There is little that I relish more in the opera world now than attending Opera Philadelphia’s annual opera festival in Sept/Oct each season. This event which began in 2017 returned in 2022 as Festival O22 after a two-year hiatus imposed by the COVID pandemic. Multiple events, often including new opera premieres and new productions, occur over a two-week period beginning in late September; I still fondly remember the fun of The Trial of Elizabeth Cree that premiered in 2017. Each year, events are scheduled to push the boundaries of opera, such as the premiere in O22 of the rock opera, Black Lodge, and O22’s staging of The Raven with audience participation. The events are held at various venues around the city. If your interest in opera extends beyond classic opera, it is simply a must-see festival, and for classic opera fans, it always includes a classic. For me, it’s the fun event of the season and reason for a great short vacation to Philadelphia.
Festival O23 leads off with an opera premiere: 10 Days in a Madhouse - left photo: Soprano Kiera Duffy in 2016’s Breaking the Waves, an OP premiere, will star as Nellie Bly (photo by Dominic M. Mercier). right photo: Central character, real life investigative journalist Nellie Bly (photo by H.J. Myers). Photos courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.
This year, Opera Philadelphia was so pleased with the new festivals they have planned that they went beyond announcing just their 2023-2024 season which includes O23; they also announced a preview of new offerings in O24. OP’s website is one of the most user-friendly ones for finding the information you need, but let’s have a quick look to whet your appetite; I am already salivating:
Festival O23 (events on the same day are held at different times) –
10 Days in a Mad House (Wilma Theater) – Sep 21, 23, 26, 28, 30
Simon Boccanegra (Academy of Music) – Sep 22, 24, 29, Oct 1
Unholy Wars (Suzanne Roberts Theatre) – Sep 23, 27, 30, Oct 1
Afternoons at AVA (Helen Corden Warden Theater) – Sep 23, 27, 30
Curtis Voices (Field Concert Hall) – Sep 22, 29
Late Night Snacks (return of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret) – TBA
Festival O24 new opera premieres –
The Listeners by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek
Woman With Eyes Closed by composer Jennifer Higdon and librettist Jerre Dye
Ever heard of Nellie Bly? 10 Days in a Mad House by composer Rene Orth and librettist Hanna Moscovitch tells the story of the journalist who put “investigative reporter” in today’s jargon by pretending to be mad to gain entry to an insane asylum in the late 19th century, on what is now Roosevelt Island in Manhattan. She then exposed the dreadful conditions and practices in that facility and how they reflected societal biases against women. Soprano Kiera Duffy will sing the role of Ms. Bly in her first return to Opera Philadelphia since her star-making performance in OP’s premiere of the Mazzoli/Vavrek team’s award winning Breaking the Waves in 2016. Mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis and tenor Will Liverman will also be featured.
l to r: Baritone Quinn Kelsey (photo by Dario Acosta) will star in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra in a new production from Opéra Royal de Wallonie Liége (photo by Jonathan Berger, Opéra Royal de Wallonie Liége), which will also feature soprano Anna María Martínez as his daughter (photo by Ashkan Roayaee). Photos courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.
Simon Boccanegra is a late opera by composer Giuseppe Verdi (1881 revision by librettist Arrigo Boito of the 1857 original with librettist Francesco Maria Piave). A new Doge of Genoa is enmeshed in the conflict between the deadly power politics of his position and his love for his daughter. Baritone Quinn Kelsey plays Boccanegra and Anna María Martínez plays his daughter. The pair previously sang in OP’s performance of The Drama of Tosca as a concert version forced outdoors by the COVID pandemic. While I thought that production was flawed, I thought the singing was exceptional and wished I could have seen that pair in the originally planned indoor performance of Tosca. A film of The Drama of Tosca is available for viewing on the Opera Philadelphia Channel. I greatly look forward to the pair’s return, and this will be my first Boccanegra.
left photo: Tenor Karim Sulayman and dancer Coral Dolphin in the 2022 Spoleto Festival’s premiere of Unholy Wars (photo by Leigh Webber). Scene from the same production featuring dancers and visuals (photo by William Struhs). Photos courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.
