BLOOD MOON
BLOOD MOON
Music by Garrett Fisher
Libretto by Ellen McLaughlin
Directed by Rachel Dickstein
Music Directed by Steven Osgood
Dramaturgy Ken Cerniglia
World Premiere: Prototype Festival, New York City (New York City), January, 2020.
BLOOD MOON is a taut, poetic, opera-theater for three characters who encounter each other on the night of a full moon: a nephew who returns to the mountain top where he left his aunt to die forty years earlier, the ghost of the aunt he abandoned, and the moon that presides over this night of reckoning as it did the night of her death. Inspired by the Noh play OBASUTE, the piece is a meditation on the end of life, the nature of joy, regret, and whether atonement is possible.
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Photo courtesy of Maria Baranova.
Photo courtesy of Maria Baranova.
Photo courtesy of Maria Baranova.
Photo courtesy of Maria Baranova.
"Also confident, in a very different register, was Garrett Fisher’s score for 'Blood Moon,' at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. Mr. Fisher ingeniously transfigured the sound world of classical Japanese Noh drama, with a harmonium making a gently coppery wheeze and the willowy viola da gamba trading off with its more powerful descendant, the cello. Modern metal flutes coexisted with the antique sound of a bamboo flute; traditional taiko drums crashed as punctuation on the action." -The New York Times
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"An alluring sound world" -The Wall Street Journal
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“Riveting, poetic opera theater” -OperaWire
Scenic Design by Susan Zeeman Rogers
Lighting Design by Yuki Nakase Link
Sound Design by Daniel Neumann
Costume Design by Maiko Matsushima
Puppet Deisgn by Erik Sanko
Media Design by Katherine Freer
Cast
Ju-eh/Juecheng Chen, Moon
Takemi Kitamura, Puppeteer/Dancer
Nina Yoshida Nelsen, Aunt
Wei Wu, Nephew
Instrumentalists
Kamala Sankaram, Harmonium
Adam Young, Viola de Gamba/Cello
Isabel Lepanto Gelicher, Flutes
William Hobbs, Piano/Keyboard
Fumi Tanakadate, Taiko/Bamboo Flute
Barbara Merjan, Taiko
Co-presented with Baruch Performing Arts Center in a promotional partnership with Japan Society. Commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects. Additional support provided by the Opera American Repertoire Development Fund.
BLOOD MOON was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.