Critical mass Critical mass

Light streamed through the stained-glass windows of the Space at Irondale, once a church, during the Saturday matinée of Heather Christian’s Terce as part of the Prototype Festival.

on January 23, 2024 at 9:00 AM
A post-electric opera A post-electric opera

Two months ago, when climate activists interrupted a performance of Tannhaüser at the Met, the banners they unfurled from the balconies announced, “no opera on a dead planet.”

on January 22, 2024 at 9:00 AM
Venite adoremus Venite adoremus

The beginning of Mary Kouyoumdjian’s Adoration is marked by silence. The young Simon, played by Sammy Ivany, lies on his stomach, scribbling in a notebook.

on January 18, 2024 at 9:00 AM
The school for music lovers The school for music lovers

Angel Island seemed a piece with two simultaneous goals: to musically interpret the poetry of Angel Island detainees and to educate its audience on the history of Asian and particularly Chinese immigration to America.

on January 15, 2024 at 9:00 AM
The world is treating me bad The world is treating me bad

We constantly wonder whether the young man will embrace him—or slit his throat.

on January 10, 2023 at 1:36 PM
Dad flawed Dad flawed

Du Yun is the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of Angel’s Bone. Her new opera, In Our Daughter’s Eyes, a one-act monodrama for bass-baritone and an orchestra of six, opened the current tenth Prototype Festival, in a performance at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, starring erstwhile Met regular Nathan Gunn.

on January 10, 2023 at 1:18 PM
How stable everything appears How stable everything appears

Plink. A marble drops into a bowl. A brief yelp from glass, and a dozen, a hundred, a thousand years pass. Eventually the bowl is full of marbles, each one a tiny globe.

on January 09, 2023 at 5:37 AM
Well, maybe next year Well, maybe next year

For a number of reasons including a surge in COVID cases, PROTOTYPE Festival has canceled its Winter 2022 season.

on January 04, 2022 at 12:05 PM
The newest normal The newest normal

A nonstop flow of COVID related announcements from New York City performing arts organizations has swept the city the past weeks.

on December 30, 2021 at 12:00 PM
All about my moth All about my moth

The performance of an opera, indeed, seems almost a third narrative, atop the dreamer under the scientific microscope and the larva turning into a butterfly, and the mingling is not always clear—but then, clarity never seems to be the intention.

on January 16, 2021 at 1:24 PM
The ties that bind The ties that bind

Like everyone reading this, I imagine, I’ve missed going to see and hear something in person more than I thought possible.

on January 14, 2021 at 12:00 PM
On the beach On the beach

The immediate and personal catastrophe interleaves with the general and universal and ancient.

on January 13, 2021 at 1:00 PM
Times after times Times after times

Despite the ongoing pandemic and the political upheaval, the Prototype Festival is back, and it is bigger and more accessible than ever before.

on January 11, 2021 at 9:25 AM
You aren’t any good to me dead You aren’t any good to me dead

The Murder of Halit Yozgat by Ben Frost and Petter Ekmann is flavorsome in its use of sound, vocal and otherwise, to explore the elements of the story, to keep you tied in, and guessing.

on January 11, 2021 at 8:54 AM
Pandelirium Pandelirium

We live in a time of open-season for jokes on ancient myths, mixing and matching, sometimes with great success, as The Book of Mormon and Hadestown demonstrate.

on January 19, 2020 at 5:41 PM
Body and soul Body and soul

Ultimately, the unrelenting grimness of the subject matter allied to the sameness of the vocal writing made for a wearying evening.

on January 19, 2020 at 5:27 PM
The ancient mourner The ancient mourner

Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero is a dance-music-theater piece that Prototype Festival presented at the Joyce Theater through Saturday night.

on January 19, 2020 at 5:09 PM
A radical participatory platform A radical participatory platform

The opera’s radical vision lay in its enormous scale, which encompassed a hundred-strong community chorus taken from the ranks of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Master Voices.

on January 15, 2020 at 10:42 PM
Refraction Refraction

I’m only now coming up for air after a night spent wading in the deep, cool, refractory waters of Magdalene, a work of immense, mythic joy and pain wrapped in the details of the ordinary.

on January 15, 2020 at 10:06 PM
The moon and I The moon and I

Composer Garrett Fisher and librettist Ellen McLaughlin’s Blood Moon wears its themes on its sleeve to great success in this spellbinding new opera.

on January 12, 2020 at 12:33 PM
Knock on wood Knock on wood

Cellist Leah Coloff’s one-woman cabaret act ThisTree finds its place among a lineup of Prototype Festival miniatures this week that seem to plumb the depths of womanly distress.

on January 10, 2019 at 9:00 AM
Borderlines Borderlines

While 4.48 Psychosis is an intricately-crafted, deeply moving portrait of human agony, Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance lacks the creative clout to realize its artistic ambitions.

on January 07, 2019 at 4:06 PM
Trauma queens Trauma queens

Though barely a week old, 2019 has already provided New Yorkers with an essential, breathtaking music drama focusing on two women struggling for their very survival.

on January 07, 2019 at 12:08 PM
Take this ‘Job’ and stage it Take this ‘Job’ and stage it

There is some difficulty in describing just what IYOV the musical occasion is—and I’ll take refuge in calling it a musical work in the current PROTOTYPE Festival.

on January 17, 2018 at 1:56 PM