Morris, Mark

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    What Belongs to Opera? Garth Greenwell’s Novel of Desire

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    Greenwell’s “What Belongs to You” reaches the opera stage with a team that includes the composer David T. Little and the director Mark Morris.The composer David T. Little isn’t sure whether it was really his idea to write the opera “What Belongs to You.”Nine years ago, he was given an advance copy of Garth Greenwell’s debut novel of the same name by his friend and fellow musician Alan Pierson, from the group Alarm Will Sound. As Little read the book, a finely hewed account of desire and shame, and their resonances in an American’s dangerous love for a Bulgarian hustler, he thought: This is a song cycle waiting to happen, if not a full-length opera.He said as much in an email to Pierson, taking the first step that led to the premiere of “What Belongs to You” on Thursday at the Modlin Center for the Arts in Richmond, Va. Now, Little said, “I suspect Alan masterminded this thing from the beginning.”In the years since Little was sent the book, Greenwell has become a critical darling, the author of “Cleanness” and “Small Rain,” which was released this month. Little and Pierson brought on more artists: the Grammy Award-winning vocalist Karim Sulayman, for whom the opera was written, and Mark Morris, the choreographer and director, who is staging the work’s premiere.Pierson conducting during a rehearsal of “What Belongs to You” at the Modlin Center for the Arts in Richmond, Va.Maansi Srivastava for The New York TimesAnd, yes, this is exactly what Pierson was hoping would happen.“This is a book that I’ve been deeply connected to from the beginning,” he said. He and Greenwell, a former singer, were students and collaborators at the Eastman School of Music, and remained close friends as Greenwell became a poet, a teacher and then a prose writer, whose style seemed to reflect the different phases of his life. Pierson read early versions of “What Belongs to You,” which Greenwell dedicated to him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Review: A Delightful ‘Orfeo’ Returns to the Met Opera

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      The countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo stars in a revival of Mark Morris’s witty, sensitively choreographed production.Gluck’s opera “Orfeo ed Euridice” is a funny thing: a timeless Greek myth of separation and loss, twisted into a Viennese cream puff.Both that darkness and light are embraced in the choreographer Mark Morris’s 2007 production, which is being revived at the Metropolitan Opera starring the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. A firmly established star of the house, and a budding opera impresario, he owns the stage as Orfeo.Gluck’s version of the Orpheus story was commissioned for a celebration of the Hapsburg emperor Francis I in 1762. The tale’s traditional tragic ending was deemed not suitable for the crown, so Gluck tacked on a joyful conclusion. (Spoiler alert: Rather than being cleaved for eternity, the lovers are happily reunited.)Operas from around Gluck’s time were often little more than vehicles for vocal pyrotechnics. “Orfeo ed Euridice,” instead, is a character study of the grieving Orfeo, desperate to do anything to be reunited with his deceased Euridice. Costanzo is a bewitching performer who knows how to move his voice through many shades of tone and meaning — qualities on ample display in the aching Act III aria “Che puro ciel” and, in Act IV, “Che farò senza Euridice,” in which Orpheus realizes that he may have lost his beloved forever.Seen on Thursday, Costanzo was this opera’s melancholic heart and soul. The soprano Ying Fang proved a worthy complement as Euridice. She brought a pearly tone and an equally rich characterization to her role, particularly in the sublime Act IV duet, which curdles into a pained quarrel as she realizes that her husband refuses to look at her.Another soprano, Elena Villalón, sang the impish god Amore, who charges Orpheus with his task of rescuing Euridice from the underworld without gazing upon her. Villalón allowed her witty costume and impressive entrance — clad in preppy khakis, a Pepto Bismol-pink polo shirt and some slightly scruffy wings, she descends from the rafters on wires — to do much of the acting for her. I wished for a bit more pep and bite in her phrasing to match the staging’s zing. By contrast, the conductor J. David Jackson led the orchestra with vigor and snap.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Brooklyn Academy of Music Plans a New York-Focused Season

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      In its first full season since the start of the pandemic, the organization will feature a mix of new and familiar works in dance and theater.There will be dances exploring Black love and relationships, theater works highlighting the impact of technology on daily life and an appearance by the filmmaker Spike Lee.The Brooklyn Academy of Music will focus its coming season on the artists of New York City, the organization announced on Friday, as it seeks to bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic.“This is a season to celebrate artists who give New York City a sense of possibility, a sense of wonder, a sense of effervescence, a glow, a bit of magic,” the academy’s artistic director, David Binder, said in an interview. He said the academy wanted to create a season to mark New York’s recovery from the pandemic, which brought many of the city’s cultural institutions to a standstill for more than 18 months.The season, which runs November to March, is the academy’s first since the start of the pandemic. As the organization tries to lure audiences back to its stages and recover millions in ticket revenue lost during the pandemic, it will feature a mix of familiar hits and new works.Dance will be front and center, starting in November with the world premiere of “The Mood Room,” a Big Dance Theater production, conceived, directed and choreographed by Annie-B Parson. The show, which takes place in Los Angeles in 1980, mixes dance, theater and spoken opera to explore the effects of Reaganism.The dance lineup also includes Reggie Wilson’s “Power” in January, and the New York premiere of Kyle Abraham’s “An Untitled Love,” in February. The work, set to neo-soul music, is described as an “exaltation of Black love and unity.”Also in February comes Pam Tanowitz’s acclaimed “Four Quartets,” a staging of T.S. Eliot’s poems. When it had its premiere at Bard College’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, in 2018, Alastair Macaulay, writing in The New York Times, called it “the greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”In March, the Mark Morris Dance Group will perform Morris’s classic “L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato” (1988), set to Handel’s oratorio.There will be theater and cabaret offerings as well. In March, SITI Company, the noted experimental New York theater company, will stage “The Medium,” a minimalist meditation on the role of technology in society.The cabaret performers Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman will star as their alter egos Kiki and Herb in a new holiday special, titled “SLEIGH,” which will premiere after Thanksgiving.In December, Lee will appear alongside his brother for a conversation about the filmmaker’s new book, “SPIKE,” a visual look at his career.With coronavirus cases still high, it remains to be seen whether audiences will turn out at prepandemic levels, but Binder said he believed many people were clamoring for live performances. The academy’s brief fall season, which opened in September, has attracted several sold-out crowds, he said.“It seems New Yorkers are really hungry to get back into the theater,” Binder said. “I feel very optimistic and excited.” More