Barely orchestrate page 4 of Moses and Aaron: XXI. before working feverishly at the Opera Apocalypse program, which will be printed online soon at markalburgerevents.blogspot.com, and is done just before having to leave for the city. Running a little late on the Bay Bridge, I call Harriet, who warns that there's a big anti-post-Prop 8 march/rally making the crossing at 9th Street impossible, so a detour to the Financial District and up the steep, traffic-choked, stick-shift-tense California Street provides a way, and soon a warm-up of Antigone: IX. The spring is wound is trodding the boards (above with Maria, Adam, Lisa, Terence, Kim, Micah, Erin, Eliza, and Michael). Long sentence. Long day.
But great. Everything pretty much goes off as planned. There's time to spot check moves in Quantum Mechanic (for Laryssa, Maria, and Erin -- looks like Michael is standing in for the Neuro-Fuzzy Refridgerater -- plus Antigonitians Adam [with Steph] and William to either side)
and vocal details for Ophelia Forever (with C.A. and Keisuke).
Amy Beth Kirsten
and beau Christopher Theofinidis fly in from the east (a pleasure to meet both, who are as enthusiastic and personable in life as in email and on phone -- Chris also with the California Symphony residency awhile back),
John Bilotta is here (as he has been for most rehearsals, and as helpful and positive as ever), as well as some Diablo Valley College students and a full house. A fantastic night.
OK, Here's the program, with a few more pictures...
OPERA APOCALYPSE!
Amy Beth Kirsten
OPHELIA FOREVER
(after William Shakespeare, et al.)
Ophelia - C.A. Jordan (Mad Mermaid)
- Megan Cullen (Faithful Seductress)
- Cary Ann Rosco (Violated Saint)
Hamlet - Terence Bennan
John G. Bilotta
QUANTUM MECHANIC
(John F. McGrew and John G. Bilotta)
Mrs. Schrodinger - Elizabeth Henry
Quantum Mechanic - Michael Desnoyers
The Quark Sisters - Erin Lahm (Miss Up-Down)
-Maria Mikheyenko (Miss Charm-Strange)
-Laryssa Sadoway (Miss Top-Bottom)
Aesop - Mark Alburger
Mark Alburger
ANTIGONE
(after Jean Anouilh and Sophocles)
Antigone - Eliza O'Malley (11/7,9,16)
-Letitia Page (11/8,14,15)
Creon - Micah Epps
Haemon / Messenger - Michael Desnoyers
Ismene - Kimberly Anderman
Nurse / Eurydice - Meghan Dibble
Guard I - Maria Mikheyenko
Guard II - Erin Lahm
Page - Lisa McHenry
Antigone's Handmaiden - Alexandra Jerinic
Ismene's Handmaiden - Dalyte Kodzis (Antigone Dancer)
Oedipus - William Loney (Haemon Dancer)
The Puppetmaster - Terence Bennan
The Fixer - Adam Broner
***
Artistic Director - Harriet March Page
Music Director / Oboe - Mark Alburger
Piano - Keisuke Nakagoshi
These performances supported by CA$H, a grants program of Theatre Bay Area ; funding also provided by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation; Ophelia Forever funded in part by the Composer Assistance Program of the American Music Center
November 7, 8 and 9 a collaboration with Theatre Residencies, Inc. (www.wehavemet.org)
November 14 and 16 performances presented and sponsored by Chapel of the Chimes, Oakland (http://www.lifemarkgroup.com/oakland/special_events.asp)
Nov 15 presented by soundSFound (www.soundSFound.org)
OPHELIA FOREVER
Ophelia has been portrayed in theater, art, poetry, photography, film, music, and dance over the course of generations. With each generation comes a fresh analysis of her significance to Hamlet, the mystery surrounding her death, and especially her madness. Many interpretations have formed over the years and seem to coincide with an established cultural ethos regarding women of the time.
Because Ophelia has served as a social mirror she has reflected the journey of the female spirit that has sought to defy polite social labels, to resist gender-based restraints, and to forge a path that embraces both love and independence. The aim for this piece is to present the multiplicity of the character, the struggle between the aspects, and the eventual resolution of the struggle.
