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Spoleto Festival USA 2008 Program Announcement
For Immediate Release, January 2008 http://www.spoletousa.org/
The 2008 Spoleto Festival USA Features Remarkable Spectrum of Artists, Compelling New Work, and a Newly Renovated Performance Space
2008 Highlights Include:
* The premiere of a newly revised version of Anthony Davis's landmark opera Amistad performed in Charleston's newly renovated Memminger Auditorium
* The American premiere of the spectacular Monkey: Journey to the West by Chinese director Chen Shi-Zheng and Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, the British team behind the award-winning virtual band, Gorillaz
* Bold Programming in the Carolina First Dance Series including Festival debuts of Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Compagnie Heddy Maalem Donna Uchizono Company and Shantala Shivalingappa
* Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company's The Burial at Thebes
* Laurie Anderson's newest work, Homeland
* Flutist Paula Robison with Brazilian musicians Romero Lubambo and Cyro Baptista in the Wachovia Jazz Series
* The return of the Festival Finale Concert to Middleton Place's Butterfly Lakes
* Plus Much More
Charleston, South Carolina -
For the 32nd year, Spoleto Festival USA has scheduled one of the most dynamic and comprehensive performing arts celebrations in the United States to be held May 23 through June 8, 2008. Over this 17-day period, artists and ensembles from around the world perform over 45 productions in a spectacular program of some 140 performances. In addition, the newly renovated Memminger Auditorium will finally take its place as one of Charleston's premier venues. Tickets for the 2008 Spoleto Festival USA are on sale now.
Spoleto Festival USA will present two very different operas: a new production of Anthony Davis's landmark opera Amistad in a revised version commissioned by the festival to be presented in the newly renovated Memminger Auditorium; and Gioachino Rossini's delightful opera buffa, La Cenerentola. Theatrical offerings of the 2008 season include: The Burial at Thebes, Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney's acclaimed adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone produced by Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company;artist/activist Marc Bamuthi Joseph's the break/s, a compelling exploration of the global influence of the hip-hop generation; and the American premiere of Monkey: Journey to the West, Chen Shi-Zheng's high-octane "circus opera."
Other 2008 festival highlights include the North American premiere of French- Algerian choreographer Heddy Maalem's explosive Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring); a pair of concerts featuring the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra accompanied by guest artists African-American wind quintet Imani Winds and pianist Andrew von Oeyen; the American premiere of the innovative Dutch theater collective Hotel Modern with their "live animation film" The Great War; the return of the Wachovia Jazz series featuring a roof-raising evening of Jazz Goes to Church and the American debuts of Italian saxophonist Stefano Cocco Cantini's quartet and Brazilian pianist Heloísa Fernandes; and the acclaimed world-class Boston Ballet in a program embracing styles from neo-classicism to the latest in contemporary choreography.
For the first time in its history, the festival opens with a pre-opening celebration as the newly renovated Memminger Auditorium hosts the premiere of the revised Amistad on Thursday, May 22. A cultural center for Charleston in the forties and fifties, Memminger Auditorium fell into disuse after the opening of the Gaillard Auditorium in the late sixties. After years of neglect, this unique performance space has been reconfigured as a flexible black-box theater that will be used by Spoleto Festival USA and other Charleston community groups throughout the year. A special reopening celebration is scheduled for Thursday, May 22, culminating in a post-performance street party for the entire audience.Memminger Auditorium will also host the Bank of America Chamber Music series and Laurie Anderson's Homeland during the 2008 festival.
