the little OPERA theatre of ny Livestream Concert of Monteverdi & Other Treasures from the Seicento

The little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY) presents a livestream concert of Monteverdi & Other Treasures from the Seicento on Friday, June 4, 2021 at 7:30pm ET. The production will offer an optional immersive viewing experience by Musae. Tickets begin at $5 on a sliding scale and can be purchased at lotny.org/2-livestreams or by calling (646) 481-9890. With any purchase, you’ll also have the option to replay the concert at a later date. https://www.lotny.org/
 
Monteverdi & Other Treasures from the Seicento
Friday, June 4, 2021 • 7:30 pm ET
Livestream from St. John’s in the Village
Enjoy one of the earliest chamber operas, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, which premiered in Venice in 1624. Based upon a poem by Torquato Tasso, it tells the story of a battle between a Crusader and a Saracen. Beneath their armor they discover another story. The program will also feature instrumental and vocal music of Monteverdi’s contemporaries: Dario Castello, as well as Barbara Strozzi, one of the earliest known female composers in the Baroque/Classical tradition. Featuring internationally acclaimed Tenor Raúl Melo as The Narrator, Soprano Summer Hassan as Clorinda and TenorMichael Kuhn as Tancredi. The performance is led by Music Director & Harpsichordist Elliot Figg, Director Philip Shneidman, Assistant Director Dalia Sevilla; and features Violinists Manami Mizumoto, Rebecca Nelson, and Majka Demcak; Theorbist and Guitarist Paul Morton; and Master of the Bass Instruments Doug Balliett. The performance is sung in Italian, with English translation provided, and is approximately 50 minutes in length. Monteverdi & Other Treasures from the Seicento is also part of the Sixth Annual New York Opera Fest, presented by the New York Opera Alliance (NYOA) in partnership with OPERA America.

General Ticket
Pay $5 to stream a concert live or watch the replay later—stream from your phone, tablet, computer, or TV! Socialize with LOTNY and fellow audience members in the chatroom for some live banter throughout the performances.
Fan Ticket
Upgrade to a $15 ticket to give a donation to little OPERA

Supporter Ticket
Upgrade to a $25 ticket to give an extra donation to little OPERA

Headset Tickets (A five-day lead-time is required for shipping)
Upgrade to a $50 ticket and receive all of the above, plus your own virtual reality (VR) headset in the mail from Musae!* With your VR headset, you can enjoy a fun 360° viewing experience! Your headset remains yours to keep and can be used for both shows.

*VR Headsets can also be purchased separately. A basic goggle cardboard-style model may be purchased for $8 and a premium model may be purchased for $40. Order at least five days in advance to allow for shipping.

Monteverdi is the second of 2 Livestreams that LOTNY has presented this Spring. Zemlinskys Zimmer (Zemlinsky’s Room) was first heard in April, sung in German with English translation, also at St. John’s in the Village. The production featured Soprano Katy Lindhart, Baritone Eric McKeever and Tenor Nicholas Simpson. Led by Music Director & Pianist Catherine Miller, Director Philip Shneidman, and Assistant Director Dalia Sevilla, and includes Costume Design by Lara de Bruijn, and guest violinist Laura Frautschi. Zemlinsksys Zimmer is still available to watch on demand at musae.me/lotny/experiences/984/zemlinskys-zimmer.
Produced by Musae in association with St. John’s and Denise Marsa Productions, this concert will be broadcast live in both HD and 360° virtual reality so audiences can enjoy a completely immersive experience.

