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| Morgan Smith (left) and Andrew Lovato (right) |
The Cincinnati Opera is presenting its first world premiere in 50
years with Ricky Ian Gordon's Morningstar, which opens on June 30th and
runs through July 19th. The cast features two barihunks familiar to
readers of this site, Morgan Smith as Aaron Greenspan and Andrew Lovato
as Harry Engel. The cast also includes Twyla Robinson as Becky,
Elizabeth Pojanowski as Sadie, Elizabeth Zharoff as Esther, Jennifer
Zetlan as Fanny and hunkentenor Andrew Bidlack as Irving Tashman.
The
libretto was adapted from Sylvia Regan’s 1940 play about Russian Jewish
immigrants living in New York City's Lower East Side in the early 20th
century. The story revolves are eh 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire where
146 workers perished, most of whom were Jewish and Italian immigrant
women. Gordon's grandmother, Rebecca Lieberman, who worked at the
sweatshop survived because she was home sick the day of the fire.
Gordon teamed up with libbretis William M. Hoffman, who wrote the play
As Is and the libretto for
The Ghosts of Versailles
to compose the piece for the Lyric Opera of Chicago. That effort failed
to materialize, but the opera got a second chance in 2012, when Opera
Fusion: New Works teamed up with the Cincinnati Opera and the University
of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music to present the work at a
workshop for unproduced contemporary operas.
Tickets and additional cast information is available
online.
