Opera on Tap and The Curiosity Cabinet present:
About the Show
Music and concept by: Whitney George
Libretto by: Johnny Call
Curated by Daniel Felsenfeld. Based loosely on the short story Gamiani, attributed to Alfred de Musset
Featuring:
Whitney George (Master of Ceremonies/Conductor)
Joy Jones (The Baron)
Heather Michele Meyer (Countess Gamiani)
Sara Noble (Sophie/The Maid)
And members of The Curiosity Cabinet:
Lindsey Eckenroth, flute
Eric Umble, bass clarinet
Adam von Housen, violin
Lisa Maree Dowling, double bass
Joe Tucker, percussion
Opera on Tap and The Curiosity Cabinet present an evening of tantalizing voyeurism in a surrealist retelling of the shockingly erotic and blisteringly sacrilegious 1833 short story Gamiani, with original music and concept design by Whitney George. The Baron secretly watches the stunning Italian countess Gamiani as she seduces and bewitches another woman. When his voyeurism is revealed, the steamy duo becomes a trio of imaginative erotic storytelling, in three vignettes which appeal to the senses. Prepare to be lured into a world of pleasure…
About the Artists
Whitney George (composer, creator)
Composer and conductor Whitney George who specializes in the use of mixed media to blur the distinctions between concert performance, installation art, and theater. George’s music has been performed The American Modern Ensemble, Contemporaneous, Shout House, Ensemble Mise-en, The Concrete Timbre Collective, Mivos String Quartet, New York Trombone Consort, Low Brass Connection, Cygnus Ensemble, Transit Ensemble, Fulcrum Point String Quartet, CME (Contemporary Music Ensemble), The Curiosity Cabinet, Cadillac Moon, and Vigil Ensemble. She has conducted Ursula Oppens’ conTEMPO ensemble, Face the Music, the Green Monster Big Band, the Noveau Classical Project, the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, and the New York Trombone Consort.
The Curiosity Cabinet (co-producer)
20th- and 21st-century chamber music collective whose drawers filled are with the musical curiosities and talents of 20 instrumentalists and 6 singers, each as unique as any wildlife oddity. Founded in 2009 by composer and conductor Whitney George, The Curiosity Cabinet’s interdisciplinary thematic performances champion new works by living composers, combined with the immersive drama of sounds, images and gestures, and invite audiences to indulge in the pleasure of spectacle, in the fun of looking as well as listening, and in the disorientating effect of satire.
Opera on Tap (co-producer)
Hailed as “raucous and sublime”, Opera on Tap (OOT) has been bringing opera to the uninitiated in bars and other alternative spaces since 2005. An early leader in the alternative opera movement, OOT is dedicated to making opera more accessible to a broader audience through intimate, immersive performances. OOT was awarded a 2016 Building Opera Audiences grant from Opera America for the creation of The Parksville Murders, the first episodic horror opera created for Virtual Reality, and a 2017 ArtWorks grant from the NEA for their Playground Opera program, which immerses elementary school students in the creation, production and performance of an opera. Born in the backroom of Freddy’s Bar in Brooklyn, Opera on Tap has been steadily working on world domination one aria at a time, and now has nineteen national and three international chapters.
This performance was sponsored in part by the Village Voice.