Ophelia Forever is very much indebted to The Myth and Madness of Ophelia, an art exhibit spearheaded by Carol Solomon Kiefer of the Mead Art Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was the printed version of this exhibit that not only pointed to non-Shakespearean sources for text but also inspired the concept of three Ophelia's on stage at once, each representing a different aspect of her psyche, battling for control. Especially significant are the famous painting, Ophelia (1851-52) by John Everett Millais, Linda Stark's oil on canvas Ophelia Forever (1999), and Gregory Crewdson's photograph Untitled (Ophelia) (2000-1). The libretto is constructed of fragments of text from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, and poetry by Elizabeth Siddal, Christina Rossetti, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and the composer.
QUANTUM MECHANIC
Winner of the 2007 Opera-in-a-Month Competition sponsored by the VocalWorks opera ensemble, Quantum Mechanic is a short comic farce set in the distant future with a witty and improbable libretto by John F. McGrew. The opera received a concert premiere in American Fork, Utah, in August 2007. However, these performances at the Fresh Voices VIII Festival are the opera's first fully-staged productions.
This satiric fable of quantum physics, indeterminacy, dark matter, gedankenexperiments, high technology and low ambitions, relativity, eleven-dimensional string theory, singularities, and anything else we could cull from back issues of Scientific American and Popular Mechanics, centers around the travails of Mrs. Schroedinger as she struggles to create an icebox soufflé for the Professor.
A faulty Quantum Refrigerator, the incompetent Mechanic sent to repair it, the three ever-present Quark Sisters who arrive from the parallel universe next door, as well as Aesop, fabulist and prime-mover of the drama, round out the cast and facilitate the chaos.
In a universe of anti-gravity pens, neurofuzzy rice cookers, and deflating wormholes, is there no one who can save us?
ANTIGONE
Antigone, Op. 88 (2000, after Jean Anouilh and Sophocles), is a "grid" opera based on W.A. Mozart's The Magic Flute, from which is taken form (often including exact number of measures, tempo markings, and keys), but little content. Much of the music was written in the spirit of the title character: that of rebellion -- major keys become minor, very slow tempi become very fast, stolid rhythms become almost irrationally syncopated. The opera also alludes to Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach and Akhnaten, 50's rock, J.S. Bach's Cantata No. 140 ("Wachet Auf"), Ancient Greek chant, 70's pop, Arthur Sullivan, Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 3, the Beach Boys, John Barry's Dances With Wolves, Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella and Ebony Concerto, Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata and Aida, Meredith Willson's The Music Man, Alburger's Sonata for Oboe, Piano, and Percussion, and Balinese gamelan ensembles. The work was showcased in 2002 by Goat Hall Productions and recorded on the New Music Publications and Recordings label.
OVERTURE
I. CHORUS - "Here we are"
II. DUET - "Where have you been"
III. TRIO - "Antigone"
IV. RECITATIVE/ DUET - "Aren't"
V. DUET - "Where is your pain"
VI. DUET - "Haemon"
VIa. ARIA - "You swore"
VII. ARIA - "I can't sleep"
VIII. DUET - "It's like this"
IX. CHORUS - "Spring is wound"
X. QUARTET - "Come on, now"
XI. TRIO - "What is this"
XII. ARIA - "The pride of Oedipus"
XIII. DUET - "Where are you"
XIV. ARIA - "I shall save you yet"
XV. ARIA - "You think you knew"
XVI. DUET - "Antigone / You, too"
XVII. SEPTET - "Take her away"
XVIII. DUET - "It's you"
XIX. ARIA - "News to break"
XX. SEXTET - "I've had them laid"
XXI. CHORUS - "There we are"
Biographical Notes
MARK ALBURGER (b. 1957, Upper Darby, PA) is an eclectic American composer of postimininal, postpopular, and postcomedic sensibilities. He began playing the oboe and composing in association with James and Dorothy Freeman, George Crumb, and Richard Wernick; and studied with Gerald Levinson and Joan Panetti at Swarthmore College (B.A.), Karl Kohn at Pomona College, Jules Langert at Dominican University (M.A.), Tom Flaherty at Claremont Graduate University (Ph.D.), and Terry Riley. Dr. Alburger is Music Director of San Francisco Cabaret Opera and the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, Editor-Publisher of 21st-Century Music, Instructor in Music Literature and Theory at Diablo Valley College, and Music Critic for Commuter Times. Dr. Alburger's works (168 opus numbers to date) include 16 concerti, 20 operas, 12 song cycles, 9 symphonies, and a multi-work-in-progress entitled The Bible. He has been the recipient of yearly ASCAP Standard Awards; grants from Meet the Composer, the American Composers Forum, MetLife, and Theatre Bay Area; and funding from the Getty, Hewlett, Marra, and Zellerbach Foundations. Dr. Alburger may be found online at markalburger.blogspot.com, markalburgerevents.blogspot.com, and markalburgerworks.blogspot.com. His works have been performed across America by such organizations as the College Music Society, Orchestra 2001, the National Association of Composers, and the North/South Consonance Chamber Orchestra; and have been recorded by I Kill Me Music, New Music, and North/South Consonance.
