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Recent Press Releases
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACTS: Ed Justen 978.340.3346 or ed@jitcomms.com John Whittlesey 617.889.4261 or JWOpera@aol.com Local
creative team crafts opera exploring contemporary themes New twist on a familiar premise propels “A Question of Love” Boston-For Carter Winslow, life was good in an idyllic
setting on the coast of Maine. But when the happily married artist hears a
confession of love from his talented young protégé, he is forced to
tackle previously repressed homosexual thoughts and feelings. Could a
life-altering decision be the next blank canvas for Winslow? This
love triangle with a contemporary twist comprises the plotline of A
Question of Love, a chamber opera commission created by the Boston
team of composer Charles Shadle and librettist Michael Ouellette, in
collaboration with Intermezzo-The
New England Chamber Opera Series. “This
opera was inspired by the lives of two 1940s American artists who were
involved in many scandalous homosexual affairs despite their heterosexual
public personae,” Shadle says. The
homophobic setting of post-World War II Maine provides a worthy backdrop
for the examination of these issues in an operatic setting. “The
complexity of theses relationships has not been dealt with in opera,”
Shadle says. John Whittlesey, the
Founder and Artistic Director for Intermezzo,
approached Shadle over a year ago about the project. "I wanted to set
something on the coast of Maine because of its inherent romance and
energy, and I also wanted a story with some kind of sexual and
interpersonal conflict between the characters,” Whittlesey says. “I
knew about Charles' special appreciation for the voice, so when he told me
about the story he and Michael were working on, it seemed like a perfect
match." A
Question of Love
is the fourth commission for the Boston-based Intermezzo
and is scored for five voices, piano, violin and cello. It’s also the third collaboration for Shadle and Ouellette who
both juggle creative endeavors around teaching duties at MIT. Past works
by the creative team include the critically acclaimed Coyote’s Dinner, and New
England Seasonal, a composition for chorus and orchestra.
A
Question of Love
premieres at 4 p.m., Saturday, September
19, 2004, at MIT’s Little
Kresge Theater. Also on the bill is Leonard Bernstein’s composition Trouble
in Tahiti, a jazzy and satirical look at suburban life in the 1950s as
seen through the eyes and ears of one of America’s most famous
composers. # #
# About the company—Intermezzo—The
New England Chamber Opera Series debuted early last year with a
performance of American opera favorites at the Community Music Center of
Boston. Chamber
opera merges the musical and dramatic flavor of grand opera with the
immediacy of art song. All performances are sung in English and take place
in small, intimate, theaters. Visit Intermezzo
on the Web at www.intermezzo-opera.org. About
the creative team–Composer Charles Shadle (b.1960) was educated at
the University of Colorado, Tulane University, and Brandeis University. He
has completed commissions for organizations including SUNY Buffalo,
Longwood Opera, Lake George Opera Festival, Handel and Haydn Society,
Boston Aria Guild, MIT Concert Band, and the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. Friends
& Dinosaurs, his opera for the amusement of children has been
performed throughout the United States and broadcast by Hawaii Public
Television. His most recent opera Coyote’s
Dinner received critical acclaim at its premier in November, 2002 at MIT.
Shadle serves as Lecturer on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Michael Ouellette, was trained, at Brown and Harvard, to teach literature. After
earning an MFA at Southern Methodist University’s Professional Theater
Training Program, he free-lanced as an actor and director in Chicago,
where he was Artistic Director of Bailiwick Repertory, where directed a
highly successful production of his own edition of Shakespeare’s Pericles. Ouellette
was also taught voice and acting at the University of Illinois. Ouellette
has taught at MIT since 1989 and is now Director of Theater. At MIT, he
has directed over fifteen productions and acted in three others. He
was the recipient of the 1996 Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize, awarded by
the MIT Council for the Arts. Most recently he has acted at the New Rep in
Newton and at the Williamstown Theater Festival, where he was the Acting
Instructor for the Apprentice Program for several years. He created
the role of Peter in the premiere of an MIT collaboration, the oratorio Reckoning Time by Peter Child and Alan Brody. He wrote the libretto
for Charles Shadle’s opera, Coyote’s
Dinner, which premiered at MIT in the fall of 2002 and arranged
the texts for Shadle’s cantata, A
New England Seasonal.
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