As One

Music & Concept by: Laura Kaminsky
Film by: Kimberly Reed
Libretto by: Mark Campbell & Kimberly Reed
Hannah younger: Lucas Boulk
Hannah older: Nikola Printz
Conductor: Alexandra Enyart
Director: Eden Lane
Pianist: Alaina DeBellevue
Stage Manager: Emma Rocheleau

Design team: Xander Claypool, Scenic Designer and Properties Master; Sue Oehme, Art Installation Designer; Ann Piano, Costume Designer; Emily Maddox, Lighting Designer; Thea Wigglesworth, Projection Designer

As One is a chamber opera in which two voices—Hannah younger (baritone) and Hannah older (mezzo-soprano)—share the part of a sole transgender protagonist. Fifteen songs comprise the three-part narrative; with empathy and humor, they trace Hannah’s experiences from her youth in a small town to her college years—and finally traveling alone to a different country, where she realizes some truths about herself.

As One is one of the most produced contemporary operas in the world and according to Opera News is: “A piece that haunts and challenges its audience with questions about identity, authenticity, compassion and the human desire for self-love and peace.”

Opera Steamboat production of As One is historic; for the first time in its performance history, the cast, director and conductor will all be members of the transgender community.

La Bohème

Conductor: Mtro. Ernest Richardson, Steamboat Symphony Orchestra’s music director & Omaha Symphony’s resident conductor
Director: David Toro

You will also be delighted to hear and see the talents of our leading singers: Omar Najmi as Rodolfo, Maria Jose Fabara as Mimi, Jiayu Li as Musetta, and Markel Reed as Marcello.

La Bohème is based on Henry Murger’s novel Scenes de la vie de Bohème.

Four struggling bohemians – a poet, a painter, a musician and a philosopher are living together in Paris, when one freezing Christmas Eve their lives are changed forever. A girl named Mimì knocks on their door looking for a candle light, and she and Rodolfo fall in love.

However, the rush of love at first sight soon gives way to something much darker – it becomes clear that Mimì is desperately ill, and that Rodolfo, in his poverty, cannot provide for her. Our bohemians try to find their way, but are soon sharply awoken to the harsh realities of life…

Company

Composer: Stephen Sondheim
Director: Thea Wigglesworth
Conductor/Vocal Coach/Pianist: Beth Nielsen
Stage Manager: Emma Rocheleau

Design team: Johnmichael Bohach, Scenic Designer and Properties Master; Ann Piano, Costume Designer; Emily Maddox, Lighting Designer;
Kayleigh Owen, Makeup and Wig Master

Act I
Amidst the gleaming chrome and plexiglass towers of modern middle-class Manhattan dwells Robert, all alone in his sleek bachelor apartment (except for his friends, who are gathered together one evening at the dawn of the Seventies to wish him a happy birthday). Sarah and Harry, Susan and Peter, Jenny and David, Amy and Paul, Joanne and Larry, are all living in connubial bliss, except for Robert. As he blows out the candles, his friends make a wish for him: he ought to be happily married, just like them, but in the incessant click-buzz of the telephone he has found his own happiness…good times with chums and pals, no strings, just ‘Company’.
Robert goes over to Sarah and Harry’s apartment. Harry has quit booze, Sarah is fighting the inch war, and they’re both taking it out on each other. As Sarah demonstrates her newly-acquired karate skills by pinning Harry to the floor, their friends observe that it’s ‘The Little Things You Do Together’ that keep a marriage alive. Robert isn’t entirely convinced and asks Harry if he’s sorry he got married? Or is he grateful? Well, yes and no: Harry’s ‘Sorry-Grateful’. Across town, at Susan and Peter’s, Robert finds an enviable idyllic marriage. Peter is proud and affectionate, Susan sweet and adoring; it’s because they’ve decided to get divorced. Robert moves on to Jenny and David’s, where they’re experimenting with marijuana and talking about . . . marriage. Robert says he just wants to meet the right girl, but right now is dating three not-so right girls. ‘You Could Drive a Person Crazy’, boop-boop-de-doop, with this frustrated trio, April, Kathy and Marta. Everyone, it seems, knows what’s best for Robert. ‘Have I Got a Girl For You!’ promise his friends, as they pair him off with chicks from the office and nieces from Ohio, but Robert knows what he wants. Somewhere ‘Someone Is Waiting’, his ideal girl, “an Amy sort of Sarah, a Jennyish Joanne”, a mix ‘n’ match compilation of the five wives he knows best.
Robert sits in the park, as a drifting tide of single women washes all around him: April, Kathy, Marta and ‘Another Hundred People’ swarming up from the subway. Even Paul and Amy are tying the knot, after years of merely living together. But at the wedding breakfast Amy announces that she can’t do it. Paul runs off in the rain and Robert asks the distraught ex-bride-to be if she’ll have him instead. Resolute as ever, Amy declares that she has no intention of ‘Getting Married Today’, but she does…to Paul.