OPERA
Composed by Anthony Davis with a libretto by the award-winning writer Thulani Davis, Amistad first premiered at the Chicago Lyric Opera a decade ago and has not been seen since. At the time of its premiere, some called the opera too large. Festival Music Director Emmanuel Villaume and General Director Nigel Redden invited Anthony Davis to revise the piece to make the important story of Amistad come alive in a theatrically and musically vital way. The story of the slave ship Amistad, captured by the Coast Guard off the coast of Long Island in 1839, and the subsequent trial of the captives found on the ship form the basis of this story whose central characters include the gods of Africa who lose their power as the coast of America nears. Davis, whose musical palette includes jazz, R&B, gospel and African as well as European classical music, has created a score that paints the anguish of the captives, the mystery and trickery of the gods and the final release of freedom. Director Sam Helfrich who last worked at the Festival in 2003 and whose most recent production of Philip Glass's Orphée at Glimmerglass Opera was described by The New York Times as "haunting...a rich, complex and challenging experience," has envisioned Amistad as an intimate experience in which audience members will sit on both sides of the performance space only feet from the singers. Amistad will be conducted by Emmanuel Villaume, Spoleto Festival USA's Music Director for Opera & Orchestra.
The festival plans numerous ancillary events linked to Amistad including performances of other works by Davis on the Intermezzi and Music in Time series; artist talks and roundtables at the Avery Center; a walking tour of sites related to African American history in Charleston and screenings of related films at the Charleston Public Library. Amistad is sponsored by American Express with additional support provided by The Brand Foundation and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.
When Gioachino Rossini premiered La Cenerentola in Rome in 1817, it proved to be far more successful than his Barber of Seville which had premiered only a year before.In Rossini's retelling of the Cinderella story, there are neither fairy godmothers nor glass slippers. Instead Rossini turns the story into one of mistaken identities, subterfuge and, of course, true love. Cinderella's troublesome family (namely those nasty stepsisters) become delicious comic figures adding wonderful bits of humor to this hugely entertaining production. Director Charles Roubaud, well known to Spoleto Festival USA audiences for his shimmering Lakme in 2003 and a rollicking production of Ariadne auf Naxos in 2004, works this time with video artist Gilles Papain whose enormous images will reinforce the psychological complexities of this delightful work. The Italian conductor Matteo Beltrami will conduct the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra. La Cenerentola is sponsored by BMW Manufacturing Co. Spoleto Festival USA opera programming is endowed by the Arthur and Holly Magill Foundation.
MUSIC THEATER
Monkey: Journey to the West is the quintessential music theater of the 21st century: a score that deftly blends western popular music with Chinese instrumentation, a cast of singers, martial artists and acrobats from China, a director steeped in western and eastern forms, and a designer whose credits include comic books and video games. In Monkey, animation dovetails with live performance by some 36 Chinese acrobats and 10 principal singers with flying rigs and literally hundreds of costumes accompanied by a chorus and an orchestra that includes violins, pipa, and a car-horn machine.
The story of Monkey derives from a 16th-century Chinese epic that tells of the Monkey King's exploits in heaven and his eventual punishment by the Jade Emperor, the king of heaven, followed by the journey of a pilgrim monk who travels from China to India to secure the writings of Buddha, a journey on which he is assisted by the Monkey King and which is actually based on an historical journey that happened some 1400 years ago.
Called "simply a piece of musical theater of the most spectacular kind," by The Times of London, Monkey is the remarkable brainchild of an international team of three innovative artists: Chinese director Chen Shi-Zeng, whose Peony Pavilion achieved great success at the 2004 Spoleto Festival USA and the British artists behind the award-winning animated band Gorillaz, Damon Albarn (composer) and Jamie Hewlett (visual concept and animation.) A huge success at its premiere at the Manchester International Festival earlier this year and subsequent performances at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, this electrifying and utterly unforgettable "circus opera" now makes its American premiere at Spoleto Festival USA.
THEATER
UK-based Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company will present its critically acclaimed The Burial at Thebes outdoors in the evocative setting of the live oaks of the Cistern at the College of Charleston. Nobel Prize-winning Irish Poet Seamus Heaney's fresh translation of Sophocles' Antigone gives the tragic heroine of antiquity a compelling and accessible twenty-first-century voice in this most timeless of all the dramas of ancient Greece. The Times of London declared The Burial at Thebes "engrossing to watch and to listen to" while BBC.com called the play "thought provoking and powerful" in this fast-moving production directed by Lucy Pitman-Wallace. The Burial of Thebes is sponsored by Delta Airlines, the official airline of Spoleto Festival USA, with additional support from the British Council.
