James Joyce's Dirty Letters: subject of my new short Opera for Bloomsday,NOLA 6/14-6/16

“Darling, Please do not be offended (by what I wrote.)”

-is the full title. This will be performed for the Bloomsday celebration in New Orleans. Bloomsday is the annual celebration of James Joyce’s groundbreaking masterpiece, Ulysses. The festival is now being handled by the collaborator in two of my previous operas (‘Bang the Law’, ee me and pollock thee’) , Chris Lane.

I have had the idea for a long time and finally the opportunity came up to stage the piece. Libretto and music by yours truly. All the text however is by Mr. James Joyce. The lyric is totally unexpurgated. Immoral restoration theater type directness for our tightening times…except of course- of and for the common people.

The opera is also to remember the great victory over victorian censorship of the book.

The piece will be at the church at the Hotel Peter and Paul in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. There will be two performance on the 14th and two on the 16th of June.

Great artists have been assembled to work on it.

Zara Zemmels- Mezzo-Soprano
Nelson Gonzalez- Joyce
Tim Robertson- Guitar
Janna Saslaw- Flutes
David Gamble- projections and design
Joan Long- Lighting/ stage design/ performance consultant

Jonathan Freilich- composer/librettist
Chris Lane- producer and set builder.

Extremely important here is our gofundme campaign to raise the money for the production. We hope that if you support arts in New Orleans, or are a theater fan, or a literature fan, or an independent/ experimental/contemporary opera buff, or prefer that your ribald times aren’t impinged upon, or support diversity in music, or the livelihood and development of the arts in general, that you will contribute. Any amount helps greatly.

The link is here…

Donate

Info

Comment

The Coronation goes up at Music Box- Operatic Collab. by Bernard Pearce and Jonathan Freilich

Shows are April 5 and 6. It’s an intriguing idea and I have been lucky to be a large contributor, compositionally, on the project.

Other performers include Helen Gillet, Janna Saslaw, Anais St. John, Jennie Lavine, Julie Odell, and Trendafilka.

Info

Comment

Composing for Collaborative Opera at Music Box Village

Back to Opera composing. It’s been a few years since the last one.

I will be collaborating with Bernard Pearce and many others on his original idea. The Music box Village is a fascinating outdoor performance venue with a very special set of large installation instruments.

The piece will go up in Spring 2019.

To follow the information-

https://musicboxvillage.com

Info

Comment

Old news about dead opera...

After writing and working on a couple of operas the things that I was seeking to overcome still remained an obstacle. A production or any presentation is a single item that should be looked after as a whole by all involved no matter what their particular field of excellence. The tendency for most is to just attempt to do their "job" and if there are things amiss they pass the buck in a few ways that undermine the coherence of a work--at least those that are produced by a multiple number of people. Often, after they have done their "bit" (acting, singing, playing, directing, or lighting) they neglect other shortfalls they observe as if it wasn't their department. The mistake is, that in a larger work, the final work, as a whole, is every contributor's department. Otherwise the work remains in pieces and, the work of each contributor, is looked at as deficient regardless of skill level.

From different backgrounds and diverse training experiences or modes of apprenticeship come different ways of working. Certain artforms make action in different ways- for example the inner workings of opera singers tends to be different than actors and others from more "straight" theater. Where there would be benefit from both exchanging, learning, and translating each others methods the default is to recoil into what is easy, and then compete for dominant view in a production. If dominance isn't obtained then variations of the line, "well...I've done my job." emerge, and a production is on the way to fragmented compromise and egotistical stagnation of he various artisans.

It is like Franklin's revolutionary observation- "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Most good theater has a certain air of revolution about it anyway, and this starts early in history.

(Note to hipsters and group musicians: when you perform it is a kind of theater ritual whether you like it or not. The tendency is to imagine that you have a heady and less pretentious mode of performance...but you don't! Audiences still respond as if it was a dramatic performance with another kind of content. Poor music performance often hangs on a lack of attention to this. Muddy Waters's band had a look and a stance on stage where another could have been used, and a lot could be derived and realized from that stance. So, he projected the real, or similar values even before any music was played. Archie Shepp wrote for the theater and there is probably much underlying knowledge there that reveals itself in the power of his stance and presentation when he performs. Arts separation is a bit deadly!)

