Recap #1: Companionship in Vienna, Etc.

While I’m far more comfortable rhyming lyrics than blogging prose, it’s not cool to let nearly half the year go by without some updates! Working backward, here’s the first (last?) installment of what’s happened onstage so far in 2024:

April 16th was the European (and plain international) premiere of Companionship at University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (MDW). It was a wildly inventive, thoughtful production directed by student Music Theatre diploma candidate Nastasia Griese, conducted by Anna Svoboda, and overseen by former Artistic Director of Opera Cologne (and physician!) Birgit Meyer. For many of the students, this was their first experience with contemporary opera, and if the photos are any indication, they pulled it off beautifully. And I’m glad the opening performance was documented, because a scabies outbreak befell the school, and the second performance never happened! That’s what I get for writing an opera with an exterminator in it. See photos below, and I will have video to share soon. We all remain hopeful that this production will have another chance to reach a wider audience.

Cast: Tanja Janelli, Althea Wetter, Clemens Seewald, Brigitta Listra, Ana Marqués Guerra, Lazar Parežanin, Aleksandre Khukhushvili, and the youth choir of Superar Wien

Production Design: David Degasper | Costumes: Fredericke Annamaier & Sophie Burg

Photos: Sebastian Pflügelmeier

April and May also included concerts stateside by longtime collaborators tenor Nathan Snyder (Staggerwing), Kate Tombaugh and Alan Johnson (Companionship), and Jessica Harika (Friday After Friday, Manor of Speaking) and the culminating salon of the Neighborhood/Asylum Arts Brooklyn Jewish Composers Cohort, held at Brooklyn Conservatory and including an excerpt from Good Shabbos.

Behind the scenes, by which I mostly mean on my couch, I have spent some time reconstructing and cleaning up the full scores for Stretch (a fantasia) and STEVE, as well as the piano/vocal score for Only Children. (For the latter, I created a private page for personal study; you can contact me for access.) Next up on my revisions list: the orchestration for Rootabaga Country.

And speaking of ready-for-prime-time material, E.C. Schirmer will be publishing revised versions of Men I’m Not Married To and Staggerwing later this year! More formal announcements are forthcoming.

I’ll continue my moonwalk through this almost-half-year of stuff-making here before long!