2021 Season

MODERN OPERA FEST

The Extinctionist, composed by Daniel Schlosberg with a libretto by Amanda Quaid, is Heartbeat Opera’s dark comedy about a couple grappling with the prospect of bearing a child in a world threatened with environmental collapse. Director: Louisa Proske; Music Director Jacob Ashworth. Heartbeat Opera’s past work has been described as “bold and vivid” and “a visceral and immediate encounter” (Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times). The Extinctionist was developed in residency at PS21 and featured two semi-staged presentations on May 29–30.

Directed by visual artist and opera director Doug Fitch, Pan, for flutist Claire Chase, a 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and chorus, explored the tensions of today’s experience and community through the myth of the god of rustic music and one of the only two mortal members of the Greek pantheon. “The cult of the godlike artist gives way to a collective ceremony–art as grassroots action” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker). One performance on July 16.

Ipsa Dixit, composed by Kate Soper and directed by Ashley Tata, is a theatrical chamber opera for soprano, flute, violin, and percussion that blends monodrama, Greek theater, and screwball comedy to skewer the treachery of language and question the  authenticity of artistic expression. Called “a twenty-first century masterpiece” (The New Yorker). One performance on September 4.

Composed by Douglas J. Cuomo and staged by Tony Boutté , Savage Winter is a fiercely contemporary chamber opera that reimagines Wilhelm Müller’s poetry cycle Winterreise. PS21 presents the semi-staged concert version for tenor, keyboards, trumpet, guitar, and electronics developed and performed in Houston. Minimal staging and projected images from the original production bring depth to this dynamic work.

THEATER AND DANCE

The Dark Master, from writer/director Kuro Tanino and his company Niwa Gekidan Penino, a disturbing contemporary vision of thought control and the manipulation of desire through visual storytelling augmented by VR. U.S. premiere. Co-presented with Japan Society NYC.  June 17–20.

The legendary Paul Taylor Dance Company was in residence for three weeks, rehearsing and performing Company B, Esplanade, and Aureole, works from its repertory of modern classics, and a new staging of Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table, a twentieth-century vision of the futility of war that has been compared to a dance of death. Performances July 2–3 and August 7.

In SHE/HER, Nicole Ansari directs local actors in rehearsal and performance of monologues on the subject of memory and identity. Ansari is a celebrated actor, director, writer and founder of Actors Rising. August 12-14.

CHAMBER MUSIC AND THE PS21 HOUSE BLEND CONCERTS

Escher String Quartet Bela Bartók’s Quartet No. 6 for Strings, BB 119 and the Quartet in D minor for Strings, Op. 56, “Voces intimae” by Jean Sibelius. Recipients of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Escher is “one of the finest quartets of their generation.” (The Guardian). June 8.

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with special guests from Caleb Teicher & Company: Heitor Villa-Lobos, Aria from Bachianas Brasilieras #5; Ney Rosauro, Concerto N.1 for Marimba and String Orchestra, with guest artist percussionist Britton-René Collins; and J. S. Bach/Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Aria and Selections from the Goldberg Variations. July 24.

PS21 House Blend Concerts brewed with the audience in mind, featuring celebrated soloists and groups. Conjured by pianist and innovative programmer Alan Feinberg:

House Blend Concert I: July 5
Ralph Shapey: Evocation No. 1 for Violin, with Percussion and Piano (3rd movement) (1959)
Billy Jim Layton: Five Studies for Violin and Piano (2010)
Franco Donatoni: Mari (1992)
David Sanford: 22 Part 1 for Cello and Piano (1995)
Giya Kancheli: Nach dem Weinen (Having Wept) (1994)

With Miranda Cuckson, Matt Haimovitz, Matthew Gold, and Geoffrey Burleson

House Blend Concert II: August 8
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Passacaglia (1676)
Stefan Wolpe: The Man from Midian (1942)
Conlon Nancarrow: Study #7 transcribed for two pianos by Thomas Adès (1998)
Johann Sebastian Bach: Actus Tragicus transcribed for piano by György Kurtág (1708)

With Pianists Steven Beck and Susan Grace of the duo “Quattro Mani” and violinist Siwoo Kim

House Blend Concert III: August 19
Luigi Dallapicolla: Tartiniana Seconda (1956)
Aaron Copland: from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1950)
György Ligeti: Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano (1982)

With Ariadne Greif, Leelanee Sterrett, Miranda Cuckson, and Eric Huebner

House Blend Concert IV: August 26
Arvo Pärt: Mozart-Adagio, for Violin, Violoncello and Piano (1992)
Paul Schoenfield: Three Country Fiddle Pieces (1987)
Charmaine Lee, solo (2020)
Maurice Ravel: Sonata for Violin and Cello (1922)

With Emily Daggett Smith, Andrea Casarrubios, Blair McMillen, and Charmaine Lee