Soprano KIMBERLY ANDERMAN is thrilled to participate in Goat Hall SF Cabaret Opera’s 2008-09 season, singing the role of Ismene in Mark Alburger’s Antigone and the role of Drusilla in both Alburger’s Diocletian and Henry Purcell’s Dioclesian. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Voice from Chapman University, where she studied with famed opera diva Carol Neblett. In addition to opera, Kim is also an experienced choral singer and frequent soloist, and has performed with over a dozen choirs at both the amateur and professional level, including the world-renowned William Hall Master Chorale. Most recently, Kim was featured on the recording of Janis Dunson Wilson’s Walking in the Light of Christ, was the Soprano Soloist for the 2007 Sebastopol Center for the Arts Sing-Along Messiah (which she will reprise for 2008), covered Fiordiligi in Cinnabar’s 2008 production of W.A. Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and has sung four recitals in 2008 with Project Applause, a Sonoma County based fundraising organization.
TERENCE BENNAN studies voice, composition, and acting at City College SAn Francisco. This is his first production with Goat Hall/SF Cabaret Opera and he takes his role as Puppet Master frighteningly seriously.
ADAM BRONER, baritone, portrayed Crooks in Mark Alburger's Mice and Men, his first appearance with Goat Hall. He is currently a member of Chora Nova and studies voice with Eliza O¹Malley. He thanks his 20-year-old son for acting tips.
JOHN G. BILOTTA was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, but has spent most his life in the San Francisco Bay Area where he studied composition, theory, and orchestration with Frederick Saunders. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, he also studied at the San Francisco Music & Arts Institute as well as in master classes and seminars with Alexander Tcherepnin, David del Tredici, Jorge Grossman, Virko Baley, and Chen Yi, among others. John's works have been performed and recorded by soloists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world including Rarescale, the Kiev Philharmonic, Earplay, the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, the Talea Ensemble, VocalWorks, the Avenue Winds, Chamber Mix, and the Oakland Civic Orchestra. His Concerto for Wind Quartet and Orchestra has been released twice on CD -- by ERMMedia and by Capstone Records. Other recordings include Shadow Tree also on Capstone, Gen’ei no Mai and Fire in Spring on Beauport Classical, Divertimento on ERMMedia, and Entr’acte on New Music North. His short comic opera Quantum Mechanic won the 2007 Opera-in-a-Month Challenge and was premiered by Vocal Works. John has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Society of Composers, Inc., for the past five years. He also serves as Music Director of the San Francisco Chamber Wind Festival, and co-directs the Festival of Contemporary Music.
MEGAN CULLEN, soprano, holds degrees from Boston University and The Juilliard School and is currently studying for her Master's at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Cesar Ulloa. Within the past year, Megan sang the roles of Liu (Giocomo Puccini's Turandot) and La Chauve-Souris (Maurice Ravel's L’Enfant et les Sortileges), and was a National Semi-Finalist in the Orpheus Competition. She won an Honorable Mention in the Coeur d'Alene Symphony Competition in January and recently sang in the Concours lyrique des pays Catalans. Megan performs the role of Ophelia III, The Faithful Seductress, in Amy Beth Kirsten’s Ophelia Forever, in Goat Hall Productions’ Fresh Voices VIII Festival of New Works in November 2008.
