Episode 1: Both Gladsome and Grievous
“The Happy Hour”
(Introduction)
“Everything Comes to a Head” (Lyric Opera of the North)
“The Late Walk”
(Bare Opera)
About
“We are daring to think big in a time of limitations, creating a collaboration that is uniquely born of this time, but which will help opera to thrive far beyond it.”
Maria Sensi Sellner, Artistic & General Director, Resonance Works
10 creative teams. 9 companies from across the United States. 4 electric nights of new opera.
Boccaccio’s 14th century masterpiece “The Decameron” involved ten characters passing the time while sheltering from a plague by telling one another stories – stories comic, tragic, romantic, sexy, terrifying. The Decameron Opera Coalition has adapted those stories for the modern pandemic era.
“Tales from a Safe Distance” features nine World Premiere one-act operas, and a tenth wrap-around story starring internationally renowned bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni.
Each Friday in October you’ll see and hear a diverse array of voices, sounds, visuals, methods, and messages as dozens of contemporary opera’s most vital artists tell intimate tales of a global moment.
This unprecedented, searingly relevant, nation-wide collaboration is not to be missed.
The Decameron Opera Coalition aims to keep opera alive, new work blossoming, singers singing, and audiences rapt, even in these alarming times, through a new collaboration of unprecedented scope. We are nine independent opera companies from across the United States: Resonance Works [Pittsburgh], Lyric Opera of the North [Duluth], UrbanArias [Washington DC], Bare Opera [NYC], Opera in the Heights [Houston], Chicago Fringe Opera, Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, and An Opera Theatre [Minneapolis], along with composer and librettist Peter Hilliard and Matt Boresi (The Last American Hammer). For our maiden project we’ve commissioned nine teams of contemporary opera’s most vital and most diverse creative voices to showcase America’s indispensable indie opera scene, and dedicate ourselves to new sounds, unparalleled storytelling, and underrepresented voices. Independent opera companies are where new audiences are born, where discerning opera appetites are fed, where new work is incubated, and where talent is nurtured. The Decameron Opera Coalition is the future of opera.
