Elizabeth Fischborn (center, seated) and Stephanie Washington (in red) rehearse with other cast members for the upcoming production of “Postcard from Morocco.” TOM GILBERT/Tulsa World
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
Tulsa Opera will make its second foray into modern American opera when it presents Dominick Argento’s “Postcard from Morocco,” a one-act chamber opera, 2 p.m. Sunday at the Philbrook Museum of Art.
Members of the Tulsa Opera Studio Artists will make up the cast of this humorously surreal work about seven very different people who happen to be waiting in a train station, and who each are very much concerned about their individual possessions.
The opera, composed in 1971 to a libretto by John Donahue, was Argento’s first success. Since then, Argento has written a number of operas, including “The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe” and “The Aspern Papers,” based on the novella by Henry James and created for mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade.
When “Postcard from Morocco” was staged by the Juilliard School’s American Opera Center in 1985, critic Tim Page of the New York Times said that it “belongs to a proud American tradition: It is an opera … that has no clearly discernible plot but makes its effect through a powerful series of images and inferences.”
Page added that though it might be difficult to say what the opera is “about,” it effectively portrays a number of ideas, “among them confusion, human cruelty, a clash of cultures and the mixture of pain and perception that go into the making of an artist.”
Tulsa Opera general director Kostis Protopapas, who will conduct the performance, said: “It’s a very different kind of piece, for the audience as well as the performers. The best way to think of it is as making a complete break with the everyday world for about 90 minutes, forget about logic and stories that follow straight lines, and just submerse yourself in this very surreal little world.”
Tulsa Opera’s production is directed by Stanley M. Garner, whose last production for the company was last season’s “Norma.” Mark Armstrong will be the pianist.
Karl Hedlund, a native Oklahoman who has performed several times with Tulsa Opera and LOOK Musical Theatre, joins the current Tulsa Opera Studio Artists – Sara Louise Petrocelli, James Callon, Stephanie Washington and Wayne Hu – along with former studio artist Jonathan Moots and Elizabeth Fischborn, who will be a studio artist for the 2012-13 season.
This is the second collaboration between Tulsa Opera and Philbrook. Last season, the company staged Leonard Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti” at the museum.
Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, available at the Tulsa Opera ticket office, 1610 S. Boulder Ave., by calling918-587-4811 or at tulsaworld.com/tulsaopera
Original Print Headline: Tulsa Opera to present humorously surreal work
