Nicole Paiement's Opera Parallèle is planning a season of two worthy curiosities from the 20th century, and the North American premiere of a promising novelty. The latter is Adam Gorb's Anya17; the other two are paired in an unusual double-bill: Weill's Mahagonny and Poulenc's The Breasts of Tirésias (April 25, 26, and 27).
Anya17 will be seen June 20-22, in Marines’ Memorial Theater, in conjunction with the 2014 Opera America conference.
Gorb, 55, an acclaimed British composer, premiered his work about modern slavery and human trafficking last year in Liverpool and Manchester:
What we have attempted to do is to focus in on the human drama: the girl Anya from an unspecified Eastern European country and her hopes and fears for a new life in "The West," the stories of the other young girls duped into the promise of a new life abroad, Anya's betrayal, her subsequent dehumanisation, but ultimately with the small possibility of hope for the future.
The reality behind the tales of these people taken into prostitution is often so harrowing I felt I needed to suggest a glimmer of light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel at the close of the work.
Anya17 composer Adam Gorb
I have conceived Anya17 as an hour-long theater piece and have striven to write music that would work in a theatrical and dramatic context. Sex slavery is a world-wide issue, but in this work, in keeping with the theme of the cultural differences between the "East" and the "West" I have attempted to give much of the score an Eastern European feel, but infiltrated by corrupting "Western" vernacular elements as well.
Poulenc’ 1945 opera bouffe, Les mamelles de Tirésias, based on Guillaume Apollinaire's surrealist drama, is a hilarious work about the scary prospect of an overpopulated world of poverty and wars.
The lead soprano role is of Thérèse, who tires of her life as a submissive woman and becomes the male Tirésias when her breasts turn into balloons and float away. As General Tiresias she wages a campaign against childbirth, but to save humanity, her abandoned husband becomes fertile enough by himself to give birth to 40,049 children in a single day. It's a hoot.
Mahagonny is a compilation of songs from Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, telling a skeletal story similar to that of the opera: "The fleshpots of Mahagonny attract many visitors, but prove disappointing and expensive; God orders the inhabitants to hell, but they revolt, claiming they are there already."
Opera Parallèle's Brian Staufenbiel stages the Poulenc/Weill production to with SteamPunk on Medieval theater-inspired sets with video designs.
Opera Parallèle will have its first official fund-raising event, with Jake Heggie’s At the Statue of Venus, featuring soprano Kristin Clayton, and the composer at the piano and concluding with a performance by Frederica von Stade. The event takes place Oct. 24 at the General’s Residence at Fort Mason, and includes a reception and silent auction.
