UNFINISHED: AN OPERA CREATIVE INTENSIVE | MAY 2019

May 2019

In May 2019, composer Josh Groffman, librettist Sarah Heady, stage director Amanda Consol, dramaturg Caitlin Kane, and Vital Opera General Director Kelvin Chan gathered for four days to continue working on Josh and Sarah’s Unfinished (now Halcyon) with a focus on refining the piece’s dramatic storytelling. It was amazing to have five smart, thoughtful artists working together for over 25 hours, grappling with difficult questions about the piece’s existing material, the role and ethics of music-theater in representing real-world, historical events, and the meaning of place and its loss. While these questions were challenging, our work was also open, creative, and joyful. Special thanks to the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford Special Initiative for the Humanities for providing space and funding for the Intensive!

In May 2019, composer Josh Groffman, librettist Sarah Heady, stage director Amanda Consol, dramaturg Caitlin Kane, and Vital Opera General Director Kelvin Chan gathered for four days to continue working on Josh and Sarah’s Unfinished (now Halcyon) with a focus on refining the piece’s dramatic storytelling. It was amazing to have five smart, thoughtful artists working together for over 25 hours, grappling with difficult questions about the piece’s existing material, the role and ethics of music-theater in representing real-world, historical events, and the meaning of place and its loss. While these questions were challenging, our work was also open, creative, and joyful. Special thanks to the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford Special Initiative for the Humanities for providing space and funding for the Intensive!

Explore our other projects

Halcyon

Halcyon

Halcyon (formerly Unfinished ) is a new documentary-style opera that explores the question: “What happens to us when a place that matters to us comes to ruin?”

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Four Hands of Bridge

Four Hands of Bridge

In April 2015 we premiered Four Hands of Bridge, an experimental evening featuring four consecutive performances of Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge. This brief, yet intense opera explores themes of consumerism, marital infidelity, the loss of a loved one, and isolation in modern society.

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Artist Development Workshop on Le Nozze Di Figaro

Artist Development Workshop on Le Nozze Di Figaro

Our artist development workshop on Le Nozze di Figaro in November of 2013 was an opportunity for a group of nine singer-actors to delve deeply into the music, text, plot, and characters of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro).

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