Lilith explores and celebrates the ageless erotic myth of Lilith, the woman who preceded Eve in the Garden of Eden. The opera, which blends a variety of powerful musical tropes from jazz to classical, reenacts the tale from a twin timeframe of contemporary America and the beginning of Paradise. Lilith, in the personage of Claire, shocks the modern day Eve in a restaurant by asking her rival if her husband could be loaned for one day. Our Eve, Eppy, suspects her husband to be unfaithful. The opera returns us to a divorce hearing in Paradise where Adam argues his grievance to an invisible angel who holds court. The unfolding story becomes tied in sexual and moral knots as we see Lilith both the victim of justice and a culprit of timeless revenge. In addition to seducing married men, Lilith goes after young boys; a subplot is the abduction of a child. In the opera's finale, Eve must adopt elements of Lilith in order to vanquish her rival. Because Lilith and Eve share aspects of each other, the opera's directing and design concept relies on windows, mirrors, screens and shadows to reflect the myriad contours of female identity split into two halves. Video and visual projection are essential tools for probing the paradoxes of Lilith's role in contemporary life. Renowned opera director and choreographer Keturah Stickann and designers Victoria Petrovich and Peter Torpey will bring experimental overtones, adding to the opera's seductive and eerie impact.

• Thursday, November 12, 2015

• Britt, Joel
• Jicha, Charlie
• Ng, Melissa
• Zupanski, Morgan

• Almazan. Alvin
• Davis, Anthony
• Havis, Allan
• Jean-Young, Hillary
• Lander, Bonnie
• Larson, Philip

Cast: Bonnie Lander—Lilith/Claire Alvin Almazan—Adam/Arnold Hillary Jean—Young Eve/Eppy Philip Larson—The Voice Creative team: Joel Britt (Lighting and Scenic Designer) Charlie Jicha (Scenic Designer) Grady Kestler (Sound and Video Designer) Melissa Ng (Costume Designer) Morgan Zupanski (Stage Manager)

