The Perspective Collective Presents: Young Goodman Brown, A Mini-Opera

Overview

The Perspective Collective invites you on a journey into some dark places through Art Song and Opera. These include not only physical spaces, but the capacity for darkness within the self as well. Along the way we’ll encounter a lively graveyard (Camille Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre), a prolific serial killer (Libby Larsen’s The Peculiar Case of H.H. Holmes), a recluse trapped by unsettling visions (Rosśa Crean’s Twilight Lifts the Veil), and a wanderer trying to escape haunting memories (Franz Joseph Hayden’s The Wanderer). At the end of the road, we may encounter the devil himself in the premiere of Stephanie Leotsakos’s Mini-Opera adaptation of Young Goodman Brown. Based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, it is the tale of a pious villager in puritan New England who ventures deep into the woods one night, and discovers a sinister secret that will call into question everything he believes in. Join us – if you dare!

The Perspective Collective

“Each rousing vocalist had dynamic operatic range, reach, and a quietly theatrical éclat. These qualities shined whether attending to foreign language numbers such as the arching, dirgelike melodicism and hurt, blasé lyricism of, respectively, Weill and Maurice Magre on “Je ne l'aime pas”, or to Bowles’s English-language rendition of Gertrude Stein’s note to him, “Letter to Freddy.” - Broad Street Review (The Perspective Collective, Stranger in a Strange Land, Philly Fringe 2017) Since 2016, this chamber ensemble has had a grassroots evolution. Members Erin Brittain, Rachael Basescu, Grant Mech & Patrick Fink have presented recital, cabaret operatic & theatrical works throughout New York City, and along the East Coast including Princeton, Philadelphia & Asheville North Carolina. Their recital concert, Stranger In A Strange Land, performed at the 2017 Philly Fringe Fest, drew praise from the Broadstreet Review, for their “clear and tender renderings” of art song written by and from the perspective of immigrants and refugees. TPC has commissioned and premiered several mini-opera projects. In 2018 the TPC premiered Michael Leibowitz’s, For Love of Country, a dark fable inspired by the real-life story of Maria Buttina, the Russian spy who infiltrated the NRA to influence American politics, to sold out audiences at the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival in North Carolina. In 2020, TPC returned to the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival to premier Pripyat, a one act opera by composer Sunny Knable about the fallout (literally and figuratively) of the 1986 Chernobyl Disaster. Their newest project is Stephanie Leotsaka’s mini-opera adaptation of Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s haunting short story about the mistrust and dark secrets hiding within a pious puritan community.

Credits

Cast - Rachael Basescu: Mezzo Soprano, Erin Brittain: Soprano, Grant Mech: Baritone

Pianist: Akiko Hosaki

Composers - Danse Marcabre: Saint-Saëns, The Peculiar Case of Dr. H. H. Holmes: Libby Larsen, Twilight Lifts The Veil: Rosśa Crean, The Wanderer: Franz Joseph Hayden, Young Goodman Brown: Stephanie Leotsakos