Gil Rose, the acclaimed founder of Odyssey Opera, will be at the South End library on Wednesday, October 25, at 6:30 PM, to talk about the company's current opera season, Trial by Fire. Its entire performance program this season is based on the tale of Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years' War as interpreted by five stellar composers, including Tchaikovsky, Donizetti, Dello Joio, Honegger and Verdi. He will be joined by South End resident and impresario Randolph Fuller, an opera devotee himself, who still remembers the first opera he attended (Die Fledermaus), when he was nine, at the old Boston Opera House on Huntington Avenue, and that it was conducted by Eugene Ormandy.
Rose wears a number of musical hats, including directing The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), which he founded in 1996, as a venue dedicated to the performance of experimental music; as artistic director of the Monadnock Music Festival in Peterborough, NH; and numerous stints as guest conductor for opera and symphony around the world. Rose and Fuller knew each other from the days of Boston Opera. After its demise in 2012, Odyssey Opera was born. According to Fuller, he and Rose come up with the theme of each season together and are currently working on next season's theme.
Created in 2013, artistic director Rose's quest for Odyssey Opera has been to affirm opera as a "powerful expression of the human experience," one that audiences can relate to our contemporary political and cultural lives. The first --sold-out-- performance of this season at Jordan Hall was The Maid of Orleans by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikowsky; it was described as a "radiant performance" by The Boston Globe. The next four performances will be Gaetano Donizetti's L'Assedio Di Calais on October 26 and 28; Norman Dello Jodio's The Trial at Rouen, December 1; Arthur Honegger's Jeanne D'Arc Au Buecher, on February 17; and Guiseppi Verdi's Giovanna D'Arco on April 5 and April 7. The events will take place at The Huntington Avenue Theatre, Jordan Hall and the Sanders Theatre, respectively.
The South End branch of the Boston Public Library is fully handicapped accessible. The event is free and sponsored by the Friends of the South End Library. We serve refreshments. Seating is limited.