Considered an exciting new presence on the contemporary British theater scene, London-based cabaret ensemble 1927 swept the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe Festival awards, including the prestigious Carol Tambor award for their ingenious Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Essentially a series of quirky vignettes performed by Suzanne Andrade and Esme Appleton and incorporating pre-recorded film with live piano accompaniment, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is a delightfully macabre blend of fairytale and silent-movie homage.
Ingeniously incorporating the medium of video into their work is Dutch theatre ensemble Hotel Modern. In The Great War, the brutal Western Front comes alive through seemingly innocuous figurines and everyday objects. Suddenly, a forest of tiny objects looms enormously on a screen; stalks of parsley become a beautiful wood only to be burned down in a moment of frantic combat. The poignant letters home of a nameless soldier are woven into an ingenious soundscape accompanying what has been described as a "live animation film."
Actor and activist Marc Bamuthi Joseph has forged a national reputation for eloquent works that seamlessly mesh movement and verse. In his newest piece, the break/s, Bamuthi views the globalization of hip-hop through a multi-media lens. Drawing on source material which includes interviews with notable figures of the movement and documentary footage filmed throughout the world, and using a call-and-response format between performer and projected image, two on-stage DJs and a VJ collaborate with Joseph to create multiple layers of meaning.
Also known as an activist but of a decidedly different stripe is Taylor Mac, something of a legend in downtown New York performance art circles. A self-described pastiche artist who eludes easy categorization, Mac offers up a spicy blend of stream-of-consciousness dialogue, original songs accompanied by ukulele - all while clad in jaw-droppingly fabulous drag regalia. His latest show, The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac, dishes out wry and incisive commentary on everything from politics to matters of the heart. The Sydney Daily Telegraph calls the show "moving... hilarious...touchingly unique...much more than a drag show." The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac will be performed late-night in the Emmett Robinson Theater.
CAROLINA FIRST DANCE SERIES
The Festival's 2008 Carolina First Dance Series zig-zags across continents and traditions, providing audiences with a remarkable opportunity to view work from some of today's most impressive dancemakers. From the delicate filigree tracings of Shantala Shivalingappa to the sweeping movement of Andonis Foniadakis's Selon Désir for Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève to the spiky energy of Brake the Eyes from Boston Ballet's provocative Finnish resident choreographer Jorma Elo, this year's dance offerings are uncommonly bold and varied.
The dance series gets off to a crackling start with the dancers of Boston Ballet in an imaginative program that showcases both their charm and high level of technical skill. George Balanchine's timeless Concerto Barocco provides an intriguing contrast to Twyla Tharp's pulsating In the Upper Room, both to be performed to live accompaniment by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. Rounding out the program is Brake the Eyes by the company's resident choreographer, the widely acclaimed young Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo.
Lauded as "one of the most original and inventive in Europe," Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève will make its Spoleto Festival USA debut under the direction of Philippe Cohen in a triple bill showcasing three international choreographers, all of whose work is widely celebrated overseas yet rarely seen in this country - Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara's Para-Dice is a beautiful meditation on paradise; and Sidi Larbi Cherkouai's Loin is a witty behind-the-scenes look at life on the road from a dancer's perspective. The program will close with Andonis Foniadakis' Selon Désir, a bold struggle between earthbound bodies and heavenly aspirations set to the soaring choruses of Bach's St. Matthew and St. John Passions. Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève is sponsored by the City of Isle of Palms.
French-Algerian choreographer Heddy Maalem is another European choreographer with little exposure on this side of the Atlantic. Maalem and his ensemble of fourteen highly distinctive dancers from across Africa will make their US debut with Maalem's explosive Le Sacre du Printemps. Widely heralded across Europe, Maalem's Sacre was inspired by time the choreographer spent in Lagos and contains some of the furious and edgy energy of that city, further enhanced by evocative video projections by Maalem's close collaborator Benoit Dervaux. This Sacre du Printemps is the final work in a trilogy of dances by Maalem which includes Black Spring and L'Ordre de la Bataille.