About the Artists
Tenor Raúl Melo (Testo/The Narrator) has performed at the MET as the Duke in Rigoletto opposite Anna Netrebko and as Pinkerton to Patricia Racette’s Madama Butterfly. He was most recently seen as Neruda in Daniel Catan’s Il Postinowith Virginia Opera and Opera Southwest; Faust with Arizona Opera; and Pollione in Norma opposite Angela Meade with the Astoria Music Festival. Other appearances include La Bohème in Shanghai, Naples, and Palermo; Butterfly and Tosca with New York City Opera and New Orleans Opera; Carmen in Salerno and Leipzig; Rigoletto in Bologna; La Traviata in Palm Beach and Oslo; Un Ballo in Maschera with Seattle Opera; and Lucia di Lammermoor in Zurich. Concert appearances include the Chicago Symphony under Riccardo Muti; Faust in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust conducted by Keith Lockhart with the Utah Symphony; Massenet’s La Navarraise with New York City Opera; and the Verdi Requiem at Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires. Additionally Mr. Melo has performed with Berlin’s Deutsche Oper and State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Stuttgart’s State Opera, Düsseldorf’s Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Frankfurt Opera, and Dresden State Opera to name a few; and in the United States he has sung with Washington Opera, Cleveland Opera, Minnesota Opera, Des Moines Opera, Connecticut Opera and Fort Worth Opera among others. Mr. Melo appeared as Sir Charles Sedley in LOTNY’s NY premiere of Carlisle Floyd’s Prince of Players.

Soprano Summer Hassan (Clorinda) is an alumnus of the Domingo Colburn Stein LA Opera Young Artist program. Summer made her LA opera company debut as 2nd woman in Dido & Aeneas, followed by several other roles with the company. The final performance before covid included an opera gala concert in Indonesia with the Jakarta Simfonia in 2020. Summer was a Met semifinalist in 2017 as well as a quarter finalist in Operalia in 2018. She was a Filene artist with Wolf Trap performing Musetta in La Bohème, as well as roles in Rossini’s The Touchstone, Musto’s Bastianello and Glass/Moran’s The Juniper Tree. Other credits include: Chicago Opera Theater, performing Pip in Heggie’s Moby Dick, a filmed opera with HGO performing a Sankaram piece, as well as performing many other companies. She performed with Little Opera Theatre of NY during their 2018 season, singing Tisbe in Hasse’s Piramo e Tisbe. 

Tenor Michael Kuhn (Tancredi) has been described as “an artist of almost terrifying magnetism” (The Observer), “polished, soignee and hot to trot” (The Houston Press), and praised for his “clear and robust” tenor (Opera News). Most recently, Michael was seen as Pedrillo in Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Opera Omaha, a performance where he “flirted his way through the opera with infectious energy” and “demonstrated just how amazing Pedrillo’s arias can be in the hands of a great singer” (Schmopera). Other recent highlights include Romano in the world premiere of Stonewall by Iain Bell and Mark Campbell with New York City Opera, and Martin in STAY; an immersive, a cappella opera by John Glover and Kelly Rourke with On Site Opera. In New York City, Michael was also seen in two Off-Broadway runs of Vid Guerrerio’s ¡Figaro! 90210 as Basel at the Duke on 42nd Street, and has appeared with Brooklyn’s LoftOpera as Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia, and Rustighello in Lucrezia Borgia. He has performed throughout the US at companies such as Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Opera Omaha, Florida Grand Opera, Central City Opera, Virginia Opera, Syracuse Opera, The Caramoor Festival, The Princeton Festival, Opera in the Heights, Livermore Valley Opera and more. Michael recently made his international debut with France’s Festival Lyrique-en-mer. Michael recently debuted his self-directed and produced project in collaboration with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) titled Nacht und Träume, a staged recital of German lieder.
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Elliot Figg (Music Director and Harpsichord) joins LOTNY for the fourth time since conducting the company’s 2016 production of L’Amant Anonyme. Other productions with LOTNY include Hasse’s Piramo e Tisbe and Mozart’s The Shepherd King (in progress). Elliot is a graduate of the Historical Performance Program at The Juilliard School where he studied harpsichord with Kenneth Weiss. He also studied with Arthur Haas at the Yale School of Music. Elliot is an active member of several New York-based early music and contemporary ensembles, including ACRONYM, Ruckus, New Vintage Baroque, and Makaris. Recent engagements include: Five Boroughs Music Festival, in a concert featuring his own music; Conductor and Harpsichordist for Death of Classical’s production of Dido and Aeneas in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery; Deputy Music Director and Harpsichordist for Farinelli and the King on Broadway; Assistant Conductor and Harpsichordist for Il Farnace and Veremonda, both with Spoleto Festival USA; and Assistant Conductor and Harpsichordist for Dido and Aeneas with L.A. Opera. 

Philip Shneidman (Director) founded the little OPERA theatre of ny. Recent productions include the New York premieres of Benjamin Britten’s Owen Wingrave, J.A Hasse’s Piramo e Tisbe, Carlisle Floyd’s Prince of Players, an original adaptation of Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ L’Amant Anonyme. Additional productions include Floyd’s Slow Dusk & Markheim, and Gioachino Rossini’s Opportunity Makes the Thief. Previous seasons include Gluck’s The Reformed Drunkard; and an evening of two one-act operas by Gustav Holst entitled Travelers. Mr. Shneidman has also directed Eugene Onegin and Dialogues of the Carmelites at The Mannes College of Music, and Purcell’s The Tempest at Rutgers. His theater directing credits include: Fully Committed (Adirondack Theatre Festival), Romeo & Juliet (Queens Theatre in the Park), and A Drowned Girl [1919] (HERE). As an assistant director on Broadway he worked on The Full Monty, and the Gutierrez productions of A Delicate Balance and The Heiress.

Dalia Sevilla (Assistant Director) is a director, performer, and lighting designer. She is the founder of the Classical Voice Collective at NYU through which she produced and directed seven operas: Bastien und Bastienne, Hänsel und Gretel, The Portrait of Manon, Riders to the Sea, Le Mariage aux Lanternes, Daphnis et Chloé and Prima la Musica e poi le Parole. She also directed For the Love of Natalie Woods for Communal Spaces Festival and the premiere of Bismillah at the Fresh Fruit Festival. She assistant directed The Dialogue of the Carmelites as well as directed five opera scenes at the Harrower Music Festival. Her lighting design credits include ChristinaNoel and the Creature’s Self Love Kind of Thing, Arts for All’s production of Jack vs Rapunzel, Players Club’s production of A Little Night Music, Classical Voice Collective’s productions of Le Mariage aux Lanternes, Daphnis et Chloè, Riders to the Sea, and Hänsel und Gretel. She has also assisted in many productions around NYC including The New York Pops’ concerts at Carnegie Hall, Blueprint Specials, Fairytale Christmas, and The Dudleys!. Her performance credits include Cavalerria Rusticana, A Body in the Allegheny Valley (Lana), Twelfth Night (Malvolio), 4@15, First Stages, and Pulsing and Shaking. Other credits include Carmina Burana at Charles University in Prague.

Doug Balliett (Master of Bass Instruments) is a composer, instrumentalist and poet based in New York City. The New York Times has described his poetry as “brilliant and witty” (Clytie and the Sun), his bass playing as “elegant” (Shawn Jaeger’s In Old Virginny), and his compositions as “vivid, emotive, with contemporary twists” (Actaeon). Popular new music blog I Care if You Listen has critiqued Mr. Balliett’s work as “weird in the best possible way” (A Gnostic Passion) and “light-hearted yet dark…it had the audience laughing one minute and in tears the next…” (Pyramus and Thisbe). He is a tireless performer of new music, and is professor of historic basses at the Juilliard School. With a constant stream of commissions, a weekly show on New York Public Radio, and nearly 200 performances per year, Mr. Balliett has been identified as an emerging voice for his generation.

Majka Demcak (Violin) is a violinist from British Columbia, Canada. She has been studying and exploring music from the Baroque and Classical eras and enjoys performing the music of her Slovak heritage. Majka was featured as an emerging artist in the Vancouver Bach Music Festival, performed with Pacific Baroque Orchestra, and toured with the Juilliard415 orchestra to Paris in collaboration with Les Arts Florissants, and to New Zealand. Her viola debut was in a Juilliard415 concert led by Pablo Heras-Casado. Majka is a founding member of Quartet Salonnières, a period classical quartet that highlights music of the lesser-known contemporaries of Boccherini, Haydn and Mozart.

