No Exit is a one-act chamber opera by Andy Vores based on the 1944 existentialist play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The opera was commissioned by Boston's Guerilla Opera and had its world premiere, on April 24, 2008, at the Boston Conservatory's Zack Box Theatre. [1]
Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, 24 April 2008 | Chicago Opera Vanguard Cast, 16-18 October 2009 | Florida Grand Opera Cast, 27 & 28 February, 1 March 2014 | Project Blank Cast, 9-11 June 2023 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Estelle | soprano | Aliana de la Guardia | Susan Nelson | Riley Svatos | Mariana Flores-Bucio |
Inez | mezzo-soprano | Leslie Ann Leytham | Caitlin McKechney | Caitlin McKechney | Leslie Ann Leytham |
Garcin | tenor | Michael Rausch | Matthew Newlin | Casey Finnigan | Miguel Zazueta |
Valet | baritone | Peter D. Weathers | Peter D. Weathers | Carlton Ford | Jonathan Nussman |
The opera was written for Boston's Guerilla Opera and had its world premiere, directed by Sally Stunkel, on April 24, 2008, at the Boston Conservatory's Zack Box Theatre. [1] The opera had its second production by Chicago Opera Vanguard October 16–18, 2009 in the Hoover-Leppen Theater at the Center on Halsted. [2] No Exit received its third production with Guerilla Opera, directed by Nathan Troup, on September 19, 2013. No Exit was performed on February 27, 28 and March 1, 2014 as a part of Florida Grand Opera's Unexpected Operas in Unexpected Places initiative, designed to bring lesser-known operas to unique venues throughout South Florida.
Most recently, No Exit received its west-coast premiere by Project Blank June 9-11, 2023 at Bread & Salt in San Diego, California. This fifth production was directed by Robert Castro. [3]
No Exit is a 1944 existentialist French play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The play was first performed at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in May 1944. The play begins with three characters who find themselves waiting in a mysterious room. It is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked into a room together for eternity. It is the source of Sartre's especially famous phrase "L'enfer, c'est les autres" or "Hell is other people", a reference to Sartre's ideas about the look and the perpetual ontological struggle of being caused to see oneself as an object from the view of another consciousness.
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe and a libretto by Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe. Based on the novel of the same name by Gaston Leroux, it tells the tragic story of beautiful soprano Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious but disfigured musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House.
The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets is a self-billed "musical fable" in the avant-garde tradition created through the collaboration of theatre director Robert Wilson, musician Tom Waits and writer William S. Burroughs. Wilson, in the original production, was largely responsible for the design and direction. Burroughs wrote the book, while Waits wrote the music and most of the lyrics. The project began in about 1988 when Wilson approached Waits. The story is based on the German folktale "Der Freischütz", which had previously adapted as an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. It premiered at Hamburg's Thalia Theatre on 31 March 1990, and was performed at Paris's Théâtre du Châtelet on 9 October 1990. November Theatre produced its world English-language premiere in 1998 at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival in Canada. Det Norske Teatret in Oslo staged a Norwegian (Nynorsk) version in 1998, with Lasse Kolsrud as Pegleg. Only the dialogue was translated by the dramaturg and key collaborator of the entire creative process, Wolfgang Wiens; the songs were performed in English.
Nilo Cruz is a Cuban-American playwright and pedagogue. With his award of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Anna in the Tropics, he became the second Latino so honored, after Nicholas Dante.
Colin Graham OBE was a stage director of opera, theatre, and television.
Robert Woodruff is an American theater director.
William Gormaly Ball was an American stage director and founder of the American Conservatory Theater (ACT). He was awarded the Drama Desk Vernon Rice Award in 1959 for his production of Chekhov's Ivanov and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1965 for his production of Molière's Tartuffe, starring Michael O'Sullivan and René Auberjonois. He was also a noted director of opera.
Mary Zimmerman is an American theatre and opera director and playwright from Nebraska. She is an ensemble member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company, the Manilow Resident Director at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, and also serves as the Jaharis Family Foundation Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University.
Amanda Forsythe is an American light lyric soprano who is particularly admired for her interpretations of baroque music and the works of Rossini. Forsythe has received continued critical acclaim from many publications including Opera News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe.
Jack O'Brien is an American director, producer, writer and lyricist. He served as the Artistic Director of the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California from 1981 through the end of 2007.
Seán Curran is an American dancer and choreographer. Curran's dance company, the Seán Curran Company is based in New York City.
Andy Vores is a Welsh classical music and opera composer. He has lived in the United States since 1986 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Freshwater is a two-act chamber opera composed by Andy Vores, based on the 1935 comic play by Virginia Woolf. Vores received assistance in creating the opera from Quentin Bell, Woolf's nephew and executor, who provided a rarely seen earlier version of the text that served as the inspiration for several passages of the libretto.
John Joseph Braham was an English-born American musical theater conductor and composer who introduced the works of Gilbert and Sullivan to the United States and composed some of the earliest original orchestral scores for silent film.
Say It Ain't So, Joe is a chamber opera in two acts by Curtis K. Hughes inspired by text drawn from the public record of the 2008 United States vice-presidential debate where vice presidential candidate Joe Biden is addressed by Sarah Palin in a similar manner as the famous quote referring to Shoeless Joe Jackson. Commissioned and produced by Guerilla Opera, Say It Ain't So, Joe premiered in Boston on September 19, 2009 at the Boston Conservatory Zack Box Theater.
Guerilla Opera is an opera company in Boston, Massachusetts founded in 2007 specializing in accessible contemporary chamber operas, several of which have been commissioned by the company. In 2010, its Artistic Directors were Mike Williams and Rudolf Rojahn, its General Manager was Aliana de la Guardia and its director of design and production was Julia Noulin-Mérat. Guerilla Opera performed in the Zack Box Theater at the Boston Conservatory, where it is a resident ensemble. As of 2018, its Artistic Directors are Julia Noulin-Mérat and Aliana de la Guardia. Guerilla Opera performs in Boston.
Gil Rose is the founder and conductor of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), founder and General-Artistic Director of Odyssey Opera, Artistic Director of Monadnock Music Festival, Professor of Practice at Northeastern University, and Executive Producer of the record label "BMOP/sound."
Carey Elizabeth Perloff is an American theater director, playwright, author, and educator. She was the artistic director of American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco from 1992 to June 2018.
James Maddalena is an American baritone who is chiefly associated with contemporary American opera. He gained international recognition in 1987 when he originated the role of Richard Nixon at the premiere of John Adams's opera Nixon in China at Houston. He has since reprised the role on many occasions, and recorded it for the Nonesuch Records release of the opera in 1987. In addition to Maddelena's role as Nixon, he has originated two other Adams characters: the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic. He has also performed roles in the premieres of operas by Paul Moravec and Stewart Wallace among other American composers.
The Virtual Stage is a professional multimedia theatre company based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 2000 by Artistic Director Andy Thompson, The Virtual Stage focuses on the investigation of emerging technologies in theatre and often utilizes cinematic techniques and elements of film in its live productions.