THE NIGHTSONG OF ORPHEUS
by Claudio Monteverdi
in partnership with THEATRE NOHGAKU
performed in English and Japanese
September 9-25th
Claudio Monteverdi, the father of opera, most likely wrote his famed “Orpheus - A Fable in Music” and his iconic “Vespers” in the same year. As a new creation blending together these towering masterpieces, THE NIGHTSONG OF ORPHEUS connects the first opera still performed with the oldest theatrical forms still practiced. Collaborating with Japanese Noh specialists from Theatre Nohgaku, this one-of-a-kind performance weaves together haunting baroque melody, poetry, and dance, with the ancient masked musical and dramatic tradition from Japan. At its center is the immortal myth of love, loss, and the power of music. An orchestra of baroque musicians, a cast of seven thrilling local vocal-actors, and Theatre Nohgaku’s legendary performers bring this new work, performed for the first time in Japanese and English, to life. Join the second weekend of performances and journey to the underworld yourself at the magical Dupont Underground!
Directed and Conducted by Timothy Nelson
Design by Paul Callahan & Deb Sivigny
Tony Boutté as Orpheus (excl. 9/10mat, 9/17, 9/23)
with the INnovātiō Baroque Orchestra
ALSO FEATURING
Aryssa Leigh Burrs as Speranza and Orpheus ( 9/10mat, 9/17mat, 9/23eve)
Janna Critz as Proserpina
Rob McGinness as Pluto
Oliver Mercer as Apollo (excl. 9/24)
Hunter Shaner as Messaggiera
Cara Schaefer as Speranza (9/10mat, 9/17mat, 9/23eve)
Mara Yaffee as Eurydice
& performers and musicians from Theatre Nohgaku
September 9-11, 2022 | Source Theatre
1835 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20009
Purchase individual tickets for Source
September 16-18, 2022 | Dupont Underground
19 Dupont Cir NW, Washington, DC 20036 (non-ADA accessible seating at this venue)
Purchase individual tickets for Dupont Underground
September 23-25, 2022 | Baltimore Theatre Project
45 W Preston St, Baltimore, MD 21201
Purchase individual tickets for Baltimore Theatre Project
REQUIEM
by Mozart, Vivier, & Boulanger
November 4-20th
There are few masterpieces more moving and memorable than Mozart’s Requiem Mass, left perfectly incomplete at the time of his death. No less powerful is the myth of its composition. Throughout our 40 years, IN Series has performed the mature operas of Mozart many times, many ways, and in many spaces. Now, for the first time ever, IN Series will mount an innovative staged production of the music Mozart left unfinished when he died, while at the same time lifting up the music of two other brilliant and often ignored 20th century composers. French composer Lili Boulanger and Canadian composer Claude Vivier, like Mozart, died before their 36th birthdays, and like Mozart left incomplete death musics of extraordinary beauty and craft. These three musics will be woven together in a staging that recalls Artistic Director Timothy Nelson’s first IN Series production: VIVA V.E.R.D.I. - The Promised End.
Performances will take place throughout Washington, DC, before traveling to Baltimore, each night performed in a different sacred and iconic space in the Nation’s Capital. In this way, every performance is different, a reimagining, a digging deeper. Significantly, it all begins at the Hand Chapel of Mount Vernon College, where IN Series was founded and first performed in 1982.
