, FWOpera launched the second phase of its landmark, 10-year Opera of the Americas initiative with Noches de Ópera (Nights of Opera), a groundbreaking campaign which introduces powerful operas, each reflecting the diverse cultures of new American audiences.

Fort Worth Opera is sponsored in part by awards from The Arts Council of Fort Worth & Tarrant County, The City of Fort Worth, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Additional Fort Worth Opera sponsors include: the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Amon G. Carter Foundation; American Airlines; Art & Seek; Crystelle Waggoner Charitable Trust, Bank of America, Trustee; The Pangburn Foundation, J.P. Morgan Chase, Trustee; the Sid W. Richardson Foundation; Star-Telegram; and WFAA Channel 8

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