New stages
The Huntington Theatre Company made more announcements last week than a public-school principal: a capital campaign; the unveiling of plans for its two new South End theaters; and the 2003-2004 season. The capital campaign, which is entering its public phase, is a $19.7 million effort to be conducted in two phases. The goal of the first is $16.5 million, $12.7 million for the new theaters and $3.8 million for endowment. In the second phase, the company will seek another $3.2 million in endowment. If that sounds like a lot, bear in mind that the Huntington has already raised $8.3 million toward the $16.5 million goal, in a "leadership" phase that garnered substantial gifts from Huntington trustees. John Hancock Financial Services committed $250,000. And the Huntington’s chairman of the board, J. David Wimberly, wrote a very big check — big enough that the larger of the two new theaters is to be named the Virginia Wimberly Theatre, in honor of his wife. Already the 360-seat proscenium stage is being referred to as "The Ginny."
The Ginny and its as yet unnamed companion theater, a 200-seat studio space, are to be part of a new Theatre Pavilion encased in the Druker Company’s Atelier 505 condominium development adjacent to the Boston Center for the Arts. Described by Huntington managing director Michael Maso as essentially "a very large condo," the complex is scheduled to open in the fall of 2004. The Druker Company will provide the "shell and core" of the theater spaces; the handsome interior designs, the work of the Boston architectural firm Wilson Butler Lodge, were unveiled at the announcement of the capital campaign. The Huntington will finance the realization of these designs (hence the campaign); the City of Boston, which in 2000 committed $3 million dollars to site preparation, utility infrastructure, and streetscaping, is also a partner in the project.
The Huntington will share scheduling and use of the theaters with the BCA and its resident companies (currently, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Súgán Theatre Company, Pilgrim Theatre, and the Theater Offensive). It plans to utilize the new theater spaces for the commissioning and development of new work. According to artistic director Nicholas Martin, the venues are of a size sadly lacking in the Boston area and "the perfect venue for the premiere of new works, a dream of mine." The troupe, he said, has already commissioned plays not just from established playwright Jon Robin Baitz, the recipient of the first Stanford Calderwood Commission for New American Plays, but from "playwrights you never heard of." Presumably they’re young, since another goal of the company is to attract a younger crowd in order to ensure what Martin calls "the longevity of a theatergoing audience."
The Huntington has also announced its 2003-2004 season at the Boston University Theatre, where it has been resident since 1982. This includes the world premiere of Baitz’s commissioned work, The Paris Letter, to be directed by Jonathan Kent. About "a Wall Street powerhouse whose personal and professional lives begin to crumble as the secrets of his past come to light," it’s described as "at once an exhilarating mystery and insightful exploration of the forces of money and sex." Baitz is the author of, among other works, The Substance of Fire, and Ten Unknowns.
Also on the Huntington schedule is Ain’t Misbehavin’, the infectious 1978 revue compiled by Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby Jr. of tunes by the great jazz musician Thomas "Fats" Waller. Darko Tresnjak will direct Joe Orton’s anarchic 1969 farce built on sex and psychiatry, What the Butler Saw. In conjunction with Broadway in Boston/Clear Channel Entertainment, the Huntington will present Sir Peter Hall’s Royal Theatre of Bath production of As You Like It at the Wilbur Theatre. And Martin will direct Tennessee Williams’s lyrical and tempestuous 1951 work The Rose Tattoo, the original Broadway production of which starred Maureen Stapleton as a Sicilian-American widow looking for love. The 1955 film starred Anna Magnani; no word on who Martin has in mind. One production on the Huntington docket remains to be announced. For subscription and ticket information, call (617) 266-0800 or visit www.bu.edu/huntington/.
Teatro Lirico d’Europa 2003-2004
This Bulgarian-based international opera company, which has brought very creditable productions of Turandot, Nabucco, Butterfly, and Boris Godunov to Boston over the past few years, has had a frustrating way of slipping into town unadvertised. So we’re happy to be able to give you next season’s schedule well in advance, especially since the company is making two trips to the opera-poor (in numbers, if not quality) Hub. Mozart’s Don Giovanni will be presented September 23 through 27 at 7:30 p.m. and September 28 at 2 p.m. Then Teatro Lirico will return in the spring with two Verdi operas, La traviata, March 22 through 24 at 7:30 p.m., and Rigoletto, March 26 through 28 at 7:30 p.m. All three productions are fully staged, with a full orchestra and chorus, and sung in Italian with English supertitles; all three will be presented at the renovated Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont Street in the Theater District. Tickets are $15 to $68.50; call (800) 233-3123 or visit www.telecharge.com.
Is June "Opera Month" in Boston?
