![]() “ how many notes are on the page, but the space and joy and provocation of those notes that are challenging.” “Paola’s music is so passionate, and there isn’t a way around that, you can’t cheat passion, not as a composer and certainly not as a performer,” Davis added. It’s always beautiful to have a piece written on your instrument, she was able to craft something that ultimately belonged to me.” “Paola and I met, and it was love at first sight. “She was just in the beginning stages of writing, and needed someone for the role of the Queen who could sing high, low and improvise,” Davis recalled. Introduced by a mutual friend, Davis and Prestini first worked together 15 years ago on “Oceanic Verses,” which explored the composer’s southern Italian history. The choir of New York City singers “supports everything, from the DiMaggio section to ocean sounds, which is pretty expansive in terms of a tapestry for choir,” Prestini said. Prestini includes interludes about Hemingway’s life she calls "Pop Songs," “fantastic breaks in the piece this very sexy letter from Marlene Dietrich and an incredible moment about Joe DiMaggio.” “She serves as a type of spiritual underpinning to the work,” Prestini said. Prestini’s longtime collaborator and muse Helga Davis plays El Floridita's owner, nicknamed “La Mar” (The Sea), and also La Virgen, a folkloric Cuban religious icon reportedly found at sea in the 1600s and revered in El Cobre, Cuba. The singers appear both in the bar and in the story: Hemingway doubles as fisherman Santiago, his young seafaring friend, Manolin, is also a bar patron. The opera is scored for a principal cast of three singers and a small choir, with cello, percussion and electronics. Prestini first met librettist Royce Vavrek at New York City Opera Vox festival which Beth Morrison produced, she recalled. ![]() The work is produced by modern opera champions Beth Morrison Projects. “We decided the work needed a different kind of vision,” Prestini said, “but so much of dramaturgy and ideas still exist.” ![]() Her initial collaboration included renowned theater maker Robert Wilson. “Sometimes I think projects take this long because they manifest something you can’t quite foresee when you started.” “It’s an opera I’ve been working on for many years different incarnations,” Prestini said. In the story set in Cuba, elderly Spanish fisherman Santiago breaks a long dry spell by relentlessly reeling in a majestic marlin, then battles marauding sharks that devour his catch on his way to shore. Prestini’s version is particularly poignant, as Hemingway’s mother relinquished a New York City operatic career to support her family in Chicago, where she urged young Ernest to play the cello. It has inspired films, plays, paintings, animation, even a Korean opera and a cocktail. Written in Cuba in 1951, “The Old Man and the Sea” revived Hemingway’s waning reputation and brought him considerable fame, winning the 1953 Pulitzer Prize and contributing to the author’s 1954 Nobel Prize In Literature. “The visions he’s manifesting for the book are inspired by the moment in time he wrote it, and the state of mind he was in,” Prestini said. Set in the Havana bar El Floridita, the opera follows Hemingway’s life as he’s writing his novella, and visits enduring themes of ecology, aging, religion and baseball. “You have twin threads that essentially tell you what Hemingway’s life was like when he was writing, and then key moments in 'The Old Man and the Sea' that are plot points driving you towards the end.” “The project began because of my obsession with water and the ocean, and also book,” said Prestini, as she prepared for a concert at the United Nations. “The Old Man and the Sea” cello opera is a collaboration between Prestini, Pulitzer-winning librettist Royce Vavrek and distinguished Slovenian conductor and director Karmina Silec, with Prestini’s husband Jeffrey Zeigler as featured cellist. Information and tickets: 41, ĬOVID-19 Policy: Masks are required in the Hunter Center when not eating or drinking $70, preferred seating and museum admission. Where: Hunter Center, Mass MoCA, 1040 Mass MoCA Way, North AdamsĪdmission: $35, advance $45, day of, museum admission not included. What: A work-in-progress preview of Paola Prestini's new opera followed by a conversation on stage with the principal creative team. NORTH ADAMS - Transforming Ernest Hemingway’s iconic tale “The Old Man and the Sea” into an opera is like heading into deep waters to catch a mighty fish as yet unseen.Īccompanied by fellow seafarers and following a week-long residency, on March 25 prolific international composer Paola Prestini brings a work-in-progress preview of her new opera to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts' Hunter Center for an excerpted performance and conversation with the creative team.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |