FACING GOYA AMERICAN PREMIERE Co-Produced by Spoleto Festival USA and and Singapore International Festival of Arts
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34 OPERA FACING GOYA AMERICAN PREMIERE Co-produced by Spoleto Festival USA and and Singapore International Festival of Arts Music by Michael Nyman Libretto by Victoria Hardie Sung in English First Performance August 3, 2000; Auditorio de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Spain Dock Street Theatre May 25 and June 4 at 7:30pm; May 27, 31, and June 7 at 8:00pm SPONSORED BY BMW MANUFACTURING CO. Conductor John Kennedy Director Ong Keng Sen Costume Designer Anita Yavich Lighting Designer Scott Zielinski Set Designer Riccardo Hernandez Projection Designer Austin Switser CAST Tenor Thomas Michael Allen Soprano 1 Anne-Carolyn Bird Art Banker Suzanna Guzmán Baritone Museop Kim Soprano 2 Aundi Marie Moore Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra Musical Preparation Keun-A Lee Assistant Conductor Daniel Black Vocal Coach Diane Richardson Production Stage Manager Lisa Porter Costume Construction Carelli Costumes, Rodney Gordon Millinery, Daniel Weger Tailoring Scenic Construction Spoleto Festival USA Scene Shop Supertitles Bruno Ingram PERFORMED WITH ONE INTERMISSION . Opera programming is endowed by the Arthur and Holly Magill Foundation. These performances are made possible in part through funds from the Spoleto Festival USA Endowment, generously supported by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. CBS News journalist Martha Teichner hosts a “Conversation with John Kennedy, Michael Nyman, and Ong Keng Sen” at 3:30pm on May 25 at the Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street. By arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc., publisher and copyright owner. SYNOPSIS Act I | The Craniometrists. They weigh brains and measure skulls to determine superior races. Act II | The Art Historians. Hitler was surrounded by critics, doctors, and art historians ready to back up his prejudices. Act III | The Biotechnologists. w Should Goya’s creative DNA be patented and cloned for genetic profiteering? Act IV | Facing Goya. FACING GOYA 35 DIRECTOR’S NOTE ONG KENG SEN (director), the artistic director of TheatreWorks in Singapore, is a performance director who has actively contributed to the evolution Legend has it that Spanish painter Francisco Goya asked friends of an Asian identity as well as the to remove his head prior to burial to prevent tomb thieves and subsequent transglobalisation of the early craniometrists from getting hold of his brain for research. Asian aesthetic in contemporary arts. He Facing Goya follows an art banker’s passionate search for the directed Geisha at Spoleto Festival USA 18th-century artist’s missing skull. Her journey takes us into the in 2006, and The Silver River in 2000. He studied intercultural performance with dangerous world of racial stereotyping, genetic profiteering the performance studies department at Tisch School of the and cloning. Arts at New York University and also holds a law degree. In Surrounded by zealous scientists, art historians and eager July 2013, Ong was appointed festival director of the newly business executives, she comes face to face with the sinister independent Singapore International Festival of Arts. As a dream of cloning Goya’s creativity. It doesn’t take long before performance director, many of his works have been presented she confronts the lure of commercial profit as Goya’s skull and throughout the world including Lincoln Center, Edinburgh DNA is fed to those exploiting science’s triumph over nature. International Festival, ICA London, Haus du Kulturen der Welt The potential fake, as in the art market, underlies everything Berlin, Rotterdam Schouwburg, Oslo Dansenshus, Stockholm in Facing Goya. The art banker seeks to free herself from moral Dansenshus, Zurich Theater Spektakel, Paris Centre National bankruptcy and corruption. She is someone who is searching de la Danse, Roma Europa Festival, Grand Theatre de la Ville for a moral compass, she tries to anchor herself in relation to Luxembourg, Idans Festival Istanbul, Cairo Experimental the cardinal directions, the north/south/east/west manifested by Theatre Festival, Panorama Rio de Janeiro, Adelaide Festival, Singapore Arts Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival, and Cocoon a quartet of temptation. Theater Tokyo. An important part of his work is in research In the wake of Occupy Wall Street and the financial crisis that with emerging artists that includes work with dance makers in the world has been experiencing, Facing Goya takes on a new “Occupy the Museum” for the Impulstanz 2013 in Vienna; the significance. Straddling the art world and the world of science, mentorship program for the Spielart Festival Munich in 2012 the opera asks what are the ethical limits of science, medicine and his curation of Sri Lankan contemporary