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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. 

"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

"An alluring sound world" -The Wall Street Journal

“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.

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