dinner 4 3

Commissioned by Fargo-Moorehead Opera
Music by Michael Ching 
Libretto by Deborah Brevoort 

“Dinner for Three” tells the story of a wealthy businessman and his trophy wife who are unfulfilled in their marriage. They both search internet dating sites for extra-marital partners and, upon finding suitable matches, make dates to meet. But their romantic liaisons don’t go as planned; in the end, both the husband and wife are caught cheating. The underlying problem in their marriage is revealed, leading them to an understanding.

 
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Episode 2: prompted by appetite

Tales from a Safe Distance

Streaming In THE IDAGIO Global Concert Hall

 

Cast

Wife: Kate Jackman 
Husband: David Hamilton 
Lover: Joshua Kohl 


Creative Team

Music by Michael Ching 
Libretto by Deborah Brevoort 
Conductor: Michael Ching 
Director: Frederic Heringes
Music Director & Piano: Stephen Sulich 
Violin: Sonja Bosca-Harasim
Bassoon: Russell Peterson
Drums: Andrew Haarsager
Video Producers: Wayne McConnell, Cody Rogness
Audio Recording Engineer: Russell Peterson
Video production by Click Content Studios

michael ching

He/Him

An opera composer/librettist, conductor, songwriter, Michael Ching is the composer/librettist of the opera SPEED DATING TONIGHT! With nearly ninety productions since its 2013 premiere SPEED DATING TONIGHT! is one of the most popular operas of the 21st century. His newest opera, RSBE, had its premiere at the University of Alabama in 2020. In 2018-2019, two new one act operas had their premieres, THRIVERS, at Palm Springs Opera Guild, and EIGHT WOODS AND A VAN, at the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre. As Composer-in-Residence of Savannah Voice Festival, Michael wrote ALICE RYLEY (2015) and ANNA HUNTER (2017) two works with Savannah subjects. Michael’s other well known opera is BUOSO’S GHOST.  BUOSO is a comic sequel to GIANNI SCHICCHI. 

Michael is Music Director of Amarillo Opera, Composer-in-Residence at Savannah Voice Festival, and Opera consultant at EC Schirmer. He is the former Artistic Director of Opera Memphis.

Deborah Brevoort

She/Her

Deborah Brevoort is a playwright and librettist from Alaska who now lives in the New York City area.  She is an alumna of New Dramatists, one of the original company members of Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska and a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders, a group of individual artists dedicated to international theatre exchange.

She is best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie, which won the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays Award and the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition. 

 Deborah is an alum of the American Lyric Theater Composer Librettist Development Program. She received the Paul Green Award from the National Theatre Conference for her musical book writing and a Performing Artist Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society. She has received grants and commissions from the NEA, Rockefeller Foundation, NYFA, CEC Arts Link, New Jersey Arts Council, Alaska State Council on the Arts, Danish American Society, Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Brown University, The Harburg Foundation, Banff Playwright’s Colony and others. She received the Joe Calloway Award and was a MacDowell Fellow. She currently teaches in the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and in the MFA playwriting program at Columbia University.

Kate Jackman

She/Her

Called “winningly wily and dauntless” by Boston Classical Review, American mezzo-soprano Kate Jackman is a multifaceted musician and actress who excels in a variety of musical expression.

She performed the lead role in Oliver Knussen’s Higglety Pigglety Pop! at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary. Other recent roles include Bradamante in Fargo-Moorhead Opera’s  production of Alcina, Giovanna in Charlottesville Opera’s production of Rigoletto,  the title role in Carmen with Maryland Concert Opera, The Beggar Woman in Baltimore Concert Opera’s Sweeney Todd, and Bloody Mary in Annapolis Opera’s production of South Pacific, a role she “performed well physically… with a sly grin heralding a lovely voice.” (Maryland Theater Guide.)

As a winner of the DC Vocal Arts competition, Kate made her Kennedy Center recital debut in 2012. Other concert credits include Narrator in Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat with the Lunar Ensemble, and Alto Soloist in both Beethoven’s Mass in C Major and Vivaldi’s Gloria with Maryland Choral Society.

Joshua kohl

He/Him

American tenor Joshua Kohl, who was recently praised for his “glorious, relaxed performance,” and for his “bright voice of great size, yet capable of movement and nuance,” has recently performed with the Nashville Opera as Alfredo in La Traviata, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor with the Sarasota Opera, and the Duke in Rigoletto with Opera Saratoga. He has joined Pittsburgh Opera as Rodolfo in La bohème, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as First Jew in Salome, and the Virginia Opera as Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore. Concert performances include engagements with the New Haven Symphony, Boston Youth Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Yale Camerata, Yale Symphony Orchestra, and the Connecticut Master Chorale.  This past season included returning to Theater Freiburg where he was heard as Lenski in Eugene Onegin, Rodolfo in La bohème, Alfred in Die Fledermaus, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, and Eiolf in César Franck’s Hulda.  Next season he returns to Seattle Opera, Knoxville Opera and Fargo Moorhead Opera.

Frederic Heringes

He/Him

Frederic Heringes has appeared on Broadway in the San Francisco & Toronto companies of “The Phantom of the Opera” (Ubaldo Piangi); in New York City in Bryan Putnam’s new musical “The Toymaker” and played the role of Artiste in Moliere’s “The Learned Ladies”.  Regional Theatre credits include Agent Rank in “Unnecessary Farce”, Saunders in “Lend Me a Tenor”, and premiere productions of “Stonewall’s Bust” by John Morogiello and “One Golden Moment” by Wm. S. C. Coleman.

In Opera, Mr. Heringes has been heard with Florida Grand Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Anchorage Opera, Chautauqua Opera and Fargo-Moorhead Opera. At FM Opera he has been recently heard as Goro in “Madama Butterfly” and St. Brioche in “The Merry Widow”.  In addition, Mr. Heringes serves as the stage director for the Gate City Bank Young Artist Program with FM Opera.

david hamilton

He/Him

David Hamilton’s distinctive, elegant lyric tenor voice has been heard at many opera companies including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, San Diego Opera, Washington Opera, Vancouver Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opéra de Nice, and Teatro Bellini in Catania. His broad repertoire as an orchestral soloist has led to engagements with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. Among the awards he has received are First Prize and Opera Prize in the Paris International Voice Competition, First Place in the Eleanor Steber Competition, and grants from the Sullivan Foundation, the Astral Foundation and the Puccini Foundation. In 2001, he received the North Dakota Governor’s Award for the Arts.

He is the General Director of Fargo Moorhead Opera and Professor of Voice at Concordia College in Moorhead.

stephen sulich

He/Him

Stephen Sulich has performed as a piano soloist and in collaboration with singers and instrumentalists in concerts from coast to coast.  He has conducted opera for more than 20 companies in the United States including Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera and The New York City Opera.  He boasts a broad repertoire of over fifty operas including: Madama Butterfly, The Bartered Bride, Così fan tutte, The Merry Widow, La Cenerentola, The Rape of Lucretia, Carmen, Vec Makropulos and  Capriccio. He was on the faculty of the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado for four seasons, where he conducted a double bill of Brundibar and Der Kaiser von Atlantis; also, on the faculty of The Amalfi Coast Music and Arts Festival where he conducted Suor Angelica; and also a guest faculty member at The Eastman School of Music, conducting performances of The Secret Garden. He is now on the faculty at Concordia College (MN) in Moorhead, Minnesota.