On Saturday, August 6 at 8:30 p.m., the New York City Opera returns to Phoenicia with its production of Verdi’s tragic romantic masterpiece La Traviata, with music director/principal conductor Constantine Orbelian at the helm. Such a treatment of Mozart’s version of the classic tale of a compulsive seducer will provide interesting follow-up for audiences who caught the gender-swapped adaptation of Molière’s Dom Juan that was performed at Bard SummerScape earlier this summer. With sets and costume designs by Tasos Protopsaltou and art by Lolita Valdeerrama Savage, the production celebrates 1990s Spanish-style kitsch, with design nods to cinematographer Pedro Almodóvar and Cuban bolero singer La Lupe - not to mention a definite LGBTQ-subculture vibe, says Todaro. Enjoying a picnic on the grounds of the Phoenicia International Festival of The Voice. David Bloom conducts and Stefanos Koroneos directs a vocal cast including Rick Agster, Christiana, Joe Lodato, Clara Luz Iranzo, Eric McKeever, Samuel Ng, Alexandra Razskazoff and Madison Zahorsky, accompanied by young artists from the Camerata Bardi Vocal Academy. Teatro Grattacielo performs Don Giovanni on the Festival’s outdoor stage on Saint Ursula Place in Phoenicia on opening night, Friday, August 5 at 8:30 p.m.

But the experience was so wonderful that they decided to come back this year!” By June, things were opening up, so we shifted the entire machine back to Phoenicia. So, we invited the New York City Opera and Teatro Grattacielo, thinking we’d give the artists an opportunity to work and let them keep all the proceeds. “When we were planning it in April and May, all the theaters were closed. and only the second in the world.Īccording to founder/director Maria Todaro, 2021 started out looking like it might be the same story, but it also seemed like a rare opportunity to bring in some high-level performers who weren’t able to get work in the City. It was the first drive-in opera ever in the U.S. A literal drive-in production of Tosca at Tech City in Kingston -performed live, but with the audience sitting in parked cars - was the solution for the summer of 2020, when COVID was at its lethal peak. Now in its lucky 13th year, the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice returns to its home turf this weekend, August 5 to August 7, following a rocky couple of years when organizers had to rack their brains to come up with innovative presenting strategies ensuring that the show would indeed go on.

The voice returns its voicey