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David Chesky’s
The Pig, The Farmer, and
The Artist:
An Adult Opera Satire about
Art, Music, and Culture
Opens at the Fringe NYC Festival
August 2010 at the Ellen Stewart Theater at LA MAMA
66-68 East 4th Street
Dates & Times
WED 8/18 @ 8:30
FRI 8/20 @ 4:30
SAT 8/21 @ 2:15
SUN 8/22 @ 2:30
SAT 8/28 @ 7:15
To purchase tickets, visit www.fringenyc.org
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"Chesky is fearless;
he'll venture anywhere if it's funny. Boredom was never an issue in the
two-hour production. I can imagine this being a huge midnight hit."
Bruce Hodges, Music Web International-Opera reviews
“Profane and profound….
a grand, entertaining, hilarious, and highly intelligent evening. As they
say at the Met, Bravo!”
Martin Denton, newyorktheatre.com
"The Pig, The Farmer,
and The Artist is a bit like falling down the famous rabbit hole in Alice
in Wonderland."
Oscar E. Moore, talk entertainment
About the Repertoire
This opera is a biting satire on
our contemporary world. It attacks our present-day cultural malaise tangentially,
making use of 'the pig' allegorically, and, in doing so, mocks and pokes
cruel fun at the inverted values of our materialistic society. In
the tradition of Gulliver's Travels, the composer has attempted
to break through our world's impoverished consciousness and lay bare society's
frantic but ultimately empty pursuit at meaning. It features a cast of
10 singers with a 10-piece chamber orchestra.
Synopsis
To avoid being slaughtered by a
lunatic farmer, Shirley the cow (a former hooker from Amsterdam), and her
transvestite husband, Harvey, escape to New York's East Village, where
they soon become all the rage of the highbrow art scene. Back on the farm,
the Pig gets wind of their fame and follows to seek his artistic fortunes
as well. Will the elitist critics accept the Pig's trendy conceptual art?
Will the psychotic homesteader arrive in time to reclaim his prized hog?
Will swine become the new black? This outrageous Fellini-esque satire superimposes
the world of contemporary music onto the modern art scene, scorchingly
skewering them both.
About David Chesky, music/books/lyrics
Miami-born David Chesky, a three-time
Grammy nominee, is currently composer-in-residence for the National Symphony
Orchestra of Taiwan, where his children’s opera, The Mice War,
is enjoying sold out performances. The opera will tour Asia during the
2010-2011 Season and will also be released on DVD.
David's works span both jazz and
classical genres, and have earned him the distinction of being the only
jazz composer ever to be nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of
Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Also a pianist, David performs
with the Grammy-nominated group The Body Acoustic, an ensemble that performs
a mixture of Latin jazz and 12-tone contemporary classical works. In addition
to working with major classical orchestras, David has performed at the
world-famous jazz club The Village Vanguard, as well as the Newport, JVC,
and Monterey jazz festivals. Besides being a musician and composer, David
is also known worldwide as one of the leaders in the advancement of technological
research on high resolution recording techniques.
About A. Scott Parry, director
A. Scott Parry has garnered critical
praise for his work in both opera and musical theater throughout the United
States. He is currently a stage director on staff at New York City Opera,
but has continuing associations with many other opera companies across
the U.S., including, among others, those of Santa Fe, Dallas, Boston, and
Des Moines. He has served on the School of Music faculty at Indiana University
in Bloomington, and headed the Musical Theatre Faculty at Mesa Community
College in Phoenix, Arizona. Directing highlights have included Il barbiere
di Siviglia for Opera Pacific, La cenerentola for Florida Grand
Opera, and La traviata for Chautauqua Opera. As a librettist, Scott
created an English language adaptation of Beaumarchais' La mère coupable,
which is currently being set to music, and, as a composer, recently
presented the New York premiere of his theatre song cycle based on the
poems of Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
About Anthony Aibel, conductor
Anthony Aibel is known for excelling
in many diverse areas of the arts. He is active as a conductor, composer,
violinist, violist, pianist, actor, writer and editor. Mr. Aibel first
conducted David Chesky's music on the 2006 Grammy-nominated recording Area
31. In 2009, he guest conducted the Los Angeles Youth Orchesta and
founded The Piano Orchestra, a group he works with as conductor, composer
and pianist. He is currently in his seventh year as a writer and editor
for New York Concert Review, and his article on composer Percy Grainger
was published in The New York Times. In 2000, Mr. Aibel was the
conductor for the 10,000th concert of the National Symphony Orchestra at
The Kennedy Center. Mr. Aibel is the co-founder and, from 2001 through
2006, was the conductor, of The Mentoring Orchestra, a group that combined
members of the New York Philharmonic with talented young musicians. Mr.
Aibel is the only Juilliard graduate to have had three majors in music:
conducting, composition, and viola. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at
age 21, and his opera conducting debut at age 24 with Carmen at
the Aspen Music Festival.
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