Lee Hoiby's Operatic Portrait Of Life Premieres In New York

The one-act opera based on Lanford Wilson's play about young love & rural life in the Ozarks will be performed by singers William Ferguson, Abigail Fischer, Andrew Garland, Malinda Haslett, Nicole Joy Mitchell, and Justin Petersen accompanied by an eleven-piece orchestra under the baton of Benton Hess.

Both performances will be paired with the composer's acclaimed opera The Tempest presented by Purchase Opera and will feature stage conversations with Mr. Hoiby, Wilson and others. AOP and Purchase Opera will also honor Mr. Hoiby with a benefit dinner at Purchase Performing Arts Center on April 26.

The Purchase College performance (735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY) will take place at the Conservatory of Music's Recital Hall at 4:30pm on Saturday, April 26, 2008. This hour-long opera will be followed by the New York area premiere of Hoiby's The Tempest at 8:00pm at Purchase College's Performing Arts Center. In between the performances Mr. Hoiby will join a festive benefit dinner in honor of his contribution to American opera and song over the past 60 years.

This Is the Rill Speaking, will receive its NYC premiere by American Opera Projects on April 28 at 8:00 PM at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th Street, NYC). Lee Hoiby and playwright Lanford Wilson will join moderator and librettist/playwright William Hoffman in discussion. Excerpts from The Tempest will also be performed in a semi-staged concert version by the award winning Purchase Opera. Mr. Hoiby's one-act opera, This Is the Rill Speaking, is based on Lanford Wilson's work of the same title, which was first produced in 1965 at Café Cino. This Is the Rill Speaking is of the genre of plotless, multivocal evocations of the 20th century small town, the genre embodied in such well-known works as Dylan Thomas's Under Milkwood, Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology, the stories of Sherwood Anderson, and Thornton Wilder's Our Town.

Librettist Mark Shulgasser, in discussing the Rill's subject matter and the conversations between Lee Hoiby, Lanford Wilson and himself, has said, "Into this theme [of small town life] Lanford Wilson introduced that of the birth of the writer, and his short play represents the powerful recursive source of creativity, observing the seed of itself, stirring in its growing medium. Lee Hoiby's musical setting is water to that seed, bringing forth new branches, leaves and berries, and in the spectacular sextet finale [of Rill], a wholly unexpected bloom, created at the request of Lanford Wilson himself, who, after hearing the original version, asked us to bring "all the voices together."

The performances of Tempest and the Rill on April 26 are part of a day of events honoring Mr. Hoiby, who turned 82 on February 17, 2008. In addition to full-length productions of both operas, there will be a half-hour Q & A panel discussion with Mr. Hoiby, librettist Mark Shulgasser, AOP Executive director Charles Jarden, Rill Conductor Benton Hess, Rill Director Ned Canty, Tempest director Jacque Trussel and Tempest conductor Hugh Murphy following American Opera Projects' performance of This Is the Rill Speaking. After cocktails and a seated dinner, The Tempest will be presented by Purchase Opera. Benefits from the event will go to support the creation of new operas by AOP and Purchase Opera. Tickets to both operatic performances on April 26 may also be purchased separately. -- www.operaprojects.org