Guerilla Opera’s Encore Series Continues with “Gallo” by Rome Prize-Winning Composer Ken Ueno

BOSTON, MA (March 20, 2021) — How do landscape and human kind transform and shape each other, and which came first?... Guerilla Opera gets wild in exploration to find out the answer to the age-old “chicken or the egg” question. The ensemble continues their “Encore Series” in April with the 2014 world premiere production of GALLO, a fable in music in one act. With music and libretto by award winning Ken Ueno and stage direction by Sarah Meyers (Metropolitan Opera), GALLO investigates how the landscape and humankind affect one another. The experimental opera is sung in English, Latin, and “Chickenese” and is 90 minutes in duration.

Mix and mingle using the chat message board “virtual lobby,” open one hour before the Live Watch Party on Friday, April 23, 2021 at 8:00 PM EDT or access it On Demand from Saturday, April 24th through Sunday, May 16th until 9:00 PM EDT on the STELLAR platform. Virtual admission is $15.00, which is also available through the STELLAR platform at https://www.stellartickets.com/o/guerilla-opera/events/gallo-a-fable-in-music/

Gallo, a Fable in Music

Music and libretto adaptation by Ken Ueno

Stage direction by Sarah Meyers

Live Watch Party

Friday, April 23, 2021, 8:00 PM EDT

Video on Demand

Saturday, April 24, 2021 - Sunday, May 16, 2021, 9:00 PM EDT

Gallo is an untamed, experimental opera that was an immersive, interactive experience for the live audience. The theatre was transformed into a boardwalk bordering beach comprising Cheerios, which represents a container for memories. Performed in the round, this opera is “rich in inspiration” (The Boston Globe) and features soprano, now Artistic Director, Aliana de la Guardia in a Houdini box filled with cheerios and countertenor Douglas Dodson in a chicken costume.

With tons of accessible digital programming the Guerillas are ready, willing and able to bring transformative experiences to Boston and beyond!

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WHO WE ARE

In daring performances Guerilla Opera has garnered a national reputation for innovative contemporary opera with The Boston Globe raving that “radical exploration remains the cornerstone of everything it does.” This Boston-based, artist-led ensemble’s mission is to immerse audiences in profound experiences through the creation of custom-tailored new works. The Guerillas commission and reenvision new and experimental works, and champion cutting-edge music. They provide a vehicle for diversity, equity, inclusion, and creative authenticity. They inspire, influence and amplify emerging generations of artists and arts-lovers. Their vision is to ferociously confront the status quo, eschew antiquated and stereotypical traditions of the art form, examine stories through diverse and contemporary lenses, and bring new music to new audiences. (guerillaopera.org)

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

A recipient of the Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize, Ken Ueno, is a composer/vocalist/sound artist who is currently a Professor at UC Berkeley. Ensembles and performers who have championed Ueno’s music include Kim Kashkashian and Robyn Schulkowsky, Wendy Richman, Greg Oakes, BMOP, Alarm Will Sound, Steve Schick and SFCMP, and Frances-Marie Uitti. His piece for the Hilliard Ensemble, Shiroi Ishi, was featured in their repertoire for over ten years. Another work, Pharmakon, was performed dozens of times nationally by Eighth Blackbird during their 2001-2003 seasons. As a vocalist, Ueno invents bespoke techniques and has performed as soloist in his vocal concerto with orchestras in Boston, New York, Warsaw, Vilnius, Bangkok, Sacramento, Stony Brook, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina. His sound installations have been featured at MUAC (Mexico City), Beijing, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Shenzhen Bienniale, and Art Basel. A monograph CD of Ueno’s three orchestral concertos was released on the Bmop/sound label. In 2014, Guerilla Opera premiered his chamber opera, Gallo, to critical acclaim. Ueno holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and his bio appears in The Grove Dictionary of American Music. http://kenueno.com

Sarah Meyers is a stage director, author and scholar who enjoys questioning how, where and what opera should be. In 2018, she directed the premiere of Gregg Kallor’s Dramatic Sketches from Frankenstein in the catacombs at Green-Wood Cemetery, as part of the performance series, The Angel’s Share. The production received rave reviews and was declared one of WQXR’s standout performances of 2018. Operawire described the performance as “riveting … an extraordinary experience” and Limelight extolled Meyers’s direction as “perfectly finessed…. Powerful and meticulous.” This collaboration with Kallor built upon their previous success with his monodrama, The Tell-Tale Heart (produced with On Site Opera) which took place in a crypt. The NY Observer’s James Jorden declared that “starkly simple production” to be “one of the most effective stagings I’ve seen.” In 2016, Meyers began working with Lesley Karsten and Stephen Wadsworth on That’s Not Tango, an unorthodox monodrama about Astor Piazzolla told through text and music. She directed the show’s performances for Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2019. Meyers is also the author of a new translation and adaptation of Die Fledermaus, most recently performed by MassOpera. ARTSFUSE described the translation as “a major feat… blow[s] the dust off a creaky antique.”

She has been a valued member of the directing staff at the Metropolitan Opera since 2006, and holds a PhD in Theatre from Columbia University. Upcoming engagements include a new production of Tom Cipullo’s opera Glory Denied for the Berkshire Opera Festival.