SPONSOR THIS PRODUCTION
Directed by Timothy Nelson
Musical Direction by Emily Baltzer
Design by Abigail Hoke-Brady & Lawrence E. Moten III
FEATURING:
Oliver Mercer
Teresa Ferrara
Aryssa Leigh Burrs
Gayssie Lug
Daniel J. Smith
Jarrod Lee
November 4 and 13, 2022 | Hand Chapel
2100 Foxhall Rd NW, Washington, DC 20007
November 5, 2022 | First Congregational UCC
945 G St NW, Washington, DC 20001
November 6, 2022 | The Dupont Underground
19 Dupont Circle NW, Washington, DC 20036
November 11-12, 2022 | St. Mark’s Capitol Hill
301 A St SE, Washington, DC 20003
November 18-20, 2022 | 2640 Space
2640 St Paul St, Baltimore, MD 21218
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THE ORDERING OF MOSES*
by Nathaniel Dett
in collaboration with Heritage Signature Chorale
February 4, 5, 11, 2023
In response to the success of our acclaimed 2019 production of L’ENFANCE DU CHRIST, IN Series returns to the nexus of art, faith, and justice with an embodying of Nathaniel Dett’s tremendous oratorio THE ORDERING OF MOSES. Again performed as a community music and theater ritual, surrounding the audience with action and sound, this performance will redefine both the artistic and the spiritual experience. In 1932, Black Canadian composer Nathaniel Dett built his most famous work from the tradition of the African American spiritual. Less than a decade later, the piece would become the central touring work in the repertoire of DC’s National Negro Opera Company, founded by Mary Cardwell Dawson, for whom IN Series’ Cardwell Dawson Artist Fellowship is named. Those performances, traveling to cities throughout America, and attended by legends of the civil rights movement, used this lyrical retelling of the freeing of enslaved Israelites as fuel to fire the quest of justice blazing throughout America.
For this performance, IN Series collaborates with DC’s own Heritage Signature Chorale, the nation’s premiere ensemble celebrating and interpreting the classical spiritual. DC artist Richshaad Ryan creates epic canvases telling at once the classical biblical story, the American story of the quest for equality, and a Washington, DC story of the journey towards justice through faith.
SPONSOR THIS PRODUCTION
Conducted by Stanley Thurston
Directed by Jarrod Lee & Timothy Nelson
*Only included in the Washington, DC subscription; can be added to the Baltimore subscription package
February 4, 5, 11, 2023 Surprise Sacred Venue in the heart of Washington, DC
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I WAS LOOKING AT THE CEILING AND THEN I SAW THE SKY
by John Adams
Texts by June Jordan
April 14-30th
At long last IN Series premieres a new production of composer John Adams and poet June Jordan’s seminal collaboration I WAS LOOKING AT THE CEILING AND THEN I SAW THE SKY. We make history with this production, as the first new staging of the work since its premiere recording with Broadway legend Audra McDonald. Called by its creators a “song-play”, CEILING/ SKY blends America’s popular music styles with searching poetry of love and the leaning towards justice, while telling the story of seven mix-matched souls that find themselves thrown together during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. This luminous work takes its title from one of the survivors of that disaster, its music from America’s most important living composer, and its text from a poet of uncompromising insistence on beauty. In it, love reveals that there is more to us than what we have come to believe. This production is one of the nation’s not-to-miss opera and theater events this year!
SPONSOR THIS PRODUCTION
Directed by Timothy Nelson
Musical Direction by Emily Baltzer and Dave Chavez
FEATURING:
Judy Yannini
Daniel J. Smith
Shana Oshiro
April 14-16, 2023 | Baltimore Theatre Project
45 W Preston St, Baltimore, MD 21201
April 21, 22, 29, and 30, 2023 | Atlas Performing Arts Center - Lang Theatre
1333 H St NE, Washington, DC 20002
CHUCK & EVA – from The Great American Songbook
after the album “The Other Side” by Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy
A new work by Natalie Hopkinson
June 2-25th
In 1992, the godfather of go-go, DC legend Chuck Brown, and a then unknown Maryland singer named Eva Cassidy created an album of music from the Great American Songbook called “The Other Side.” This is the story of that album, and of the unlikely friendship that developed between these two artists whose lives could not have been more different, but who were bound together by music rising from deep in their souls. In a season that begins with music of long ago and theater from far away, IN Series arrives here at a new work celebrating a DC story of DC music alive and well today.
Some of the DMV’s brightest and boldest vocalists and instrumentalists sizzle and serenade, groove and go deep in the telling of a different kind of tale about the quintessential power of music.
SPONSOR THIS PRODUCTION
June 2-18, 2023 | Source Theatre
1835 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009
June 23-25, 2023 | Baltimore Theatre Project
45 W Preston St, Baltimore, MD 21201