Unholy Wars is a soul-searching venture as well as an opera. This one emerges from the boundary pushing arena. Lebanese-American tenor Karim Sulayman has combined Handel and Monteverdi opera selections to reframe baroque presentations of characters they had no direct knowledge of from an Arab American perspective. This work premiered in last year’s Spoleto Festival and was well received, rated highly for emotional impact. Original electronic music by composer Mary Kouyoumdjian is included as connecting interludes in the performance which has three sections; dance and visual projections are also included. The middle section focuses on Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, wherein, during the Crusades, Christian warrior Tancredi kills a Middle Eastern female warrior, Clorinda, with whom he has fallen in love, but did not recognize in her suit of armor. Having now sampled a wide variety of classic operas from earlier time periods, it is typically the boundary pushing pieces that I look forward to the most.
O23 will be embellished and fleshed out by recitals by young artists from the Academy of Vocal Arts (Afternoons at AVA) and the Curtis Institute of Music (Curtis Voices), who are rightly referred to as the opera stars of tomorrow. Finally, a popular feature of previous festivals, a cabaret performance by the Bearded Ladies in Late Night Snacks will return; the program will offer “a new selection of guilty pleasures, soul nourishment, and tasty cabaret treats”. Singers and repertoires for these events will be announced this summer.
The festivals are typically the only offerings of OP in the Fall. The 2024 portion of OP’s new season will feature a semi-staged The Anonymous Lover in February and Madame Butterfly in April/May. While there are still a few opera fans who haven’t seen Puccini’s Butterfly, I question whether there are any who haven’t heard of it. It’s not a guilty pleasure. It’s a full course meal of exquisite music and singing. You may not have heard of the rarely performed The Anonymous Lover. Fear not; it’s good; it might remind you of Puccini. It is the only surviving opera by black composer Joseph Bologne, successful in his day and a fascinating French character of the 18th century – he was a child prodigy borne to a French planter and his wife’s African slave. The plot by librettist Madame de Genlis involves two friends who discover their deep love for each other. I saw a performance of this opera two years ago by Wolf Trap Opera and enjoyed it greatly, especially the music.
Breaking the Waves star singer returns to Opera Philadelphia in O23, but in O24, its composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek return with their new opera The Listeners. OP says that this new opera is “a thriller about social rejection, suburban loneliness, and the role of charismatic leaders in our society. Based on an original story by Jordan Tannahill, the story is inspired by an actual phenomenon called “the global hum” a low-pitched sound that people around the world claim to hear”. Opera Philadelphia says the hum leads to the formation of a cult with destructive effects on families, just like life today. Hmmm…imagine that with a humming sound. This could be an important opera beyond music.
left photo: Composer of The Listeners, Missy Mazzoli (photo by Marylene May). right photo: Composer of Woman With Eyes Closed, Jennifer Higdon (photo by Andrew Bogard). Photos courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.
No wonder OP is already excited about its plans for O24; a second major premiere is also planned for that event, Woman With Eyes Closed by composer Jennifer Higdon and librettist Jerre Dye. This new opera was “inspired by the real-life 2012 theft of seven masterpieces from Rotterdam’s Kunsthal Museum. At first, the mother of the prime suspect confessed to incinerating these priceless artworks to protect her son, but she subsequently denied it. Never recovered, their fate remains shrouded in mystery”. It poses questions about the impact of art on an individual and the lengths a mother will go to protect a child. The press release, if I read it correctly, says that three endings have been devised with different performances having different endings. See the problem here? I will want to see all three endings.
One of my guilty pleasures in O22 was the inclusion of a section of innovative videos and films from Opera Philadelphia Channel’s repertoire and those from other companies submitted in a competition. My lone disappointment is that there are no plans to make this a feature of O23.
My wife and I have attended all the fall festivals so far, since 2017, and each has been a highlight of our year. We are already looking forward to O23 and O24!
The Fan Experience: The calendar for Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O23 can be found at this link. Now, the hard part is prioritizing which performances to see during the two-week period. There are both matinees and evening performances. You will have your work cut out for you in deciding your schedule. Ticket packages are already on sale.
If you are from out of town, know that there are many good hotel options in downtown Philly, but bear in mind that, because of its great food, arts, and museums, it is a popular destination to visit and hold conferences, retreats, meetings. Make your plans early; buy your tickets and reserve your hotel room as soon as you can. Parking in downtown hotels and lots ranges from around $30-$60 per day; plot your strategy early to deal with that as well.