Press
Vernon Hartman, Alexandra Schoeny, Christian Pursell and Paul Scholten all deliver strong performances as assorted colorful D.C. types, as does Marcus DeLoach as both the stern Interrogator and the swaggering Senator McCarthy. JOSHUA ROSENBLUM
Gregory Spears’s opera “Fellow Travelers,” which is featured in this year’s Prototype Festival (Jan. 12-14), is a tale from the time of the “lavender scare”—the purging of homosexuals from federal employment in the nineteen-fifties. Around five thousand gay and lesbian people are thought to have lost their jobs; many never recovered from the ruin of their reputations, and an unknown number committed suicide. This shameful period is rightly associated with McCarthyism, but its most lethal instrument came directly from the desk of President Eisenhower: Executive Order 10450, which condemned “sexual perversion” and other amorphous improprieties. ALEX ROSS
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
Gregory Spears, “Fellow Travelers”
Aaron Blake, Joseph Lattanzi, Devon Guthrie, Alexandra Schoeny, Mark Gibson conducting the Cincinnati Symphony (Fanfare Cincinnati)
"Sheri Greenawald, director of San Francisco Opera Center, announced the eleven recipients of the 2018 Adler Fellowship grant. Choosing promising young talent from the Merola Opera Program, recipients are given advanced training, via individual coaching and professional seminars, and a vast range of performance opportunities. The 2018 group of artists are comprised of eight singers, two pianists, and one director; no doubt all of them will benefit tremendously from this multi-year residency.
The singers include sopranos Sarah Cambidge and Natalie Image, mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon, countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, tenors Amitai Pati and Kyle van Schoonhoven, bass-baritone Christian Pursell, and baritone Andrew G. Manea."
"San Francisco Opera Center Director Sheri Greenawald today announced the eleven recipients of the 2018 Adler Fellowship. Eight singers, two pianist/apprentice coaches and one director will take part in the program. The multi-year performance-oriented residency offers advanced young artists intensive individual training, coaching and professional seminars, as well as a wide range of performance opportunities. Adler Fellows are selected from the artists who have participated in the Merola Opera Program. The prestigious fellowship has nurtured the development of more than 175 young artists since its inception.
The eight singers selected as 2018 Adler Fellows are sopranos Sarah Cambidge (Vancouver, B.C., Canada) and Natalie Image (Tsawwassen, B.C., Canada); mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon (Peachtree City, Georgia); Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (Brooklyn, New York), who becomes the fourth countertenor to join the program after Brian Asawa, Gerald Thompson and Ryan Belongie; tenors Amitai Pati (Auckland, New Zealand) and Kyle van Schoonhoven (Lockport, New York); baritone Andrew G. Manea (Troy, Michigan); and bass-baritone Christian Pursell (Santa Cruz, California)."
"San Francisco Opera Center Director Sheri Greenawald today announced the eleven recipients of the 2018 Adler Fellowship. Eight singers, two pianist/apprentice coaches and one director will take part in the program. The multi-year performance-oriented residency offers advanced young artists intensive individual training, coaching and professional seminars, as well as a wide range of performance opportunities. Adler Fellows are selected from the artists who have participated in the Merola Opera Program. The prestigious fellowship has nurtured the development of more than 175 young artists since its inception."
"Winners of $10,000 awards and continuing assistance starting in 2018 are: sopranos Michelle Bradley, Monica Dewey, Pureum Jo, Felicia Moore, and Laura Wilde; mezzo-sopranos Kristen Choi and Abigail Levis; tenors Derrek Stark and David Walton; and baritone Christian Pursell."
"It was followed by another outstanding performance, this time by bass-baritone Christian Pursell in the aria Massime così indegne” from Handel’s Rinaldo. Singing with power and conviction, Pursell was ably joined by mezzo-soprano Edith Grossman."
"...and there was bass-baritone Christian Pursell’s formidable explosion of meaty, impeccably modulated sound in an aria from Handel’s 'Rodelinda.'"
