Aesopera

WEEKEND GUIDE TO THE HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FESTIVAL

by Jordan Rief – Reuters Cultural Correspondent
BLOUINART Inernational Edition

http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/922713/weekend-guide-to-the-hollywood-fringe-festival

LOS ANGELES – The Hollywood Fringe Festival wraps up this weekend after painting the town with two and a half weeks of outrageous theater, music, spectacle, and monologues…Saturday night’s best bet (and Sunday June 30 2013, 1:30 PM- Ed.) is “Aesopera,” five mini-operas based on Aesops fables sung with a comic twist.

Five of Aesop’s fables have been reinterpreted and set to music in Jonathan Price’s AESOPERA Billed as a pentaptych chamber opera – fancy language for a 5-part sung-through performance – AESOPERA is presented with minimal yet elegant staging by Kirk Arnold Smith and Alison Eliel Kalmus, that highlights Price’s luscious music and the intriguing emotions of its stories.

Beginning with The Inventor & the Riddle, a dramatic piece in which a man asks the Oracle of Delphi (singing in glorious 3-part harmony) for the secret of how to build a flying machine only to change his mind when the price of success becomes too high, Jeffrey Stackhouse gives a compelling performance as the Inventor, with Miguel Vargas as his Son. Libretto is by Price and Jan Michael Alejandro.

In The Fisher & the Wishes, a poor fisherman receives three wishes from Lady Fortune but finds you can’t please everyone when he accidentally brings...

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LYRIC THEATER
& Alison Eliel Kalmus
Present

A World Premiere of an Award Winning, Critically Acclaimed New Work

ÆSOPERA

Music – Jonathan Price
Libretti – Jeff Goode, Jan Michael Alejandro & The Composer

Music Direction – Leonardo Sciolis & Hannah Yi
Stage Direction – Alison Eliel Kalmus & Kirk Arnold-Smith
Technical Direction – Chad Parker

LOVE! WAR! GODS! FROGS!
Tragedy strikes and comedy ensues when a young Queen learns that with great power comes great controversy. A poor fisherman is granted three wishes, but that may not be enough for two daughters. A lion sacrifices his claws for love. An inventor tries to outwit fate, and amphibian voters e...