Perusing Peter Brook's (wish I'd read it sooner) classic, The Empty Space,I came across this passage which even more articulately states the problem.

"Closely related to this is the conflict between theatre directors and musicians in opera productions where two totally different forms, drama and music, are treated as though they were one. A musician is dealing with a fabric that is as near as man can get to an expression of the invisible. His score notes this invisibility and his sound is made by instruments which hardly ever change. The player's personality is

ee me & pollock thee nominated for creative opera award

The opera, ee me & pollock thee, written by Adam Falik(Libretto) and Jonathan Freilich (Composer) has been nominated for an award in the Gambit's creative opera category...

Check it out...

Info

Comment

ee me & pollock thee- performances coming this weekend.

ee me & pollock thee

an opera

by Adam Falik and Jonathan Freilich

Director: Chris Kammenstein | Musical Director: Francis Scully

An official participant of the 2011 New Orleans Fringe Festival

Venue: The Marigny Opera House(Trinity Church on St. Ferdinand in the Marigny)

Thursday, November 17^th, 7pm

Friday, November 18^th, 9pm

Saturday, November 19^th, 11pm

Sunday, November 20^th, 7pm

ee me & pollock thee accounts a relationship between poet E. E. Cummings and painter Jackson Pollock. The two artists journey to the dark heart of inspiration in this multidisciplinary extravaganza. As poet and painter wrestle their muse, mutual obsession and mystical appropriation ensue. This modern opera with live musical accompaniment explores the cost of great art and dangerous genius. Dramatic scenes are interwoven with original musical compositions and operatic performance of E. E. Cummings poems.

Goat in the Road Productions’ Chris Kamenstein will direct, and Francis Scully, conductor of the New Resonance Orchestra, will serve as musical director.

The production features: Chris Lane as Jackson Pollock, Andrew Vaught (Cripple Creek Productions) as E. E. Cummings, Kathleen Halm as Lee Krasner, and JeAnne Swinley as Rebecca Cummings.

Info

Comment

New Opera/Play: ee me & pollock thee complete and set for NO Fringe Fest Nov. 16-20

Chris Lane as Jackson PollockDont' miss this upcoming premiere of a new opera/play/melodrama by Adam Falik(Libretto/script) and Jonathan Freilich(composer).

-E.E. Cummings and Jackson Pollock journey to the dark heart of inspiration in this multidisciplinary extravaganza. As poet and painter wrestle their muse, mutual obsession and mystical appropriation ensue. This modern opera with live musical accompaniment explores the cost of great art and dangerous genius.-

The music is now finished and the opera is in final run up towards the New Orleans Fringe Festival It's a co- production with the librettist, Adam Falik and will feature Chris Lane as abstract expressionist painter, Jackson Pollock. Chris appaeared in my previous opera, Bang The Law and knows how to deliver this type of role. The other cast is also exciting and as of now the music writing is novel and should provide for a really interesting creative set of performances. The show will be under the musical guidance of conductor, Francis Scully.

ee me & pollock thee at NO Fringe fest...

I'll meet you there!

Info

Comment

Collaboration, dictatorial ideology, Platonic philosophy hangovers, and other thoughts before starting work on an opera

In preparing to write larger, theatrically bound pieces of music, a voracious appetite for webs of information, culled from as many fields as possible seems to take hold. (I'm speaking as a "newbie" here because I've only written one opera previously, Bang The Law.) Perhaps, it is because things like opera involve so many different features: poetry, acting, producing, directing, music, stage design, costume, psychology, history. Reasearch into everything possible seems to be called for. There is also the perennial fear of accidentally creating something too narrow or trivial. I get into a kind of trawling, sometimes directed, sometimes not, that leads to the right sort of mental and emotional fullness and wonder that overcomes stagnation, procrastination, and distraction. Opera demands collaboration anyhow so mental flexibility derived from poring over related ideas seems paramount becuse there is a certain openness and general knowledge required in working well with others with specialized talents.

I'm involved in the writing of a semi-operatic work currently so this is the process that seems to be dominant again. A couple of months back I was handed a libretto by writer, Adam Falik and agreed to collaborate on his libretto about a couple of early twentieth century art behemoths and a fictional encounter that drags them both down. In perusing some of