New York native Manami Mizumoto (Violin) started her lifelong relationship with music at age 3 on the violin. Early exposure to chamber music sparked in her a devoted love of collaboration. This led to a fascination with performing contemporary music and working with living composers. In recent years, this has manifested in a songwriting project co-created with Uhuru Quartet and composer Sato Matsui to benefit women’s shelters in NYC. In addition, Manami is passionate about exploring different approaches to music making in history and how that can transform the way modern audiences relate to music of the past. Her driving curiosity is in exploring the dialogue between ancient and contemporary thoughts, and she is equally at home on the baroque violin, modern violin, and electro-acoustic setups with Ableton Live. Manami is a recent graduate of the Juilliard School, where she earned her Masters in Historical Performance and graduated with the Norman Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant. Ms. Mizumoto has been featured in LOTNY’s The Shepherd King video project and in the livestream Mozart & Friends.

Lutenist, theorbist, banjoist, guitarist, lyricist, composer, arranger, vocalist, historical archeologist, soloist, chamber musician; the music of Paul Holmes Morton (Theorbo/Guitar) is defined less by genre than by a fascination with history, a cultivation of creativity, and a belief that music once born does not die or grow old. With a technical palette of colors ranging from the Florentine Camerata to modern Americana, Paul follows the thread of resonant evolution, his interpretations and performances stained with the resin left by countless musics present and not yet passed. 

Rebecca Nelson (Violin) was the first US citizen born in former East Germany. At fourteen she left home to pursue a musical career in the States. She has played with different period ensembles all over the East Coast, including Boston’s Handel Haydn Society and has performed works on gut strings ranging from Monteverdi operas to film music by Saint-Säens. She is a member of the Shanghai Camerata, Digital Camerata and she recently joined Nuova Practica, a troupe of modern baroque composers and performers. Since graduating from The Juilliard School in May of 2020, Rebecca has started composing songs inspired by her love of both baroque and folk and is recording her very first album titled Do Not Lament. Ms. Nelson has been featured in LOTNY’s The Shepherd King video project.

About the little OPERA theatre of ny 
Since its founding in 2004, the little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY) has presented 4 NY Stage Premieres : Britten/Piper’s Owen Wingrave; Hasse/Coltellini’s Piramo e Tisbe; Floyd’s Prince of Players; Mozart/Cigna-Santi’sMitridate, re di Ponto; 2 US Stage Premieres: Saint-Georges/Desfontaines/De Genlis’ L’ Amant Anonyme, Cui/Pushkin’sA Feast in the Time of the Plague, 1 World Premiere: Zaretsky/Kharms Man in a Black Coat: and commissioned a new translation of Mozart/Metastasio’s Il re pastore as The Shepherd King from Mark Herman & Ronnie Apter. Other notable projects include the original Holst double bill Travelers, Gluck’s The Reformed Drunkard, Rossini’s Opportunity Makes the Thief, and Floyd’s Slow Dusk & Markheim at venues including 59E59 Theaters, Baruch Performing Arts Center, the former GK Arts Center, The Bushwick Starr, and the JCC Manhattan. LOTNY’s recent production of Owen Wingrave was noted as “long overdue..a world class production” in Credenza and in Opera News as “(a) shadowy, haunting, attractive production…superbly prepared.” Piramo e Tisbe received wide critical acclaim, heralded by Opera News as “superlative [and] an excellent and irrefutable case for programming this rare work, [with] indelible performances that should count among the finest and most complete interpretations heard in New York this season.” The NY premiere of Prince of Players was praised by The New York Times as “well made and stylish” and for being “delightful, impressive, [and] affecting” in the NY Classical Review. LOTNY’s concerts have included Mozart & Friends live-streamed from St. John’s in the Village, Past & Present: Scenes from American Opera on Governors Island, This Little Light of Mine at Merkin Concert Hall, The Bohemians at Socrates Sculpture Park and Floydiana at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. lotny.org

About Arts at St. John’s in the Village
In addition to the rich and varied program of music presented liturgically, St John’s enjoys a wealth of music and other arts presented in concert, recital, theater, and exhibition. Prior to the pandemic St John’s presented between sixteen and twenty concerts each month, in addition to theatrical performances and art exhibitions, and continues to present concerts by live-stream and webcast of recorded performances, now also with limited in-person audiences.
 
About Musae
Musae is a next-gen mediatech company that enables artists and venues to broadcast live events simultaneously in HD & 360º Virtual Reality, and deliver radically immersive experiences by sending audiences VR headsets with tickets.