The New York Times
Jan. 12-14; prototypefestival.org.
This week marks the launch of a recent but essential addition to January’s classical calendar: the upstart Prototype Festival, a celebration of contemporary opera and music theater in all its forms. This year’s lineup includes audacious new works by a wide variety of composers, including Michael Gordon‘s deconstruction of 1940s horror movies and Alicia Hall Moran’s vocal work featuring ice skaters, at several New York venues.
One highlight is “Fellow Travelers” by Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce. Based on the eponymous novel by Thomas Mallon, the opera tells the story of an affair between two men during the McCarthy-era “lavender scare,” when the federal government purged gay employees from its ranks. Spears’s intimately lyrical score serves as the persuasive foundation for a wrenching, interiorized drama. WILLIAM ROBIN