Opera Philadelphia is continuing to reimagine some of the most classical pieces to bring new audiences to the show.
The company is readying “The Seasons,” a new interpretation of the Antonio Vivaldi’s string masterpiece “The Four Seasons” to the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts from Dec. 19-21. It is the first time Opera Philadelphia has been back at the Perelman since 2019. Tickets are available at www.operaphila.org.
“If you take Vivaldi too squarely or classically, it’s going to feel wrong,” said director Zack Winokur. “Collaborations like this one bring you to places you wouldn’t get to alone. In the rehearsal room, we seek to get into each other’s business but also get out of each other’s way.”
The opera is an exploration of the connection between weather and emotion with a new story by Tony-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl that weaves together some of Vivaldi’s most stirring arias with excerpts from his masterpiece.
With additional arias and ensembles by the composer, woven into a new libretto, “The Seasons” features a cast of six singers and six dancers, with Grammy-winning countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo in his first Opera Philadelphia starring role since being named general director and president.
“The Seasons” imagines a world whose weather is turned upside down. In this innovative production, a group of contemporary artists embark on a rural retreat to reconnect with nature and hone their crafts. The harmony they seek, though, is disrupted by extreme weather events that reshape their lives and their work.
The narrative serves as a meditation on the interplay between current climate realities, Vivaldi’s celebration of the natural world through music and, as Ruhl said, “the emotional weather we experience inside ourselves.”
Costanzo said he was creatively inspired by the “incredible arias from rarely performed Vivaldi operas and thinking about how to weave the narrative and emotions they depict into a new story.” He and Ruhl hit upon the idea of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” as connective tissue for the piece.
“Those concerti create a sort of synesthesia,” Costanzo said, “in which Vivaldi was thinking about what it sounds like to feel cold or hot, to see a bird or feel a breeze.”
The set is designed by Mimi Lien, in collaboration with MIT Media Lab Design & Materials technologist Jack Forman.
Their set is formed largely from bubbles, creating ephemeral weather effects using a sustainable alternative to traditional wood and steel construction.
Crafted from water and soap mixtures, and treated with a variety of processes, the materials take on various forms to evoke rain, smoke and snowy mountains. Forman has developed specialized soap formulas and built new machinery to animate and manipulate his unique substances.