Byron Woods ·
9 Jul 2008, 9:21 AM ·
3 Comments
We’ve seen — and reviewed and interviewed — them before. If you missed our coverage and analysis of previous major regional and ADF performances by Doug Varone and Dancers and Ronald K. Brown/ EVIDENCE, here’s a list with links — all on the record — below.
Doug Varone & Dancers:
Boats Leaving: 2006 ADF World Premiere. Review. Season summary.
Ballet Mechanique. 2002 ADF World Premiere. Review. Season summary.
Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE
One-Shot: March 2008 performance at Duke University. Review.
Redemption. 2004 ADF World Premiere. Review (with Come Ye ). Interview.
Come Ye. November 2003 performance at Hayti Heritage Center. Preview and Interview.
Dance Doug Varone, Ronald K. Brown
Byron Woods ·
28 Jun 2008, 1:14 PM ·
6 Comments
You heard about the Doug Varone performance – this weekend, in Chapel Hill — right? [Editor's note: This performance closed Sunday, June 29. Varone's company performs at the ADF next Monday-Wednesday, July 7-9, In Reynolds Theater. ]
The Long Leaf Opera Festival is restaging his production of the 2005 Ricky Ian Gordon opera Orpheus and Euridice, with the original leads — soprano Elizabeth Futral as Euridice, clarinetist Todd Palmer as Orpheus, and Varone’s dancers — as the final offering in their 2008 festival. The one remaining performance: Sunday, June 29, at 2 pm, in UNC’s Memorial Hall.
No, the dance snobs weren’t terribly impressed with the 2005 Lincoln Center premiere. (Perhaps they missed the news that Gordon’s AIDS-era libretto was inspired by the film Black Orpheus, and not earlier operatic masterpieces by Gluck or Monteverdi.) But others clearly were.
The Long Leafs have a long history in the region. They’ve consistently had the most adventurous programming of the handful of regional opera groups.
The down side? Their community-level orchestras and vocalists and fluctuating direction and sets and costumes haven’t always matched their stated ambition to stage professional-grade productions of English-based opera.
But since Varone is directing his original performers — and the work is for three solo musicians, without orchestra — most of the usual variables seem to have been taken out of the mix here. The one remaining question mark: the pianist in this three-musician ensemble — the one role not identified anywhere in the extensive publicity on the festival’s website.
Ticket information, here.
Dance Doug Varone
