Curtis congratulates the Curtis Opera Theatre on a fantastic production of Bernstein’s A Quiet Place!

 

This season, in honor of Bernstein’s 100th birthday, Curtis brings new life to his music—both well-loved compositions and rarely performed gems—and opens up the school’s archives to the public with photos, letters, and more. Learn more at Curtis.edu/Bernstein.

 

The cast of A Quiet Place, Perelman Theater  Photo: Paula Court

“Director Daniel Fish’s sleek, pared-down production scores major points visually.” – Philadelphia Magazine

 “[Director Daniel Fish’s] combination of abstract sets (by Laura Jellinek), atmospheric lighting (by Barbara Samuels), and stylized acting by the talented cast of Curtis students makes the piece seem more realistic and relatable than ever.” – Broad Street Review

(L. to R.) Ashley Milanese, Tyler Zimmerman, and Dennis Chmelensky in A Quiet Place, Perelman Theater  Photo: Andrew Bogard

“…thoroughly successful in capturing the opera’s confrontational fury, especially as conducted by Corrado Rovaris.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

 

 

Dennis Chmelensky (left) and Tyler Zimmerman (right), A Quiet Place, Perelman Theater  Photo: Andrew Bogard

 

“As the mentally ill Junior, Dennis Chmelensky articulated his fractured vocal lines in ways that perhaps set a new standard for the role.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

“Dennis Chmelensky’s moving, rich baritone accompanied by real acting provided a fierce center to the piece and to the family’s dysfunction.” – phindie

Ashley Milanese (left) and Tyler Zimmerman (right), A Quiet Place, Perelman Theater  Photo: Paula Court

“Soprano Ashley Milanese is a superb Dede, dramatically committed and with a soaring lyric soprano capable of heart-stopping soft effects.” – Philadelphia Magazine

“Soprano Ashley Milanese was riveting as Dede. I was mesmerized by her nonchalance and the beautiful upper reaches of her voice.” – Seen and Heard International

Jean Michel Richer as François, A Quiet Place, Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College  Photo: Steven Pisano

“Curtis alum Jean-Michel Richer brings a pliant tenor voice to François…he sings the character’s French-inflected lines with authority.” – Broad Street Review

“Jean-Michel Richer’s full-bodied lyric tenor suited the Canadian “regular guy” François.”
New York Classical Review

Tyler Zimmerman with members of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in the New York concert performance of A Quiet Place, Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College  Photo: Steven Pisano

“Many of [the performers] showed real promise, most notably soprano Ashley Milanese, bass-baritone Tyler Zimmerman, violinist Ania Filochowska, and flutist Alejandro Lombo.” – ZealNYC

Siena Licht Miller (center) surrounded by the cast and orchestra of A Quiet Place, Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College  Photo: Steven Pisano

“Under the baton of Corrado Rovaris, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra played with precision, clarity and sensitivity. Bernstein’s sophisticated, colorful music simply shimmered.” – Seen and Heard International

“[T]he superb playing of members of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra did arranger Sunderland proud…the student ensemble from Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music followed Bernstein’s eclectic imagination wherever it went.” – New York Classical Review

“The singers and orchestra were without exception polished and in command of their material.”
BassoBuff.com


Meet the Students: Héloïse Carlean-Jones

Meet harpist Héloïse Carlean-Jones in this spring’s edition of Overtones. Raised in Paris, Héloïse came to Curtis in 2014 and has spent the past four years honing a bold and personal style informed by deep understanding of the music she performs. “No one can teach you how to be sincere in your playing,” she says. “My goal is always to understand the music intellectually first, and from there, I can make it my own.” That drive to dig into the score has served her well, leading Héloïse to win a substitute position with the Philadelphia Orchestra, in addition to garnering acclaim for her work performing both contemporary and more standard repertoire on the Student Recital Series.

Read the full article, or visit curtis.edu/Overtones for more stories featuring Curtis’s notable students, faculty, and alumni.

Leonard Bernstein discusses A Quiet Place

In 1984, one night before premiering his revised version of A Quiet Place at La Scala, Leonard Bernstein sat down with John Gruen for an interview to appear in the New York Times. In the interview, Bernstein explains that the opera is about lack of communication in families: the inability of family members to express themselves to one another and the “rarely obtained goal of peace in family and relationships.” Bernstein suggests that the work not only makes use of predominantly American-sounding music, but also the American language: how people do or do not speak English and “how people don’t finish sentences when they start them.”

The impetus for A Quiet Place was Bernstein’s curiosity about what had happened to the characters from his earlier opera, Trouble in Tahiti.  In this clip, he gives a synopsis of the original and revised versions and how Trouble in Tahiti is woven throughout the new iteration: 

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In the interview, Bernstein is candid about his disappointment with the opera’s reception and anxious about how the revised version will be received. It is rare to hear such vulnerability from him.  In his response to previous criticism, he quotes Verdi, who wrote an open letter to critics of Aida: “I wrote the best opera I could…I can’t do any better.”