Tenor MICHAEL DESNOYERS is a graduate student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studies with César Ulloa. He is a 2007 vocal performance and music education graduate from Slippery Rock University. Mr. Desnoyers performed his operatic debut in 2005 with the Pittsburgh Opera as the Officer in Richard Strauss'sAriadne auf Naxo. Other roles have includee Eisenstein (Johan Strauss,, Jr. Die Fledermau), Kaspar (Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors) and Padre (Mitch Leigh's Man of la Mancha). He has performed the tenor solos in G.F. Handel’s Messiah and W.A. Mozart’s Requiem. In 2006, he participated in Cincinnati Conservatory’s Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca in Italy. He was also a member of the Pittsburgh Opera’s chorus for three seasons. Mr. Desnoyers was the winner of the 2004 Chad Williamson Memorial Scholarship Competition, and he took second place at both the 2004 Tri-State NATS and 2006 Eastern Regional NATS competitions. This spring, he will appear as Pluto in Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld at SF Conservatory and Don Basilio in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro with San Francisco Cabaret Opera
STEPHANIE DESNOYERS (Properties Construction) is a 2007 graduate of Slippery Rock University with a B.A. in Theatre Design/Technology and Minor in Art History. She has stage managed various shows including Rosenstrasse, Little Shop of Horrors, and The Constant Prince. She was the assistant stage manager for the world premier of Dark North at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland). Stephanie was costume designer for Speaking in Tongues and Vas Defrens, part of a ten-mintue play festival. Most recently, she was the wardrobe supervisor for Pasion por Frida at the SFMOMA. She is thrilled to be involved with this trio of premieres and to work with such talented artists.
MEGHAN DIBBLE, mezzo soprano, is thrilled to be singing Nurse / Eurydice in Mark Alburger's Antigone. This year Ms. Dibble sang Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte) with West Bay Opera in Palo Alto and Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) with Rimrock Opera in Billings, MT. Last year she sang Suzuki (Giocomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly), Mrs. Page (Carl Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor), and the Governess (Peter Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades) with Pocket Opera. She has sung in the New York City Fringe Festival opera premiere, A.F.R.A.I.D.; Puccini's Suor Angelica with Garden State Opera, and Thomas Pasatieri’s Signor Deluso with Brooklyn Opera. Other roles include Marcellina (Le nozze), Fidalma (Il matrimonio segreto), and Siebel (Charles Gounod's Faust). Ms. Dibble sang Agave in Steven Clark's newest opera Dionysus, and has performed several songs from D.C. Meckler's The Albion Deity. A new music enthusiast, Meghan is thrilled to be working with several local composers including Mark Alburger (Waiting for Godot), DC Meckler, Steven Clark (Dionysus), and Sheli Nan (Saga). www.meghandibble.com.
MICAH EPPS earned his Bachelor of Music Degree at the University of Arizona. He has performed as a chorister and soloist in such groups as the San Mateo Masterworks Chorale (as an Eastern European Tour soloist), San Francisco Opera Chorus, San Francisco Symphony Chorus; and was a Mozart Requiem soloist in Hermosillo, Mexico. In addition, Mr. Epps has performed for many years in the Bay Area new music. He has sung previously in Mark Alburger's works, as well as in Lisa Prosek's Belfagor, Satyricon, and Leonardo's Notebooks; David Conte's Firebird Motel and Erling Wold's Sub Pontio Pilato.
ELIZABETH HENRY received her Bachelors degree in Chemistry from The University of California, Irvine; and started studying voice after the birth of her second child. She calls herself an opera singer with a love of new music and has recently premiered several roles for Bay Area composers including Widow Quin in Mark Alburger’s The Playboy of the Western World and the demi-god Ninshubur in Marcia Burchard’s The Descent of Inanna. Other recent roles are Dinah (Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti), Mère Marie (Francis Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites), Wowkle (Puccini's The Girl of the Golden West), Desirée (Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music), Mother (Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors), Hansel (Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel), Gianetta (Donizetti's The Elixir of Love), Kate Pinkerton (Puccini's Madama Butterfly) and Annina (Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata). She is married to a saint and her children are appropriately feisty.
ALEXANDRA JERINIC earned her B.A. in Music from Mills College and her M.M. in Vocal Performance from Notre Dame de Namur University. At N.D.N.U she performed the roles of Christine in Genevieve: The New Woman and The Portrait in The Tales of Hoffmann. She has performed with San Francisco Lyric Opera and made her debut with Lamplighters in The Mikado. In November Alix will be part of the Greek Chorus in Mark Alburger's Antigone with Goat Hall and perform the role of Geta in Henry Purcell's Dioclesian in April 2009.
