The Los Angeles Philharmonic and The Industry drew acclaim last year for their co-production of Young Caesar, Lou Harrison’s depiction of Caesar’s love for another man. The production was directed by Yuval Sharon, The Industry’s founder/director, and the LA Phil’s Artist-Collaborator. The digital album was recorded live with the LA Phil New Music Group at Walt Disney Concert Hall and will be digitally released February 2, 2018, on The Industry Records.

Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times described the performance: “Sharon, in conjunction with his opera company, The Industry, mounted a fanciful, visually stunning, endearingly mercurial, marginally risqué, momentarily over-the-top and ultimately touching production. The LA Phil New Music Group, conducted by Marc Lowenstein in the final Green Umbrella program of the season, was sensational, revealing layer upon layer of sheer musical gorgeousness capable, from the first bars, of lifting the spirits.”

Harrison’s magnum opus explores the early life of Julius Caesar with a sublime and sinuous, percussion-rich depiction of his love for another man. The Industry’s new 90-minute performance edition fuses Harrison’s original gamelan-inspired orchestration with his later, lush orchestral writing.

Young Caesar has suffered a turbulent fate in large part due to its unabashed subject matter: the patrons of the 1971 Pasadena premiere withdrew their support in protest of the openly gay story, and an aborted production for the Lincoln Center Festival in Harrison’s lifetime has left the opera in crucial need of a high-profile presentation. Subsequent revisions up until Harrison’s death in 2003, including the addition of three rapturous arias from his late musical style, has made this opera a summation of Harrison’s musical ideas throughout his career. That the opera has struggled so long to receive a performance worthy of its place in Harrison’s output — and of his role in shaping 20th century American music — is one of the vital reasons for this recording.

Leading the LA Phil New Music Group in this new recording is conductor Marc Lowenstein. The cast includes Bruce Vilanch (narrator), Adam Fisher (Caesar), Hadleigh Adams (Nicomedes), Nancy Maultsby (Julia), Delaram Kamareh (Cornelia), and Timur Bekbosunov (Dionysus), and also features dancers, along with men of the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Young Caesar

The recording was produced and mastered by Jesse Lewis, a Grammy award winning producer who has worked with artists such as the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma, Los Angeles Philharmonic, A Far Cry, Brooklyn Rider, ETHEL, Roomful of Teeth, and The Knights.

Included with the digital download is a robust 25-page booklet illustrated with images from the live performance. It includes a synopsis, and essays by: Yuval Sharon (director), Robert Gordon (librettist), Marc Lowenstein (conductor), and critic John Rockwell.

Please note this recording contains mature content.

Experimental opera producer/director Yuval Sharon, the LA Phil’s new Artist-Collaborator, directs Lou Harrison’s sublime and sinuous, percussion-rich depiction of Caesar’s love for another man. After its scandalous 1971 premiere at Caltech, this new performance edition fuses Harrison’s original gamelan-inspired orchestration with his later, lush orchestral writing.

ARTISTS

LA Phil New Music Group

The Industry

Marc Lowenstein, conductor

Yuval Sharon, artistic and stage director

Robert Gordon, libretto

Danny Dolan, choreographer

Christopher Kuhl, lighting designer

Daniel Selon, costume and puppet designer

Kaitlyn Pietras, projection design and illustration

Jason H. Thompson, projection design and illustration

Delaram Kamareh, Cornelia

Shannon Knox, design associate and puppet fabricator

Eva Soltes, creative consultant

Christine Marie, shadow puppetry designer

Emily Franz, puppet fabricator

Heidi Tungsten, puppet fabricator

Adam Fisher, Caesar

Hadleigh Adams, Nicomedes

Bruce Vilanch, Narrator

Nancy Maultsby, Julia

Timur, Dionysus

Andrew Pearson, dancer

Austin Westbay, dancer

Raymond Ejiofor, dancer

Malachi Middleton, dancer

Drew Hinckley, dancer

Men of the Los Angeles Master Chorale

Grant Gershon, artistic director

Digital Release Only:

You can also hear it in full on You Tube: Click Here

The post Bruce Vilanch Narrates The Lush Opera, Harrison: Young Caesar (Live) -Just Released In Digital Form – Please Read About This Incredible Project first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

The 14th Annual New York International Fringe Festival has announced its 2010 season lineup, which will feature 197 international theatre companies in Lower Manhattan and nationally.

Many famous personalities will be skewered in several of the Festival plays. MacChin: The Lamentable Tragedy of Jay Leno, written and directed by Zachary Stewart, will cast the benighted late-night television host in a spin on Shakespeare’s infamous “Scottish play.” Eric Zambrano’s fantasy piece Marilyn Monroe: Wouldn’t It Be Tomorrow has the movie goddess and one-time husband Joe DiMaggio pursuing imagined lovers.

Just in Time: The Judy Holliday Story, written and directed by Bob Sloan, will feature “appearances” by Orson Welles, Katharine Hepburn, Gloria Swanson, and other theatre and film stars in the life of Holliday, the comic singing actress of Bells Are Ringing, Born Yesterday, and many films. Writer Patricia Loughrey and composer Thomas Hodges examine the late gay politician and activist Harvey Milk in Dear Harvey.

The widely diverse array of artistic offerings will include shows inspired by the Muslim experience, Shakespeare and LGBT issues, as well as plenty of musicals and other unique performance pieces. The festival will run August 13-29.

Emma Barash, Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz and Steve Wargo will offer Jurassic Parq: The Broadway Musical, a re-envisioning of the popular film from the dinosaurs’ perspectives, directed by Pailet. Platinum, a revival of the 1978 Bruce Vilanch-William Holt-Gary William Friedman musical about a former screen star who makes a comeback with a rock band, will also appear in the festival, directed by Ben West and choreographed by Rommy Sandhu.

Divya Palat’s A Personal War: Stories of the Mumbai Terror Attacks (which Palat will also direct) will theatricalize the stories of survivors from the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. Norwiegan-Muslim comedienne Shabana Rehman will talk about her immigration experiences in For Kingdom and Fatherland.

Matt Salderelli’s Getting Even with Shakespeare, directed by Laura Konsin, will pit five of Shakespeare’s great tragic heroes against each other in a bar. Julius Caesar: The Death of a Dictator, from the Gangbusters Theatre Company, will reimagine Orson Welles’ staging of Shakespeare’s political drama with Metallica music.

Singapore’s transsexual activist Leona Lo will tell her story in Ah Kua Show, directed by Richard Chua. Steven Fales (Confessions of a Mormon Boy) will discuss the gay Mormon experience again in Missionary Position, based on his work as a missionary in Portugal. Historic homophobic incidents will be explored in Stan Richardson’s Veritas (directed by Ryan J. Davis), about the Harvard “Secret Court” anti-gay witch hunt; and The Twentieth-Century Way (written by Tom Jacobson and directed by Michael Michetti).

For the complete list of productions, more information on them and to order tickets (beginning July 23), visit fringenyc.org. Tickets may also be ordered at (866) 468-7619.

The post FringeNYC 2010 Season Will Platinum, a revival of the 1978 Bruce Vilanch-William Holt-Gary William Friedman musical first appeared on We Got Bruce!.