Kyle Adam Blair is an active solo and collaborative pianist in the San Diego area, specializing in the performance of American contemporary music. His focuses include the performance of new works in collaboration with composers and the performance of works from the middle-to-late 20th century (e.g. Copland, Ruggles, Crumb, Carter, etc.) His most recent collaborations have included multiple appearances with Bang-On-A-Can All-Stars in Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego dating back to 2012, numerous appearances with the La Jolla Symphony under the direction of Steve Schick, and premieres of solo and chamber works of composers Paul Hembree, Xavier Beteta, Hunjoo Jung and Jon Forshee. Blair received a B.M. in Piano Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro studying under Andrew Willis, a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in American Contemporary Music at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County studying under Dr. Kazuko Tanosaki and a Masters of Arts in Contemporary Music Performance from the University of California, San Diego under the mentorship of Aleck Karis. He is also currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Contemporary Music Performance from UC San Diego. Anthony Davis (Composer) Opera News has called Anthony Davis “A National Treasure” for his pioneering work in opera. He has been on the cutting edge of improvised music and jazz for over four decades. Anthony Davis continues to explore new avenues of expression while retaining a distinctly original voice. Mr. Davis has composed seven operas. X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, with a libretto by Thulani Davis, had its world premiere at the New York City Opera in 1986. A recording of the opera was released in 1992 on the Gramavision label and earned a Grammy nomination for music composition. Tania, an opera based on the kidnapping of Patty Hearst with a libretto by Michael John La Chiusa, premiered at the American Music Theater Festival in 1992 and was recorded and released for KOCH International in October of 2001. His fourth opera, Amistad, with a libretto by Thulani Davis, premiered at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on November 29th, 1997. A recording of the opera was released on New World in 2008. Anthony Davis’s opera Wakonda's Dream, with a libretto by Yusef Komunyakaa, had its world premiere with Opera Omaha in March 2007. Lilith, an opera about Adam’s first wife based on Allan Havis’s acclaimed play, with a libretto by the playwright, debuted in 2009, followed by Lear on the 2nd Floor, an opera inspired by King Lear, in March 2013. His other works include the music for the critically acclaimed Broadway production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Notes from the Underground, a recording of his works for orchestra, was released by BMOP this year. A graduate of Yale University in 1975, Mr. Davis is currently a professor of music at the University of California, San Diego. Allan Havis (Librettist) His plays have been produced at leading theatres nationally and in Europe with commissions by England's Chichester Festival, Sundance, San Diego Rep, South Coast Rep and many other theatres. Seventeen published plays and four anthology publications including Penguin/Mentor, Theatre Communications Group, Broadway Play Publishing. HarperCollins published his novel Albert the Astronomer. His book on ninety years of cinema, Cult Films: Taboo & Transgression, was published by University Press of America. In collaboration with renowned composer Anthony Davis, his play Lilith was re-imagined as a chamber opera, premiering at UC San Diego’s Conrad Prebys Music Center December 2009. His next collaboration with Mr. Davis was Lear on the 2nd Floor, which premiered as a work-in-process March 2012 at Princeton University, and as a full length piece at UC San Diego's Conrad Prebys Music Center March 2013. Recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Kennedy Center/American Express, CBS, HBO, National Endowment for the Arts Awards, San Diego Theatre Critics Circle 2003 Outstanding New Play for Nuevo California (co-written with Bernardo Solano) and San Diego’s 2008 Patté Best Play award for The Tutor. He has headed the MFA playwriting program at UC San Diego and is Provost of Marshall College at UC San Diego. He holds an M.F.A. from Yale Drama School. Alan Johnson (Music Director) Alan Johnson is associate professor of vocal performance and program director of the Frost Opera Theater at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, and is the recipient of the 2012 Phillip Frost Award for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship. Johnson has led numerous opera, music theater, concert and dance works by today’s most innovative composers, including Nicholas Brooke, Douglas Cuomo, Tina Davidson, Anthony Davis, Phillip Glass and Michael Torke. His work has garnered awards such as Drama Desk, Obie and Joseph Jefferson Award for Outstanding Music Direction. He is the music director of the John Duffy Composers Institute at the Virginia Arts Festival. Performances at venues across the USA include American Repertory Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, City Center NY, Lincoln Center, New York Shakespeare Festival, Long Wharf Theater and Spoleto Festival USA and Italy. Active in New York City since 1986 as a vocal coach and pianist, Johnson has prepared and collaborated with singers holding international engagements. As a soloist and collaborative pianist, he has performed at such venues as Alice Tully Hall and The Walker Art Center. Johnson holds a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from the University of Miami and a Master of Music in vocal coaching/accompanying from the University of Illinois. Gwikyoung Ko (Lighting Designer) Gwikyoung Ko is a third-year M.F.A. student. She holds a B.A. in Theatre Design (Lighting Design) from Chung-ang University in South Korea. UC San Diego credits: Mr. Burns (2015), GradWorks (2015), Three Women in Four Chairs (2015), H(ome) (2015), In the Crowding Darkness (2014). Keturah Stickann (Director) Hailed as “brilliant” and “cinematic,” Keturah Stickann’s directing and choreography have been seen in opera houses around the world. Recent productions include Madama Butterfly for Opera Santa Barbara and Opera Colorado, Don Quichotte for San Diego Opera, Tales of Hoffman for Knoxville Opera, La tragédie de Carmen and Don Giovanni for The Janiec Opera Company, and Flight for Opera Fayetteville. She is a frequent collaborator with director Leonard Foglia, most notably as movement director for Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick, as well as Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, A Coffin in Egypt, and Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy. Victoria Petrovich (Set Designer) Victoria Petrovich has designed Cinderella-Cendrillon and Paradise for the Worried for Music-Theatre-Group, and their co-production of The Griffin and the Minor Canon with Playwrights Horizons; Scapin with Bill Irwin at the Roundabout and Seattle Repertory theaters; Juniper Tree at Minnesota Opera; Journey to Cordoba for Los Angeles Opera; Bandido at the Mark Taper Forum and many of their PLAY touring productions; Culture Clashes’ The Mission at La Jolla Playhouse; The Women, Burning Patience, Latinologues, and Corridos Remix at San Diego Repertory; The Theory of Everything at Singapore Repertory; Lips Together, Teeth Apart at South Coast Repertory; Passion, Golden Child and Imelda at East West Players in Los Angeles; The Snow Leopard and The Last Five Years for Nautilus Music-Theatre in Minneapolis; and La Pastorela and La Virgen del Tepeyac, annual pageants with El Teatro Campesino, where she established her roots in theater. She collaborates with lighting designer José Lopez on large exterior architectural video projections for Dia de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever, and is developing a theatre-game project for Titus Andronicus with 3D artist Linda Sellheim. Peter Torpey (Designer) Peter Torpey works at the nexus of theater, interaction design, music, technology and storytelling. He weaves together his diverse expertise in video production, theatrical design, computer programming and the visual arts to create interactive media, installation, arts and performances. Throughout his work, Peter addresses both the technological and control infrastructure needs of complex performances and exhibitions, as well as the design of visual and experiential languages for each project. Peter received his doctorate from the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab, where his contributions were integral to the design and implementation of groundbreaking works that explore modes of representing expression (Death and the Powers, 2010), massive collaborations (A Toronto Symphony, 2013), and new models of presence in live performance (Remote Theatrical Immersion: Sleep No More, 2012; Powers Live, 2014).

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2021-09-29