CAROLYNE ANNE (C.A.) JORDAN, Soprano, has been on the stage since the age of four. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts, and completed graduate study at New England Conservatory of Music. Miss Jordan currently resides in San Francisco, where she studies with Catherine Cook. She recently performed the role of Countess Almaviva at BASOTI (Bay Area Summer Opera Theatre Institute), and performed three roles in the 17th Annual Opera Scenes program at Holy Names University in April. The recipient of several scholarships and awards, C.A. also studied North Indian singing, and has premiered several works by her contemporaries. Her vocals have been featured on both domestic and international electronic dance music records. C.A. appears the role of Ophelia II (The Mad Mermaid) in GHP's presentation of Amy Beth Kirsten's Ophelia Forever in these performances.
AMY BETH KIRSTEN’s music has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra, Volti, Harbor Opera Company, and the CAGE Ensemble, among others. Her most recent honors include being named a finalist for the 2008-09 Rome Prize in Music Composition, receiving Honorable Mention in the 2008 Minnesota Orchestra Reading Competition, and a 2007 Composer Assistance Grant from the American Music Center. Born in East Saint Louis and raised in the Chicago area, Ms. Kirsten received her Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Jazz Studies from Illinois’ Benedictine University, and her Master’s Degree in Music Composition from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Currently, she is lives and works in New Haven, CT where she teaches music theory at Wesleyan University and is scheduled to teach History of Rock and Society at University of Connecticut in the Spring of 2009.
DALYTE KODZIS, mezzo soprano, has been singing classically for over eight years. Her first vocal accomplishment occurred when she won the Orinda Arts Council Scholarship Competition in 2002, for her performance of Georges Bizet's Seguidilla from Carmen. At the Univeristy of California, Santa Cruz, she was given the opportunity to perform in some of the most beloved scenes and full-scale productions in the operatic repertoire. Roles have included the Prioress in Dialogues des Carmelites, the title role in Carmen, Mustardseed in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Mrs. Jones in Kurt Weill's Street Scene. She also played the title role in a UCSC Opera Outreach production called Carmenella, which aimed to introduce the art of opera to school children. She graduated from UCSC with a Bachelor of Music degree in 2006, andwas recently a featured soloist in Trinity Opera’s Opera in the Park concert this fall. This performance marks her debut with Goat Hall.
Soprano ERIN LAHM received her early musical training while growing up near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Over the course of two summers, Ms. Lahm was a resident artist at the Ezio Pinza Council for American Singers of Opera in Oderzo, Italy where she studied with world-class teachers and performed in a series of concerts throughout the area. In May of 2007 she made her debut as a soloist with the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra. In 2006, Ms. Lahm earned her Master of Music degree in vocal performance from Binghamton University where she was featured as the soprano soloist in J.S. Bach’s Magnificat with the University Chorus. Ms. Lahm made her debut with the San Francisco Cabaret Opera in Mark Alburger’s Mice and Men this past September and will perform later this season in their production of Purcell’s Dioclesian. In February she will be appearing as Barbarina with the Mission City Opera in Le nozze di Figaro.
WILLIAM LONEY has appeared with vrious companies throughout the Bay Area as well as in Barcelona, Spain. Most recently he appeared in Altarena's The Man Who Saved Christmas and previously with such companies as Theatreworks, Foothill College, Bear Stage Productions, Sunnyvale Players and Los Altos Conservatory Theatre. This marks William's tenth opera with Goat Hall Productions having last appeared as Shawn Keogh in Mark Alburger's The Playboy of the Western World at the Oakland Metro Opera House. As a dancer, he has performed with the Bay Area Repetory Dance Company in Berkeley and the Atalanta Fugiens Dance Company in Barcelona, Spain. This January, William will be appearing in the Lamplighters Music Theatre production of Arthur Sullivan's Iolanthe.
JOHN F. MCGREW studied piano, harmony, and composition as a teenager with Alexander Sckaventa (a student of Rimsky-Korsakov). After receiving his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology he worked as a human factors engineer for 30 years. He returned to music studying composition with Aaron Blumenfeld in San Pablo California. John has played the contra bass in several bay area community orchestras in addition to Washington D.C. and Pasadena, CA,. and is an amateur guitarist. In June, 2007, he wrote the libretto for the comic opera Quantum Mechanic, which won the 2007 Opera-in-a-Month Challenge and was premiered in August in American Fork, Utah, by VocalWorks. His other librettos include Trifles, and A Christmas Tale. He has also composed the music for Three Haiku Songs for soprano and string quartet. He has also written several short stories, short screen plays, children’s stories and a novel. He has acted in the film Xtraterrestrials Xposed.
