Davóne Tines will star in the world premiere of five-time Grammy winner Terence
Blanchard and filmmaker Kasi Lemmons’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” at the Opera
Theater of St. Louis this summer. The opera is based on the memoir of New York Times
columnist and political commentator Charles Blow. This is the composer's second work for the company, following his highly successful "Champion," which premiered in 2013 and was subsequently performed at Opera Parallèle and the Washington National Opera.
The libretto for Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a soul-baring story of Blow's experiences growing up in Gibsland,
Louisiana, including violence and the sexual abuse he endured from a relative.
The opera will also feature rising stars Julia Bullock in three roles and Karen Slack as Blow's mother. All three artists are making their Opera
Theater of St. Louis mainstage debuts.
“Fire Shut Up in My Bones” will premiere on June 15, 2019 at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and run for six performances. Additional information is available online.
Davóne Tines also recently premiered The Black Clown, with text that the singer adapted from Langston Hughes. The piece deals a
Black man’s resilience against a legacy of oppression.
There are few things we love more than our "Reader Submissions." We've been exposed to some of our favorite singers through our readers. We view our readers as our opera scouts who bring us the best talent from across the globe. A reader recently introduced us to two singers, Michael Redding and Aubrey Allicock.
Atlanta native Michael Redding received his Masters in Music from
Indiana University after completing his undergraduate work at the North Carolina
School of the Arts. During his time at the School for the Arts he was also a
resident artist with the Piedmont Opera Outreach Program and later a
member of the Young Artist Programs of the Utah Festival Opera and the
Janiec Opera Company.
He has performed with the Sarasota Opera, Virginia Opera, Atlanta Opera,
Opera Carolina, the Natchez Festival of Music and the New Orleans
Opera. This season Redding debuts the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni
with the Piedmont Opera and he'll open the 2012-2013 season with the
Berliner Philharmoniker in a concert-version of Porgy & Bess under
the baton of Sir Simon Rattle.
Aubrey Allicock
Aubrey Allicock received his Masters of Music from Indiana University and holds a Bachelors of Music from Grand Canyon University. While attending Indiana Universersity, Mr. Allicock studied and coached
with renowned teachers who include Andreas Poulimenos, Sherrill Milnes
and Carol Vaness.
Last season, Allicock joined the Metropolitan Opera roster where he covered the roles of Astarotte in Armida and Marullo in Rigoletto. In 2011, he made his role debut as Mamoud in John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer at the Opera Theater of St. Louis. As a Gerdine Young Artist with Opera Theatre of St. Louis he also performed the roles of Zaretsky in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and covered the title role of Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Allicock has performed with the Wexford Festival Opera, the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, the South Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic and the bass soloist role with the Concerts-Austria in Mozart’s Coronation Mass at the Karlskirche.
He returns to Opera Theater of St. Louis in 2012 as the Mad Hatter and Duck in Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland. In 2012-13 he becomes an Artist Diploma candidate at Juilliard and returns to the Opera Theater of St. Louis.
We mentioned in a previous post that barihunk Daniel Okulitch would be appearing at the Opera Theater of St. Louis with three other barihunks, Chris Herbert, Aaron Agulay and Lee Gregory.
The opera is billed for children as well as adults. And the first act is delightful: a fanciful tale meets theater of the absurd meets opera. Sturrock's libretto bubbles along with fun rhyming couplets, and the music is surprisingly sophisticated.
The orchestral writing is restless, spiky, tangy, full of tricky rhythms, sometimes onomatopoetic. (A bassoon dramatizes digestive effects of cabbage soup.) Vocal parts, including witty parodies of operatic clichés, certainly challenge singers to find pitches.
Okulitch, who continues to take the opera world by storm for his portrayals of new roles and standard repertoire, is probably thrilled to have a successful world premiere under his belt. Although he was praised for his performance in "The Fly," the opera was universally panned. However, the performance brought the "full monty" to opera and it's never been the same, helping to elevate the idea of opera singers actually being sexy enough to bare it all on stage.
After St. Louis, the Canadian baritone returns to Mozart at the Teatro Colón, where he will tackle the lead role in Don Giovanni.
We've covered the much anticipated opening of Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" on Barihunks and it's finally opening tomorrow. The show is designed and directed by the amazing Isaac Mizrahi. There is a video preview available on the Opera Theater of St. Louis website if you want to preview the performance. On Isaac Mizrahi's blog he calls barihunk Chris Herbert "incredibly cute," which is the perfect description. And speaking of cute, fellow barihunk Lee Gregory is also in the cast as Carl-Magnus Malcolm.
