Friday April 5, 7:30pm; Saturday April 6, 2pm and 7:30pm; Sunday April 7, 2pm
Opera Parallele, the Bay Area's distinguished producer and champion of contemporary opera, and SF JAZZ present the world premiere of Birds & Balls, a novel pairing of two witty operas examining the nature of competition and the quirky human levers beneath it.
Balls is a world premiere one- act opera by Emmy- and GRAMMY-winning composer Laura Karpman (of Ms. Marvel and American Fiction fame) and renowned New York Times writer Gail Collins dramatizing the famed 1973 "battle of the sexes" tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. To capture the thrill of the era, Stage & Creative Director, Brian Staufenbiel turns SF JAZZ into a virtual arena, with a live operatic tennis match, immersive film projections, fashion and media social artifacts, and character time-travel (where Larry King and Howard Cosell are joined by American Suffragette Susan B. Anthony).
Birds & Balls includes the West Coast premiere of Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera, a comedic one-act opera inspired by the Flemish sport, also known as Finch-Sitting, from Grammy Award nominated (2024) composer David T. Little and Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Royce Vavrek. Vinkensport sees a motley assortment of contestants battle it out to see who has the most melodious bird. As they compete for the greatest number of "susk-e-wiets" over the course of an hour, the motivations and secrets of the finches' trainers are revealed, as is their complex relationship to their birds, the sport, and themselves.
Under the baton of Opera Parallele's respected conductor Nicole Paiement, composers David T. Little and Laura Karpman's unprecedented collaboration allowed for their respective operas to be seamlessly performed by a single orchestra. A talented cast of new voices and returning OP faces in repertory are featured, staged by the innovative, immersive-world building of Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel. An evening of creative, comedic, and meaningful contemporary opera at its best!
$40-$205.