San Francisco performance artist and soprano LISA MCHENRY has been delighting Bay Area audiences in a variety of productions for more than 10 years. McHenry’s credits include roles in John Cander's Cabaret, Mark Alburger's Playboy of the Western World, Easter Hangover (Goat Hall Productions), and Halfway Mark (S.F. Composers Chamber Orchestra and San Francisco Cabaret Opera).
A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, MARIA MIKHEYENKO has sung with the Russian Chamber Orchestra of Marin, San Francisco Russian Festival, and presents recitals of Russian Romances throughout the Bay Area. Ms. Mikheyenko’s opera credits include Berkeley Opera, Pocket Opera, Capitol Opera Sacramento, Bay Shore Lyric Opera, Opera Lafayette, Oakland Opera Theater, and the Austrian American Mozart Academy of Salzburg. In the world of contemporary opera, Ms. Mikheyenko has been a frequent collaborator with Bay Area composer Lisa Scola Prosek, performing in three of her works: Leonardo’s Notebooks, Belfagor, and Trap Door. She also recently sang the role of Lennie Small in Mark Alburger’s Mice and Men. As a member of the Pacific Mozart Ensemble, Ms. Mikheyenko joined Meredith Monk in the world premiere of her new work, Songs of Ascension, at Stanford and the Oliver Ranch acoustic Tower designed by Ann Hamilton. www.mariamikheyenko.com.
KEISUKE NAKAGOSHI is one of the most exciting young pianists on today's music scene. A native of Japan and now resident of San Francisco, he made his debut at The Kennedy Center in 2005, and Carnegie Hall in 2007. He has worked and performed with such iconic musicians as Lucy Shelton, Joseph Alessi and Karl Leister. His coaches include Menahem Pressler, Emanuel Ax, Gilbert Kalish, and The Peabody Trio. As the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's 2005 Concerto Competition winner, he was a featured soloist in the opening concert of the Conservatory's new concert hall. He is currently pianist in residence at SFCM, and a member of Adorno Ensemble, a collective of musicians focused on chamber music by contemporary composers.
Soprano ELIZA O'MALLEY recently sang the role of Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. A passionate interpreter of new music, she has premiered works by Mark Alburger (The Playboy of the Western World, Waiting for Godot), Lisa Scola Prosek (Belfagor, Leonardo's Notebooks, Trap Door) Stephen Clark (Dionysus), Sheli Nan (Saga), Allan Crossman and more while working with Goat Hall Productions/San Francisco Cabaret Opera over the past couple of years. Through her association with Harvest of Song at the Berkeley Art Center she has also premiered music by Peter Josheff, Mary Watkins, and Alexis Alrich. She has sung opera roles with The Santa Cruz Chamber Orchestra, Oakland Opera Theater, Berkeley Opera, Solo Opera, BASOTI, Capitol Opera Sacramento, Labor Fest as well as appearing as Emma in a workshop production of Khovanshchina conducted by Kent Nagano. Eliza looks forward to performing Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro in March 2009 with the SF Cabaret Opera as well as Peter Josheff and Jaime Robles’ new opera Inferno at Berkeley’s Live Oak Theater in June 2009. She also produces and sings in the Dazzling Divas nights of opera arias at the Bateau Ivre. www.elizaomalley.com
HARRIET MARCH PAGE has pursued a life-long obsession with the arts, as actor, singer, writer, director, producer. Reeling off the decades, the 1970s was grand opera in and about the San Francisco Bay Area; 1980's, acting in plays and musicals with the Los Altos Conservatory Theatre; 1990's, writing and performing autobiographical monologues in San Francisco and producing monthly Sunday Salons; and the 2000's directing and producing as Artistic Director for Goat Hall Productions / San Francisco Cabaret Opera, whose mission is presenting contemporary opera in English and premiering new opera theater by Bay Area composers in a cabaret setting. After five years devoted to new music almost exclusively, March Page is very excited about entering a new phase with our 2008-2009 season, which includes new exciting works such as those featured on OPERA APOCALYPSE and our Fresh Voices IX Festivals of New Music in May and June 2009, but also Mozart, Purcell, Menotti, and more!
