Open rehearsals | April 8th - 23rd | 12pm-7pm;
General rehearsal | April 24th | 7pm;
Theatric presentations | April 26th & 27th | 7pm

Whitebox Art Center is pleased to present the work of opera director R. B. Schlather in his second feature with WhiteboxLab>Sound Lounge. For two weeks, Whitebox’s main exhibition space will act as a laboratory hosting the second opera in the George Frideric Handel trilogy, culminating in two theatric presentations of Handel’s Orlando, an 18th century baroque opera. This theatric installation draws from the opera seria or “serious opera” of Orlando (1733), based off of Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso.

WhiteboxLab>Sound Lounge and R. B. Schlather continue to respond to the changing landscape of operatic performance in New York City and around the world by staging this work in an untraditional opera venue. As a laboratory, WhiteboxLab>Sound Lounge is delighted to open all musical and staging rehearsals, from April 8th to the 23rd, prior to the General Rehearsal on April 24th at 7pm and the final presentations on April 26th and 27th at 7pm. A talk moderated by Joseph Cermatori will be held after the performance on the 27th. This program will be free and open to the public daily from 12pm to 7pm, excepting April 14th, 18th, and 25th. For the final performances, the opera will be enacted live with an orchestra, in Italian, utilizing new technologies with projected English subtitles.

Orlando follows R. B. Schlather’s innovative exhibition of Handel’s Alcina, performed in September 2014 at Whitebox Art Center. Handel based Alcina on Ludovico Ariosto’s best-seller Orlando Furioso, and composed two other operas derived from this epic poem: Orlando (1733) and Ariodante (1735). Esteemed classical music critic Zachary Woolfe of The New York Times praised Alcina for its open demonstration of operatic art form and process, describing it as “a valuable project that deserves enthusiastic support.” Orlando stays true to the structure of WhiteboxLab, remaining free and open to the public for rehearsals with an online video stream, capturing the unfolding rehearsal process. The opera series continues to spark questions of the dissolution of the opera institution in the contemporary cultural climate, through the development of a site-responsive baroque opera production. (from )

whiteboxnyc.org/event/r-b-schlather-opera-orlando/

• This event has passed.
  April 8, 2015
  and every day until April 27, 2015

  April 8, 2015
• Whitebox Art Center
  329 Broome Street, New York, NY

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