Also making her US debut at Spoleto Festival USA is the Indian performer/choreographer Shantala Shivalingappa, a former dancer with the renowned choreographer Pina Bausch. Born in India and raised in Paris, Shivalingappa was trained as a dancer from a young age by her mother, the dancer Savitry Nair. While dancing with Bausch, she pursued a solo career performing kuchipudi, an ancient South Indian classical dance form that melds rhythmic and abstract dance with the precise stylized narrative aspects of expressive dance. Shivalingappa will offer three performances of Gamaka, an entrancing solo program with live accompaniment by five highly virtuosic musicians. Shivalingappa's performances in the Emmett Robinson Theatre will be sponsored by Sherman Capital Markets, LLC.
Donna Uchizonois among the most innovative contemporary choreographers on the downtown dance scene in New York. Hailed as "a choreographer making great leaps forward into the 21st century" by Ms. Magazine, Uchizono is known for work spiced with wit and rich invention. In State of Heads, her terrific ensemble of dancers creates a strong world of endearingly odd characters while the award-winning Low, a sensual and "inverted" tango inspired by everything from African dance to the Tobas Indians of Argentina, displays Uchizono's sophisticated approach to weight and partner dynamics. Additional support for the 2008 Carolina First Dance Series is provided by the Harkness Foundation for Dance.
MUSIC
Bank of America Chamber Music Series
Long associated with the Dock Street Theatre, the Bank of America Chamber Music Series will temporarily decamp to the newly renovated Memminger Auditorium while the Dock Street Theatre undergoes its own renovations. Led by the inimitable Charles Wadsworth, Spoleto's Artistic Director for Chamber Music, the series will once again offer a total of 33 concerts of eleven distinct programs over the 17-day period. In keeping with festival tradition, the actual program will not be announced until the day of show. Newcomers to the 2008 series include the Bosnian-born pianist Pedja Muzijevic, tenor Paul Grove, and bassoonist Peter Kolkay. Returning artists include the young cellist Alisa Weilerstein, who was recently identified in The New York Times as "one of five outstanding young artists poised for a breakthrough" along with pianist Stephen Prutsman, flutist Tara Helen O'Connor, violist Daniel Phillips and the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Arthur and Holly McGill Quartet in Residence. Additional support for the Chamber Music Series is provided by the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation.
Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra Concerts
Recently hailed by The New York Times as "an extraordinary ensemble," the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra is central to the international excellence of performance at Spoleto Festival USA. Music Director for Opera & Orchestra, Emmanuel Villaume, will lead the Festival Orchestra in two concerts at the Gaillard Auditorium. The orchestra's first program will feature the classically trained Grammy-nominated African-American quintet Imani Winds in composer David Newman's Concerto for Winds. "Gregarious, subtle and intensely alert...the Imani Winds capture the spirit of each work through loving and brilliant playing" declares Gramophone Magazine. Also on this program is Brahms' voluptuously radiant First Symphony. This concert is sponsored by South Carolina Bank and Trust.
The renowned American pianist Andrew von Oeyen has garnered a fervent following - both nationally as well as amongst festival audiences - for pure and focused playing. He returns to Charleston to tackle Bartók's technically challenging and musically rewarding Piano Concerto on the second orchestra concert. The evening of early 20th-century classics will also include Debussy's La Mer, a moving work evoking the power of the sea and all its moods and Stravinsky's evergreen Firebird Suite. The concert will be sponsored by NBSC.
Festival Finale Concert
The Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra will also command center stage at the annual Festival Finale at Middleton Place Plantation. In response to popular demand, the concert will once again be performed in the elegant setting of the Butterfly Lakes at Middleton Place. The gates of Middleton Place will open at 3:30pm the day of the finale. Patrons are encouraged to arrive early to picnic or explore the gardens and grounds before descending to the Butterfly Lakes for a twilight concert followed by a spectacular fireworks display over the Ashley River. The Festival Finale is sponsored by Wachovia.
