ee me & pollock thee nominated for creative opera award

The opera, ee me & pollock thee, written by Adam Falik(Libretto) and Jonathan Freilich (Composer) has been nominated for an award in the Gambit's creative opera category...

Check it out...

ee me & pollock thee- performances coming this weekend.

ee me & pollock thee

an opera

by Adam Falik and Jonathan Freilich

Director: Chris Kammenstein | Musical Director: Francis Scully

 An official participant of the 2011 New Orleans Fringe Festival 

Venue: The Marigny Opera House(Trinity Church on St. Ferdinand in the Marigny) 

Thursday, November 17^th, 7pm

Friday, November 18^th, 9pm

Saturday, November 19^th, 11pm

Sunday, November 20^th, 7pm

  ee me & pollock thee accounts a relationship between poet E. E. Cummings and painter Jackson Pollock.  The two artists journey to the dark heart of inspiration in this multidisciplinary extravaganza.  As poet and painter wrestle their muse, mutual obsession and mystical appropriation ensue.  This modern opera with live musical accompaniment explores the cost of great art and dangerous genius.  Dramatic scenes are interwoven with original musical compositions and operatic performance of E. E. Cummings poems.

  Goat in the Road Productions’ Chris Kamenstein will direct, and Francis Scully, conductor of the New Resonance Orchestra, will serve as musical director.

The production features: Chris Lane as Jackson Pollock, Andrew Vaught (Cripple Creek Productions) as E. E. Cummings, Kathleen Halm as Lee Krasner, and JeAnne Swinley as Rebecca Cummings.

New Opera/Play: ee me & pollock thee complete and set for NO Fringe Fest Nov. 16-20

Chris Lane as Jackson PollockDont' miss this upcoming premiere of a new opera/play/melodrama by Adam Falik(Libretto/script) and Jonathan Freilich(composer).

-E.E. Cummings and Jackson Pollock journey to the dark heart of inspiration in this multidisciplinary extravaganza. As poet and painter wrestle their muse, mutual obsession and mystical appropriation ensue. This modern opera with live musical accompaniment explores the cost of great art and dangerous genius.- 

The music is now finished and the opera is in final run up towards the New Orleans Fringe Festival  It's a co- production with the librettist, Adam Falik and will feature Chris Lane as abstract expressionist painter, Jackson Pollock. Chris appaeared in my previous opera, Bang The Law and knows how to deliver this type of role.  The other cast is also exciting and as of now the music writing is novel and should provide for a really interesting creative set of performances.  The show will be under the musical guidance of conductor, Francis Scully.

ee me & pollock thee at NO Fringe fest...

I'll meet you there!

Collaboration, dictatorial ideology, Platonic philosophy hangovers, and other thoughts before starting work on an opera

In preparing to write larger, theatrically bound pieces of music, a voracious appetite for webs of information, culled from as many fields as possible seems to take hold.  (I'm speaking as a "newbie" here because I've only written one opera previously, Bang The Law.) Perhaps, it is because things like opera involve so many different features: poetry, acting, producing, directing, music, stage design, costume, psychology, history. Reasearch into everything possible seems to be called for. There is also the perennial fear of accidentally creating something too narrow or trivial. I get into a kind of trawling, sometimes directed, sometimes not, that leads to the right sort of mental and emotional fullness and wonder that overcomes stagnation, procrastination, and distraction.  Opera demands collaboration anyhow so mental flexibility derived from poring over related ideas seems paramount becuse there is a certain openness and general knowledge required in working well with others with specialized talents.

I'm involved in the writing of a semi-operatic work currently so this is the process that seems to be dominant again.  A couple of months back I was handed a libretto by writer, Adam Falik and agreed to collaborate on his libretto about a couple of early twentieth century art behemoths and a fictional encounter that drags them both down.  In perusing some of

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