Well, we haven’t had a proclamation yet from Mayor Menino, but for opera buffs who can’t wait till September, the beginning of June is shaping up very nicely. First up is Chorus pro Musica, whose annual opera-in-concert presentations have been well received. This year’s offering is La traviata, with Marcie Ley as Violetta, Yeghishe Manucharyan as Alfredo, and Jason Stearns as Germont. That’s Sunday June 1 at 3 p.m. at Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street. Tickets are $25 to $55; call (617) 267-7442. The following weekend, Boston Academy of Music and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project will team up for "Opera Unlimited," a week of contemporary chamber operas. The world premiere of Daniel Pinkham’s Poe-based The Cask of Amontillado will be presented on a bill with his Garden-of-Eden opera Garden Party, June 5 at 8 p.m. and June 8 at 2 p.m. Elena Ruehr’s Toussaint Before the Spirits (about an 18th-century slave rebellion) will appear on a bill with John Harbison’s A Full Moon in March, his gorgeous and mysterious setting of the Yeats play, June 7 and 10 at 8 p.m. And on June 6 and 8 at 8 p.m., we’ll get Powder Her Face, about the scandalous Duchess of Argyll, by the young British hot shot Thomas Adès. All performances are at Massachusetts College of Art’s Tower Auditorium, 621 Huntington Avenue in the Fenway; Tickets are $19 to $30, or $51 to $81 for a festival pass; call (617) 242-7311. Finally, there’s Die schöne und getreue Ariadne, the centerpiece of this year’s Boston Early Music Festival & Exhibition. First performed in Hamburg’s Theater-am-Gänsemarkt in 1691, this opera, with music by Johann Georg Conradi and libretto by Christian Heinrich Postel, was considered lost for some 200 years, until the manuscript was discovered in the Library of Congress in 1972. This production, in collaboration with the Handel & Haydn Society Chorus, will be stage-directed by Drew Minter, with Karina Gauvin as Ariadne, Dorothee Mields as Phaedra, and Howard Crook as Theseus. Performances, at the Majestic Theatre, are June 9 (open dress rehearsal), 10, 11, 13, and 14 at 7 p.m. and June 15 at 3:30 p.m. Tickets are $40 to $115 ($35 for the dress rehearsal); call (800) 233-3123 or visit www.maj.org or www.telecharge.com.
Chorus pro Musica, meanwhile, has announced its 2003-2004 season. It will open on October 24 with Brahms’s Liebeslieder Walzer; that’s at 8 p.m. at Old South Church, in Copley Square. On December 11, the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth, CpM will perform Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ, with Gigi Mitchell-Velasco as Mary, John Ames as Herod and the Father, David Kravitz as Joseph, and Rockland Osgood as the Narrator. That’s at 8 p.m. at the Mission Church, 1545 Tremont Street in Mission Hill. The season-ending opera-in-concert presentation will be Boito’s Mefistofele, with Raymond Aceto in the title role, Allan Glassman as Faust, and Michele Capalba as Margherita and Elena. That’s May 23 (2004) at 3 p.m. in Jordan Hall. For ticket information, call (617) 267-7442.
Free South Pacific!
You might think that after its ambitious "Opera Unlimited" collaboration with BMOP, Boston Academy of Music would be taking the rest of summer off. Instead, it’s teaming up with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and Boston National Historical Park to present three free outdoor performances of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific at the World War II destroyer USS Cassin Young in the Charlestown Navy Yard. Three years ago, BAM presented Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore in front of (and occasionally on) the USS Constitution; the popularity of that production led to this one. The performances will take place August 8, 9, and 10 at dusk (immediately following the United States Navy’s traditional Evening Colors ceremony aboard the Constitution at approximately 8:15 p.m.). There’s no public parking at the Charlestown Navy Yard; audiences are encouraged to take public transportation (Community College on the Orange Line or North Station on the Green) and if possible bring a lawn chair. For more information, call (617) 242-0055.
Globe Jazz Fest addsMe’Shell Ndegéocello
Not to be outdone in the free-concert department, the Boston Globe Jazz & Blues Festival 2003 has just added Me’Shell Ndegéocello to its June 22 grand finale. She’ll kick off the proceedings at 2 p.m., followed at 3:30 by Arturo Sandoval and his full Latin band and then at 5 by the Herbie Hancock Quartet, with Terri Lynn Carrington on drums, Scott Colley on bass, and Gary Thomas on saxophone. That’s at the Hatch Memorial Shell on the Esplanade; call the festival hotline at (617) 929-8756 or visit www.boston.com/jazzfest.
Fleet customer?Free museum admission!
There’s more that’s free if you’re a FleetBoston customer: as part of its "Museums on Us!" program, FleetBoston Financial is providing free admission to participating museums and other cultural institutions throughout the month of May. All you have to do is show your Fleet ATM, debit, or credit card. What’s more, the participating institutions include the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, the Museum of Science, and the Children’s Museum in Boston; the Danforth museum of Art in Framingham; Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth; Mass MoCA in North Adams; the Portland Museum of Art; the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester; the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford; the RISD Museum in Providence; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For more information, visit www.fleet.com/museums.