The Curtis Opera Theater performs A Quiet Place this spring in Philadelphia and New York. 

—Barbara Benedett, digital archivist, Curtis Archives
For more information on Curtis history, visit the Curtis Archives.

Curtis in the News: Alumni and A Quiet Place

Alumni in the News


Curtis alumni continue to excel and serve as leaders around the world. We are happy to share a small sampling of recent alumni coverage with the Curtis community.

PBS NewsHour: Stanford Thompson (Trumpet ’09), founder of Play On, Philly!, shares his musical journey to Curtis and discusses how music education positively affects all other learning.

New York Times: “The Week’s 8 Best Classical Music Moments on YouTube” include a performance by Yuja Wang (Piano ’08) with the New York Philharmonic; Samuel Barber’s (Composition ’34) String Quartet in B minor as recorded by the Dover Quartet (String Quartet ’14) at Curtis; and a new production of Elektra with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra led by conducting mentor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Nézet-Séguin recently named Benjamin Bowman (Violin ’02) as a new concertmaster of the orchestra

WQXR: Xavier Foley (Double Bass ’16) performs Bach, Sperger, Franck, and an original work for WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase in advance of his Merkin Hall recital debut for Young Concert Artists International. Watch his full recital here.

Musical America: Musical America names recent alumna Abigail Kent (Harp ’17) its “New Artist of the Month.” The profile details her commitment to new works for harp, including a 2016 premiere of Andrew Hsu’s (Composition ’15) dahlianum.

 


 

A Quiet Place in the News


Part of our Bernstein centennial celebrations, Curtis Opera Theatre’s A Quiet Place performances in Philadelphia and New York City—plus supporting events—have been receiving critical attention.

Philadelphia Inquirer: This preview piece explores the complicated musical and personal history of A Quiet Place and looks forward to a fresh interpretation of the opera.

WWFM: Host Rachel Katz speaks with David Ludwig, chair of composition studies, and Ivy Weingram of the National Museum of American Jewish History about A Quiet Place, Bernstein’s legacy, and the museum’s upcoming exhibit.

Philadelphia Magazine: A Quiet Place, presented in partnership with Opera Philadelphia and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, is listed among the top events in Philadelphia for the month of March.

WQXR: Curtis Opera Theatre’s concert performance at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College in New York City is chosen as a “Must-See Classical Concert” by critic David Patrick Stearns.

 


 

Curtis Opera Theatre at the Perelman in partnership with Opera Philadelphia and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

A Quiet Place is sponsored in part by David and Sandy Marshall, BNP Paribas, and the Allen R. and Judy Brick Freedman Venture Fund for Opera.

The Curtis Opera Theatre season is sponsored by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation.

Curtis Opera Theatre Presents Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place: American Premiere of Adaptation by Garth Edwin Sunderland

 

CONTACTS:

Jennifer Kallend/Curtis Institute of Music
Managing Director of Communications
(215) 717-3190
jennifer.kallend@curtis.edu

Frank Luzi/Opera Philadelphia
Vice President of Communications
(215) 893-5902
luzi@operaphila.org


Curtis Opera Theatre Presents Leonard Bernstein’s
A Quiet Place: American Premiere of Adaptation by Garth Edwin Sunderland 


Philadelphia March 7–11 and New York City March 13

“Some of Bernstein’s most potent late-period music” (The New Yorker)


PHILADELPHIA—March 1, 2018—The Curtis Institute of Music celebrates the centenary of its famous alumnus, Leonard Bernstein, with performances of A Quiet Place in Philadelphia and New York March 7–13, marking the American premiere of Garth Edwin Sunderland’s 2013 chamber adaptation of Bernstein’s final opera.

Performances take place in Philadelphia on March 7, 9, and 11 at the Perelman Theater, presented in partnership with Opera Philadelphia and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts as part of the recently launched Curtis Opera Theatre at the Perelman series. A concert production will be performed in New York City on March 13 at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. 

Best known for creating cultural touchstones like West Side Story, On the Waterfront, and Candide, Bernstein called A Quiet Place “unlike any work I have ever written or seen.” The opera revisits the unhappy suburban family from his 1951 one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti three decades later, only to find them reeling in the wake of tragedy. Unhappy memories and long-buried resentments surface, and the survivors have a choice: to hurt one another again—or to heal. 

In Sunderland’s 90-minute adaptation, premiered in a 2013 concert production with Kent Nagano and Ensemble Modern in Berlin, arias written for Sam and François are restored. Trouble in Tahiti—originally incorporated as a flashback midway through the opera—is removed, and the orchestra is reduced in size. 

“My goal was to preserve Bernstein’s intentions for the sound-world and the drama of his music, while using a radically scaled-down orchestra of 18 musicians,” said Sunderland. “This chamber ensemble will not encompass the sheer volume and overwhelming force of the original orchestration, but it instead has a transparency, and an intimacy, that are appropriate to the opera’s themes and its characters, and that allow for a different perspective on Bernstein’s score.”