dance makers and biotechnology? Can creativity be cloned—should it—and is in Colombo in 2012. A Fulbright Scholar, Ong is also the first there a price to pay as nature is gradually straight-jacketed by and only Singapore artist to have received both the Young scientific advancements? Artist Award (1992) and the Cultural Medallion Award (2003) –Ong Keng Sen, April 2014 for Singapore. He was awarded the prestigious Fukuoka Asian Arts and Culture Prize 2010 for his work in Asian contemporary performance. CREATIVE TEAM MICHAEL NYMAN (composer) is one of Britain’s most innovative and celebrated JOHN KENNEDY (conductor), Spoleto composers whose work encompasses Festival USA Resident Conductor and operas, string quartets, film soundtracks, Director of Orchestral Activities, has led and orchestral concertos. In addition acclaimed performances and premieres to his work as a composer, he is also a worldwide of opera, ballet, orchestral, performer, conductor, bandleader, pianist, and new music. Kennedy has had a long author, musicologist, photographer, and association with Spoleto Festival USA, filmmaker. Nyman first made his mark on first as a member of the Festival Orchestra the musical world in the late 1960s when and later as director of the Music in Time he invented the term ‘minimalism’ and, still in his mid-twenties, series. In recent seasons he has conducted earned one of his earliest commissions to write the libretto the Festival’s widely-regarded American premiere productions for Birtwistle’s 1969 opera, Down By The Greenwood Side. In of the operas Faustus, the Last Night by Pascal Dusapin 1976, he formed his own ensemble, the Michael Nyman Band. (2007), Proserpina by Wolfgang Rihm (2010), Émilie by Kaija For over three decades, the group has been the laboratory for Saariaho (2011), Kepler by Philip Glass (2012), and Matsukaze much of his inventive and experimental compositional work. by Toshio Hosokawa (2013). As artistic director of New York’s His most notable scores include a dozen Peter Greenaway Essential Music from 1988-2001 and Santa Fe New Music from films, such asThe Draughtsman’s Contract and The Cook, The 2001-2012, he has for many years been a visionary leader in the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover; Neil Jordan’s The End Of The Affair; integration of new and classic repertoire and in contextualizing several Michael Winterbottom features including Wonderland it for today’s audiences. A regular guest at the Lincoln Center and A Cock and Bull Story; the Hollywood blockbuster Gattaca, Festival, Kennedy has guest conducted at festivals worldwide and Jane Campion’s 1993 film The Piano, the soundtrack of and with organizations from the Santa Fe Opera to New York which has sold more than three million copies. Most recently, City Ballet. A resident artist of the music department at Santa his music was used in the 2009 BAFTA award-winning and Clara University in Silicon Valley, he has also served as guest Oscar-nominated film, Man on Wire. Nyman’s visual work has conductor in residence at Oberlin Conservatory. Kennedy is the composer of over 90 works, including opera, orchestral, been exhibited in various public institutions, such as the Tate chamber, and experimental works that have been performed Modern in London, the Reina Sophia Museum in Madrid, and throughout the world. Kennedy’s work was selected as the the Museum of Modern Art in New York. michaelnyman.com official US entry at the ISCM World New Music Days in Sydney, and is available on several CDs. He has been commissioned by numerous organizations, including Sarasota Opera for the opera The Language of the Birds and the Santa Fe Opera for Trinity. 36 FACING GOYA AUSTIN SWITSER (video design) was last at Spoleto Festival CAST USA in 2011 with the US premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Émilie, which was also seen at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2012. Recent theatrical projects include HOUSE/DIVIDED and THOMAS MICHAEL ALLEN (Tenor) SONTAG: REBORN with The Builders Association; Abraham has performed the role of Almaviva in Il Zobell’s Home Movie: Final Reel with Undermain Theatre; barbiere di Siviglia in Berlin for Komische Scorched with Syracuse Stage; and Tristan and Isolde with Oper, Belmonte in The Abduction from The Dallas Opera. Selected designs include Imaginary Century the Seraglio in Göttingen; Calisis in Les at ZKM Museum; ¡El Conquistador! at New York Theater Boréades in Lyon and Zurich; Athamas Workshop; The History Boys at The Ahamanson Theater; and in Semele in Zurich and Beijing; the Piano Starts Here at The Apollo. Switser also contributed Demon in Henze’s L’Upupa und der designs to Broadway shows such as Rock of Ages, American Triumph der Sohnesliebe in Lyon, Tokyo Idiot, The People in the Picture, Xanadu, and Thurgood. He is and Dresden; the Painter in Lulu in the founder of Switser + Knight, a New York-based multimedia Athens;