Act II
Meanwhile, back at the surprise party, Robert and his good friends congratulate themselves on their good fortune in going through life ‘Side By Side By Side’. But, as they fall into a good-natured hats-and-canes vaudeville routine, Robert realizes that everyone has a dancing partner except him. ‘What Would We Do Without You?’ chorus his friends. “Just what you usually do”, he replies. But they do worry so. As Robert beds April, his lady friends brood on her unsuitability. Poor Bobby, ‘Poor Baby’, they sigh. All they want is for him to find a nice girl. But April? “She’s tall enough to be your mother”, pronounces Joanne. April and Robert, though, hear only the inexorable ‘Tick-Tock’ of their own perfect, practiced countdown to take-off. “What a lovely, smooth body!” “He really likes me!” If only I could remember her name … At 4.30 in the morning, the alarm goes. She has to fly to ‘Barcelona’. Look, this isn’t just a one- night stand, he reassures June…er, April. Does she have to leave? Couldn’t she stay? “Okay”, says April. “Oh, God”, says Robert.
Susan and Peter are back from Mexico, where they so enjoyed getting their divorce they’re now living together. At a discotheque, while Larry wiggles on the floor, Joanne gets drunk and attracts the attention of a group of bitchy onlookers. She proposes a toast to them: here’s to ‘The Ladies Who Lunch’ and their empty lives. She also propositions Robert, but what would be the point. He’s seen all these marriages, and what do you get for it? But then he understands what his friends already know: part of ‘Being Alive’ is committing yourself to somebody. That’s what it’s really about, isn’t it? The five crazy couples leave, Robert stands alone and begins again (Finale). With friends like these …

The Three Feathers

Composer: Lori Laitman
Librettist: Dana Gioia
Director: Olga Perez Flora
Conductor: Kristin Ditlow
Vocal Coach/Pianist: Cheryl Cellon Lindquist
Stage Manager: Lauren Cernik-Price

Design team: Johnmichael Bohach, Scenic Designer and Properties Master; Daniella Toscano, Costume Designer; Emily Maddox, Lighting Designer;
Kayleigh Owen, Makeup and Wig Master

The Three Feathers is a children’s opera in one-act, with an approximate running time of 85 minutes. Based on a tale by the Brothers Grimm, the opera presents a young female protagonist, Princess Dora, as its hero. A magic feather leads the shy, self-doubting princess to an enchanted Underworld ruled by a giant Frog King. Here she summons her courage and compassion to face a series of mysterious and comic adventures that change her life. Completing her quest, she saves her father’s kingdom from the plots of her selfish sisters and earns her right to the crown.

The work was commissioned by The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech and the premiere took place in October 2014 at The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech, in collaboration with Opera Roanoke and Blacksburg Children’s Chorale. The opera was directed by Beth Greenberg and conducted by Scott Williamson. It is approximately 85 minutes in length.

HEADER IMAGE COURTESY: John Lanterman Photography