Westminster Choir
Under the baton of Spoleto's distinguished Artistic Director for Choral Music, Joseph Flummerfelt, the Westminster Choir and the Charleston Symphony Orchestra Chorus will once again join forces with the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra in a program featuring Beethoven's masterful yet infrequently performed Mass in C. Also on the program is a rarity - Brahms' Nänie - and Haydn's magnificent Te Deum. The 40-voice Westminster Choir will once again offer a pair of a cappella concerts at the Cathedral Church of St Luke & St Paul conducted by Westminster Choir College's Director of Choral Activities, Joe Miller.
Music in Time
Spoleto Festival USA Artistic Associate John Kennedy is rightly hailed for his adventurousness in bringing work from many of today's leading composers and emerging talents to the Music in Time series. Highlights of the 2008 series include a concert of recent compositions by Amistad composer Anthony Davis including his concerto You Have the Right to Remain Silent with clarinet soloist J.D. Parran. On another Music in Time concert, the African-American wind quintet Imani Winds will perform work composed for them by Justinian Tamusuza and Kenji Bunch. Other composers to be performed on the series include Somei Satoh, Christopher Theofanidis, John Kennedy and Ingram Marshall. There will also be a water-themed program with Anthony Davis's Still Waters and Tan Dun's visual and aural delight Water Music, where water itself serves as the musical instrument. Morton Feldman's rarely performed For Philip Guston, a sublime four-hour homage to the abstract expressionist painter, will bring the series to a close.
Intermezzi Series
The 5:00pm Intermezzi concerts create the perfect musical bridge between afternoon and evening performances. Set in the serene surroundings of St. Matthew's Lutheran Church and featuring chamber ensembles drawn from the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, the 2008 Intermezzi series will offer such musical delights as the original version of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Suite, written for 13 instruments; Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) conducted by Olivier Reboul; the spectacular "Orphic Memories" by composer Ingram Marshall and a lively vocal recital featuring singers from the cast of Amistad including bass-baritone Gregg Baker performing selections from Porgy and Bess. The Intermezzi Series is sponsored by NBSC.
Homeland
One of the seminal American artists of our time, Laurie Anderson brings her newest work Homeland to the stage of Memminger Auditorium. Accompanied by a crack ensemble of musicians, Anderson offers a series of stories and songs that create a poetic and political portrait of contemporary American culture, the current climate of fear and the obsession with information and security in America today. The score features many of the melodic forms developed through Anderson's recent work with new electronic systems and is sonically the most sophisticated Anderson production to date. Homeland is sponsored by Charleston Place.
Carolina Chocolate Drops
A band of three young African-American string players, the Carolina Chocolate Drops have been widely heralded as leading a revival of traditional African-American string music. The Chocolate Drops honed their skills under the tutelage of octogenarian fiddler Joe Thompson, said to be the last black traditional string band player. An impressive touring and recording schedule, including work on the new Denzel Washington film, The Great Debaters, has led to significant renown for the young trio, furthering the recent resurgence of interest in old-time string band music.
Wachovia Jazz
The Wachovia Jazz series will again present established jazz artists alongside younger artists making their US debuts in various venues ranging from the atmospheric outdoor setting of the Cistern at the College of Charleston to the intimacy of the 260-seat Recital Hall.
The series will feature a number of female performers in 2008 including the African-American vocalist Paula West. Accompanied by the George Mesterhazy Quartet, the San Francisco-based singer will perform two nights in the Cistern over opening weekend. Highly respected for her creative and smart interpretations of classic jazz standards, West is considered one of the most engaging and promising jazz talents performing today. AllAboutJazz.com says "Paula West's voice is dark, rich and powerful and seems to wrap itself around a song and slide into all its crevices."