Lyric Soprano LETITIA PAGE is happy to be performing once again in the Bay Area! Ms. Page is currently a Seattle Opera Associate Chorister and has recently been accepted to study voice with Wagnerian Soprano Jane Eaglen. Ms. Page was a recent scholarship recipient for Elyssium, Between Two Continents Summer Opera Program in Bernreid, Germany. She won the second highest scholarship in Seattle’s Gilbert & Sullivan Vocal Competition in 2006 and received the Peggy O’Coyne Music Scholarship for two years running at SCC in Seattle. You can see Ms. Page this spring as The Countess in The Marriage of Figaro with Goat Hall Productions and as the cover for Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus with The Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan's Second Stage this January in Seattle. Letitia Page is thrilled to be able to reprise the role of Antigone with such a wonderful and talented cast.
Mezzo-soprano CARY ANN ROSKO has performed contemporary and standard repertoire throughout the Bay Area with companies such as The Lamplighters, Oakland Opera, Cinnabar Theater, Berkeley Opera and Martinez Opera. Ms. Rosko¢s recent modern opera roles include Dargelos/Agathe in Philip Glass's Les Enfants Terribles, Dionisia in Robert Xavier Rodriguez's La Curandera, Reporter in Anthony Davis's X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, and Clare Lynott in Daniel Felsenfeld's The Last of Manhattan. Other credits include Katisha (Sullivan's The Mikado), Vera Boronel (Menotti's The Consul), Lola (Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana), Siebel (Faust), Olga (Peter Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin), Julie (Jerome Kern's Show Boat) and Cleo (Frank Loesser The Most Happy Fella). Ms. Cary appears in this production as Ophelia I: The Violated Saint inAmy Beth Kirsten¢s Ophelia Forever.
LARYSSA SADOWAY began her music training in Belmont, Massachusetts. She recently received a Master of Music in Vocal Performance at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Catherine Cook. She is thrilled to be singing Quark Sister Top-Bottom with Goat Hall Productions. Since moving to the Bay Area, she has been heard at San Francisco Conservatory in the roles of Third Lady (Die Zauberflöte), Cecilia March, (Little Women), Didone (Cavalli’s L’Egisto) and La mère (L’enfant et les sortileges). She sang the role of Solo Chorus in Berkeley Opera’s production of W.A. Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Other recent roles include La Voix (Jacques Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann) and Mme. de Croissy (Les Dialogues des Carmelites). On the concert stage, Ms. Sadoway has appeared as a soloist in Mozart's Requiem and J.S. Bach's Cantata No. 106. Upcoming performances include Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro) with Goat Hall Productions in the Spring of ’09.
PRODUCTION STAFF
Director - Harriet March Page
Conductor - Mark Alburger
Choreographer - William Loney (Antigone)
- Maria Mikheyenko (Quantum Mechanic)
Lighting Design, Light Board - John Jamieson, Lewis Campbell
(The Next Stage) - Victoria Holder (Chapel of the Chimes /
Temple United Methodist Church)
Costumes - ACT Costume Rental / Harriet March Page
Props - Stephanie Desnoyers
Set Design / Construction (Antigone) - Adam Broner
Set Design / Construction (Quantum Mechanic)
- John G. Bilotta, John F. McGrew
Supertitle Design - Eliza O'Malley
Supertitle Projectionists - Meghan Dibble, Eliza O'Malley, Letitia Page
Publicity / Program - Harriet March Page, Mark Alburger,
Meghan Dibble, Eliza O'Malley
Photographer - Roger Steen
Webmaster - Meghan Dibble
Box Office - Lewis Campbell
Production Assistants / Crew - Adam Broner, Stephanie Desnoyers,
Michael Desnoyers, Terence Bennan, Loren Hicks, Victoria Holder
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND THANKS
Lewis Campbell, The Next Stage and Theater Residencies, Inc.
Elisabeth & Michael O’Malley and the Berkeley Daily Planet
Doreen Burgin and Commuter Times
Chamber Arts House (rehearsals)
Lisa Delan (Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation)
Adam Broner, Jaime Robles, Piedmont Post
GREAT NEWS!
Goat Hall Productions is a member of Theatre Bay Area, and we are happy to announce we are the recipient of a Theatre Bay Area CA$H Grant of $5,000 for singers’ fees for the November 2008 Opera Apocalypse!
