DESCRIPTION

PERSONNEL

KEY DATES

PARTICULARS

SCHEDULE

KEY ARTISTS

DESCRIPTION

With music by Wayne Shorter and a libretto by Esperanza Spalding Iphigenia is not an adaptation of the Greek myth as much as it is an intervention into myth-making itself, and an intervention into music and opera as we know it. Classical and jazz forms collide in a full orchestral score that features Shorter’s groundbreaking method of symphonic improvisation, with his venerated quartet at the center. Spalding’s libretto is deeply poetic and then suddenly radical - Iphigenia is multiplied, her identity is fractured and shared until the stage is occupied by a chorus of her.

Iphigenia was born to be sacrificed - or so the Greek myth would have us believe, but what if she contests her fate? What if the winds don’t blow and the sails hang limp in the sea air? Iphigenia stares down the history of opera and makes some demands on its future: No more tragic women singing through suicide and going made in perfect pitch. No more spectacles of women dead and dying. In the end Shorter and Spalding turn their gaze outward beyond the stage: What will we make, they ask, at this precise moment in our collective present when we are so desperately in need of new visions for the world.

KEY DATES

December 2018 - Music Development Workshop, Los Angeles

June 2019 - Workshop #1, Los Angeles

September 2019 - Workshop #2, The Kennedy Center

Spring 2020 - Opera Lab Seminar, Harvard University

Summer 2020 - Virtual Workshop Sessions

Fall 2020 - Design Phase

October 2021 - Rehearsals, Tech, Previews, MassMoCA

November 2021 - World Premiere, Arts Emerson, Boston

December 2021 - Kennedy Center, Washington, DC

January 2022-2023 - TOUR ENGAGEMENTS

SCHEDULE

PERSONNEL

• (9) Principal Singers (Including Esperanza Spalding)

• Wayne Shorter Quartet (3)

• Chorus (14) hired locally

• Chamber Orchestra (29) hired locally

• Additional production and Creatives

TOTAL TRAVEL COMPANY 26-29

Wayne Shorter - Composer

“The greatest living composer in jazz, and one of its greatest saxophonists,” (New York Times) Wayne Shorter has left an indelible mark on the development of music for the last half-century. He first rose to prominence in the late 1950’s as the primary composer for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. He next joined the Miles Davis Quintet becoming what Davis referred to as the ensemble’s “intellectual musical catalyst” before co- founding the pioneering group Weather Report. Since 2001, he has led his own highly acclaimed, Grammy Award-winning Wayne Shorter Quartet.

His works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Lyon Symphony, National Polish Radio Symphonic Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and soprano Reneé Fleming. Mr. Shorter has realized over 200 compositions, dozens of which have become modern standards. His many accolades include 11Grammy Awards and a 2018 Kennedy Center Honor.

Lileana Blain-Cruz - Director

Lileana Blain-Cruz is a director from New York City and Miami. She is a recent recipient of a New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellowship and a 2017 Obie Award for directing The Death of the Last
Black Man in the Whole Entire World at Signature Theatre. Recent projects include Christina Anderson’s Hollow Roots in the Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater, and AGuide to Kinship and Maybe Magic,

a collaboration with choreographer Isabel Lewis and playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at Dance New Amsterdam. She is the co- founder and director of the ensemble company Overhead Projector, which devises new work. She received her MFA in directing from the Yale School of Drama. She received both the Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize and the Pierre- Andre Salim Prize for her leadership and directing. She was an Artistic Associate of The Exchange and The Orchard Project, a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, and an Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow at Arena Stage. She is a graduate of Princeton University.

Frank Gehry - Scenic Design

Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, “the most important architect of our time,” (Vanity Fair) is known for a distinctive visual vocabulary that reflects both the urban vernacular and his long association with contemporary artists. Some of his most iconic designs include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles; the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris; Dancing House in Prague; and 8 Spruce Street in Lower Manhattan.

Gehry’s forays into set design for dance, concert music, and opera extend his unique aesthetic sensibilities to the stage. Designs include Lucinda Childs's 1983 dance Available Light at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, BAM in New York City, and the Theatre de la Ville in Paris; the LA Philharmonic's 2012 production of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni at the Walt Disney Concert Hall; and in 2014, A Pierre Dream, an exploration of the life and career of Pierre Boulez with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall.

Esperanza Spalding - Libretto + Performer

Vocalist/composer/lyricist Esperanza Spalding combines influences and moves between musical worlds, performing and collaborating with the likes of Bruno Mars, Milton Nascimento, Jack DeJohnette, Guinga, George Duke, Janelle Monáe, Herbie Hancock, Prince, Stevie Wonder, and Wayne Shorter. In 2011, Spalding won the Best New Artist Grammy Award for her album Chamber Music Society, an unprecedented achievement by a jazz musician.

Spalding continues to expand the boundaries of her artistry. Her daring 2017 album, Exposure, was written, produced, and recorded in 77 continuous, live-streamed hours. In her ongoing commitment to innovate and make the unprecedented her norm, Spalding brings with her an ever-expanding collage of art and music along with devoted support for education, social justice, and environmental stewardship.

Clark Rundell - Conductor

Renowned for his command of the most intricate and demanding of works, Clark Rundell has established himself as a highly sought-after guest conductor. He works regularly with orchestras and ensembles including all of the BBC orchestras, Britten Sinfonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Ensemble 10/10, and Asko Schoenberg. His conducting in the opera house has included premiere performances of James MacMillan’s opera Clemency at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Orlando Gough’s Voices & Votes at the Bergen International Festival.

Deeply committed to the performance of new music and a specialist in crossgenre collaboration, he has conducted extensive orchestral projects with artists such as Elvis Costello, Wayne Shorter Quartet, Esperanza Spalding, Toumani Diabate, Brad Mehldau, Tim Garland and Gwilym Simcock.

Brian Blade, Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci -

Core Musicians

Members of the Grammy Award-winning Wayne Shorter Quartet, Brian Blade (drums), Danilo Pérez (piano), and John Patitucci (bass) are masters and bandleaders of their own lauded groups. Together, they form “a band of spellbinding intuition, with an absolute commitment to the spirit of discovery [and] an incalculable influence on the practice of jazz in the 21st century.” (New York Times)

COMMISSION PARTNERS

• Cal Performances, The Kennedy Center, Arts Emerson, Carolina Performing Arts, MASS MoCA, The Broad Stage