North American New Opera Works has announced casting and dates for “A Game of Hearts” in Cincinnati this May. They will be presenting our short opera in tandem with Samuel Barber’s “A Hand of Bridge,” in the spirit of putting all of the short operas about card games together in the same place. Now if I could just get some traction on that “A Five-Hour-Long Game Of Civilization“…but that might skew the length of the evening.

Our cast for “A Game of Hearts” includes:

Esther Kang, soprano, playing the role of Harriet Oshiro
Abigail Santos Villalobos, soprano, playing the role of Jean Bierbaum
Samantha Stinson, soprano, playing the Role of Sylvia Bierbaum Holtz
Dashiell Waterbury, tenor, playing the role of Dr. Steve Vergara
and
Michael Young, baritone, playing the role of Jerry Rosenberg.

As usual, our Musical Director maestro Tyler Catlin will conduct for us and our Piano Maven Liz Remizowski is to be backed by a full piano quartet this time. Performances will be May 3rd at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Terrace Park and on May 4th at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center in Clifton.

There’s more information on the performances here on the NaNoWorks website.

This also seems like a good place to mention that “A Game of Hearts” will be at the Opera America showcase in New York in 2014. Details very TBA on that, but the blog will know as soon as I do. Perhaps even sooner.

This February, the snow has melted, and Łódź has been full of rehearsals. A busy month. Many of the other Fulbrighters, especially those who work on a university schedule, have traveled out of town recently. I’ve been here and at the theater.

The first meetings for the next round of UMRZEĆ W ATENACH//TO DIE IN ATHENS started up again on February 4th. This time, I’ve been holding separate meetings for the High and Low Choruses, as well as working with elementary and high school students in their schools. This means that, as opposed to the usual light Parallel Octave model of meeting only once a week, which I have gotten very used to since 2009, I am in rehearsal for this project at least three, and more like four to five, days a week until it happens. It’s been awhile since I’ve done this.

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On January 20, 2012, in cooperation with the Kraków Jewish Community Center and visiting singers from Teatr Chorea, we presented a community-based reading of a script based on interviews with members of Kraków’s Jewish community. The script was called “W Tym Mieście” (In This City).

The choir singing, up on the 3rd floor of the JCC, as part of the reading.

A more detailed blog post, on the process leading up to the first reading, is here on The Fifth Wall.

I’ve since returned to Kraków for more interviews, and to expand the text; a revised version of the script will be presented this summer at Kraków’s Jewish Culture Festival. Details TBA.