Great things are happening at Goat Hall Productions / San Francisco Cabaret Opera: beginning with OPERA APOCALYPSE, this evening’s entertainment, and continuing through 2009 with an explosion of programs from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro (March) to Purcell’s Dioclesian (April) to Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief (June), Fresh Voices IX Festival of New Works in May, plus new operas by Mark Alburger, Peter Josheff, Sheli Nan, and more!
The great joys of this production tonight are the wonderful, eclectic one-act operas by composers new to us: Amy Beth Kirsten and John G. Bilotta, as well as Mark Alburger, whose Antigone is my favorite of all his operas; and the magnificent singers, many of whom are also new to us, all of whom bring their beautiful voices, their wonderful acting and their presence! We are proud and grateful they are on our stage this evening.
We are also very grateful to Lewis Campbell and TRI/The Next Stage for providing a great theatrical venue for this production on our opening weekend. Our second weekend will be at two other venues which are architectural wonders and present a great opportunity for our singers’ operatic voices to soar in a less intimate environment.
We are what Theatre Bay Area calls a “nomad company.” This means we are a wandering band of players looking for viable venues that we can afford! We would love to have our own space again (our beloved Goat Hall is still getting renovated!) but we are happy to be here! Ticket sales and donations and an occasional grant keep us alive. And please believe me when I say your presence as an audience member makes it all worthwhile!
Tell your friends about us. Look us up online at www.goathall.org; email me at hartmpage@aol.com.
Harriet March Page, Artistic Director
WE WELCOME YOUR DONATION IN ANY AMOUNT
made out to Goat Hall Productions and sent to:
400 Missouri Street, San Francisco, CA 94107.
Goat Hall Productions is a nonprofit corporation; your gift is tax deductible.
Our tax ID number is 94-3288314.
DONORS
BOARD ARCHANGEL ($500+)
Mark Alburger
Meghan Dibble
Janet Garvin
Sharon Walters Grehosky
Diana Landau
Miriam Lewis
Janet Lohr
Douglas Mandell
Eliza O’Malley
Harriet March Page
John Partridge
ARCHANGEL ($500 +)
George & Elizabeth Alburger
Jean Bogiages
John G. Bilotta
Allan Crossman
Patti Noel Deuter
Christian & Jacqueline Erdman
Deborah Ann Hahn
Victoria Holder
Elisabeth & Michael O’Malley
Jeffrey Rodman & Adrienne Hirt
Leida Schoggen/William Farmer
W.M. Sevald
Laverne Viat
ANGEL ($100-$499)
Richard Bagwell
Peter Ballinger
Cheryl Keller Brooks
Josephine Burns/Donald Vaccarino
Martha Cooper
Howard and Rosalind Fisher
Gary D./Ruth H. Friedman
Nancy Friedman
Michael F. /Elizabeth Henry
L.C. Hickman
J.J. Hollingsworth
Brian Holmes
David Hurlbert
Linda & William Kelley
Scott King
Walter & Judith Miller
Doyne & Corinne Mraz
Sheli Nan
Amy Nichols & Oscar Romo
Judith & Fred Ostapik
David Ostwald
Saralie Pennington & Tom Herz
Marilyn Pratt
Thomas & Lisa Scola Prosek
Elaine Reynolds Smith/William L. Smith
Melissa Smith
Claire E. Taylor
Sally Adamson Taylor
Bonnie Verbelli
Cynthia Weyuker
SAINT ($50-$99)
Dorothy or Arthur Chang
Audrey D. Cole
Sanford Dole
Rev. Rick Fabian
Michael & Lori Garvey
John Golenski
Karen Grech
Laura & Henry Klein
Elise P. Laird
Robert & Shirley Liu
Edward M. Lukawski
Dexter & Kathleen Lowry
David & Marylouise Meckler
James Meredith
Bernard & Anne Metais
Jeffery Morton
Warren & Ruth Schafran
Michele Sullivan & Andy Williamson
Suesan and C. Barr Taylor
Esther Wanning
Ray Whelan
Dale & Daniel Zola
SUPPORTER ($10-$49)
Joseph C. Beck
Charles J. Deatherage, Jr./
Jan M. Deatherage
Richard W. & Marty Friesen
Juan Pedro Gaffney
Elliot Harmon & Erin (Kat) Cornelius
Ron & Ruth Marie Larson
Elizabeth O’Malley & Peter Josheff
Raymond & Barbara Park
Alan & Margaret Spool
Gladys Wagman
Garth T. & C. Ann Williams