Corrado Rovaris, Opera Philadelphia’s Jack Mulroney Music Director, leads members of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in Bernstein’s dramatic music—by turns explosive, elegiac, and playful—given a more intimate scale in Sunderland’s orchestration. Directed by Daniel Fish, the Philadelphia production marks the first time the chamber adaptation has been fully staged.


Leonard Bernstein at 100
 

This season, Curtis joins the worldwide centenary celebrations of Leonard Bernstein, a 1941 conducting graduate, who took the stage and podium at the school in his early twenties just before launching the meteoric career that led to composing West Side Story and international acclaim as a conductor. With programs throughout the year, Curtis brings new life to his music–both well-loved compositions and rarely performed gems–and opens the school’s archive of photos, letters, and more to the public. Learn more at www.curtis.edu/Bernstein.

 


 

A Quiet Place

Music by Leonard Bernstein, libretto by Stephen Wadsworth
Chamber version with reduced orchestration and libretto adaptation by Garth Edwin Sunderland (American premiere)


PHILADELPHIA

Curtis Opera Theatre at the Perelman
in partnership with Opera Philadelphia and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Wednesday, March 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, March 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 11 at 2:30 p.m.
Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Fully-staged production with members of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra

Tickets: Available at operaphila.org or by calling Opera Philadelphia Guest Services at (215) 732-8400


NEW YORK CITY

Curtis on Tour, the Nina von Maltzahn global touring initiative of the Curtis Institute of Music

Tuesday, March 13 at 8 p.m.
The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, 68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues

Concert production with members of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra

Tickets: Available at www.curtis.edu/AQuietPlace or by calling the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College at (212) 772-4448

ARTISTIC TEAM

Conductor
Corrado Rovaris
Director Daniel Fish
Scenic Designer Laura Jellinek
Costume Designer Terese Wadden
Lighting Designer Barbara Samuels
Video Designer Jeff Larson

 

CAST (in singing order)

 
Mourners Tiffany Townsend, Hannah Klein, Daniel Taylor*, Adam Kiss
Funeral Director Aaron Crouch
Mrs. Doc Anastasiia Sidorova
Susie Sophia Fiuza Hunt
Doc Vartan Gabrielian
Analyst Seongwo Woo
Dede Ashley Milanese
Francois Jean-Michel Richer (’16)*
Bill Patrick Wilhelm
Junior Dennis Chmelensky
Sam Tyler Zimmerman
Dinah Siena Licht Miller
*guest artist  


A Quiet Place is sponsored in part by David and Sandy Marshall, BNP Paribas, and the Allen R. and Judy Brick Freedman Venture Fund for Opera.

The Curtis Opera Theatre season is sponsored by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation.

The March 7–11 Philadelphia performances are presented in partnership with Opera Philadelphia and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The March 13 New York performance is part of Curtis on Tour, the Nina von Maltzahn global touring initiative of the Curtis Institute of Music. 

 


 

About the Curtis Opera Theatre

Under the artistic direction of Mikael Eliasen, the Curtis Opera Theatre has become known for imaginative productions, bold concepts, and absorbing theater. Promising young singers work alongside established professional directors and designers, resulting in fresh interpretations of standard repertoire and contemporary works. All of Curtis’s 25 voice and opera students cast repeatedly each season, receiving a rare level of performance experience on stage and through collaborations with Opera Philadelphia, Curtis on Tour, and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. As a result, Curtis graduates have sung with opera companies all over the world, including La Scala, Covent Garden, the Vienna Staatsoper, Houston Grand Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera.

About Opera Philadelphia

Opera Philadelphia is committed to embracing innovation and developing opera for the 21st century. Described as “the very model of a modern opera company” by the Washington Post, Opera Philadelphia was the only American finalist for the 2016 International Opera Award for Best Opera Company. After opening its 2017–18 season with the immersive O17 festival, Opera Philadelphia returns to the Academy of Music with two new spring productions: George Benjamin’s Written on Skin (February 9–18, 2018) and Bizet’s Carmen (April 27–May 6, 2018). The company’s second fall festival, O18, will take place on September 20–30, 2018. For more information, visit OperaPhila.org.

About the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Located in the heart of Center City, Philadelphia, the Kimmel Center’s mission is to operate a world-class performing arts center that engages and serves a broad audience through diverse programming, arts education, and community outreach. The Kimmel Center Campus is comprised of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, SEI Innovation Studio, and the Merck Arts Education Center), the Academy of Music (owned by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association), and the Merriam Theater. The Kimmel Center is also home to eight Resident Companies: The Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, The Pennsylvania Ballet, The Philly POPS, PHILADANCO, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and the Curtis Institute of Music. With nearly 9,000 seats per night, The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is the region’s most impactful performing arts center, and the second largest in the country. TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank, is the season sponsor of the Kimmel Center’s 2017–18 Season. American Airlines is the official airline of Broadway Philadelphia. For additional information, visit KimmelCenter.org.

 

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