The classical flutist Paula Robison, well-known to Spoleto Festival USA audiences for her work with the chamber music series, will display another side of her significant talents in a dynamic concert with Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista and guitarist Romero Lubambo. This one-of-a-kind collaboration, to be performed outdoors in the Cistern, beautifully captures the rich musical traditions of Brazil through this melding of choros, chorinos, bossa nova and Bach.
Also hailing from Brazil is pianist Heloísa Fernandes. A consummate interpreter of the works of Brazilian composers, her arrangements for solo piano are a rare blend of dynamic energy and lyrical sensitivity. Fernandes' Spoleto Festival USA performances will be not only her American debut but also her first appearances outside Brazil.
Another artist making his US debut at the Festival is the Italian saxophonist and composer Stefano Cocco Cantini, Part of a community of Italian musicians who are creating their own fresh new approach to jazz, Cantini is a true student of melody.
Accordionist Daniel Mille has developed a sound that is at once quintessentially French and universal. Mille's trio with Eric Seva (saxophone) and Eric Longsworth (cello) will make their American debut at the Festival.
Like many African-American musicians, pianist Cyrus Chestnut began his life in music in the church and its influence in his career has remained strong. With his trio and special guests Carla Cook (vocals), James Carter (saxophone), and the Wycliffe Gordon (trombone), Chestnut explores the relationship between the sacred and the secular in an evening entitled Jazz Goes to Church.
Called "undoubtedly one of the most stimulating percussionists on the planet," by Jazz Review, Gerry Hemingway, who also performs in the Amistad orchestra, will offer a concert of solo percussion blended with electronic sampling to bring the Wachovia Jazz series to a brilliant close.
SPOLETO FESTIVAL USA'S PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Conversations With
Spoleto's popular Conversations With series features a series of public conversations with festival artists moderated by the Emmy Award-winning CBS News correspondent Martha Teichner. Guests on the 2008 series include Amistad composer Anthony Davis and librettist Thulani Davis; Laurie Anderson and Dutch theatre collective Hotel Modern; the creative team of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea; and performer Taylor Mac.
Spoleto at the Avery
In continuing partnership with Spoleto Festival USA, the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture will host workshops, programs and public conversations with festival artists including numerous events connected to the Festival's production of Amistad.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Memminger Celebration
Spoleto Festival USA will celebrate the reopening of Memminger Auditorium with an elegant pre-opera black-tie dinner at the historic Riviera. The opening night performance of Anthony Davis's Amistad will follow at the newly rehabilitated Memminger. Following the performance, the entire audience is invited to partake of dessert and champagne under the stars.
2008 Opening Weekend Gala
The Opening Weekend Gala sponsored by Wachovia will toast the 32nd season of Spoleto Festival USA. Guests will begin their night with either the Monkey: Journey to the West or a performance by the Boston Ballet. Pre-dinner cocktails and a lavish seated dinner will follow at the Gaillard's Exhibition Hall, and the evening will conclude with dancing to Nashville's Paul Ross and the Kadillacs.
SPONSORS
The 2008 Spoleto Festival USA is made possible in part by: Wachovia, Bank of America, Carolina First, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, BMW Manufacturing Co., Post and Courier Foundation, American Express Company, Charleston Place Hotel, South Carolina Parks Recreation and Tourism, City of Charleston, South Carolina Arts Commission, Arthur and Holly Magill Foundation, Christel DeHaan Family Foundation, The Charles E. and Andrea L. Volpe Charitable Trust, County of Charleston, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Bloomberg, The Brand Foundation, The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, City of Isle of Palms, The Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust, Delta Air Lines (the official airline of Spoleto Festival USA), First Citizens, Merrill Lynch, Sherman Capital Markets, LLC, South Carolina Bank and Trust, and STEALTH Concealment Solutions, Inc.
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets range from $10 to $150. To purchase tickets, visit www.spoletousa.org or call (843) 579-3100. Tickets may be purchased in person at the Spoleto Festival USA Box Office in the Gaillard Auditorium, 77 Calhoun Street, beginning Monday, April 14, 2008.
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