Please Save the Date….

What:
The Industry presents World Premiere of
Crescent City, a hyperopera

Crescent City is a hyperopera by composer Anne LeBaron, widely recognized for her work in instrumental, electronic, and performance realms, and librettist Douglas Kearney, a poet, performer and recipient of the Whiting Writer’s Award. The opera, which incorporates installations by six contemporary LA-based artists, tells the epic story of a mythical city, decimated by one hurricane and on the verge of being wiped off the face of the earth by another, and the voodoo priestess determined to save it. A roving band of revelers spreads chaos throughout the streets of the city, capturing the action of the opera with live video along the way. www.TheIndustryLA.org

When:
Thu. May 10 – Sun. May 27, 2012
Thu. – Sun. for 3 Weeks

– Special Sneak-Peek Reading at the Annenberg Community Beach House – http://www.annenbergbeachhouse.com
– Mon. Feb. 6, 2012

– Performance – Gala Opening Night – Thu. May 10, 2012
– Art Gallery – Opening – Fri. May 11, 2012
– Performance – Closing Night – Sun. May 27, 2012

Where:
Atwater Crossing
3245 Casitas Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90039
www.atwatercrossing.com

Who:
About The Industry –
Founded by Artistic Director Yuval Sharon and Producing Director Laura Kay Swanson, The Industry produces new interdisciplinary work that merges music, visual arts, and performance to expand the traditional definition of opera. The Industry has received support for Crescent City from The Doris Duke Foundation and the generosity of individual supporters.

Crescent City Credits –
Director – Yuval Sharon – www.yuvalsharon.com
Producer – Laura Kay Swanson
Associate Producer – Rachel Scandling
Music – Anne LeBaron – www.annelebaron.com
Libretto – Douglas Kearney – www.douglaskearney.com
Curator – Brianna Gorton – http://briannagorton.otherpeoplespixels.com/home.html

Visual Installation Artists –
Mason Cooley – http://masoncooley.blogspot.com
Brianna Gorton – http://briannagorton.otherpeoplespixels.com/home.html
Katie Grinnan – http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/honigman/honigman8-4-04.asp
Alice Konitz – alicekonitz.com
Olga Koumoundouros – www.vielmetter.com/artists/olga-koumoundouros.html

Set Designer – Sibyl Wickersheimer – www.sawgirl.com
Lighting Designer – Elizabeth Harper – www.eharperdesign.com
Sound Designer – Martin Gimenez
Video Designer – Jason Thompson

Timur & the Dime Museum (photo credit: Sandra Powers)

Cast –
The cast of 18 includes:
Marie Laveau – Gwendolyn Brown – http://www.gwendolynbrown.com
The Good Man – Cedric Berry –  http://www.cedricberry.com/Cedric_Berry/Home.html
Deadly Belle – Timur Bekbosunov – www.theoperaoftimur.com
Homesick Woman – Lillian Sengpiehl – http://tinyurl.com/Robert-Gilder-L-Sengpiehl
Jesse – Anthony Faatolia – http://www.ashleyfaatoalia.com
The Nurses – Maria Elena Altany and Ji Young Yang

More About Crescent City:
Previously featured in workshop performances at New York City Opera’s VOX Festival of new American opera, this massive site-specific production, which audiences will experience in 360 degrees, will be realized in an industrial warehouse space with abstract sets by an extraordinary group of visual installation artists.  At the world premiere, each audience member will be seated in a section of the city – the Cemetery, Swamp, Hospital, Dive Bar, Good Man’s Shack or Junk Heap. They will be able to see and hear the action in every other part of the city through live video streams and sophisticated sound technology.

The production features a live orchestra comprised of The Dime Museum and includes such diverse instrumentation as laptop, chromelodeon, and didjeridu. LeBaron’s hybrid sound world encompasses electronica, bluegrass, jazz, and improvisation.

The installation will function as an art exhibition by day, which transforms into the performance space at night, providing viewers multiple opportunities to engage with the world of Crescent City. “I’m excited by the different ways audiences will be able to experience the work,” says director Yuval Sharon. “Letting imaginations run wild when the space is open during the day should increase people’s curiosity about how the opera plays out by night.”

With every purchase of a ticket to Crescent City, audiences will be provided with downloadable audio program notes and an insider’s guide to the production that is meant to be listened to on the way to the performance space.  These notes are meant to enhance the Crescent City experience and extend the production out into the world.

With a gala opening of the opera on Thursday, May 10, 2012 and gallery exhibition opening on Friday, May 11, 2012, Crescent City will run for three weeks, Thursdays through Sundays, closing on May 27, 2012.

Yuval Sharon –
Yuval Sharon’s directorial work has been described as “magical” (The Village Voice), “ingenious” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “a major event, where surprise sidesteps operatic convention” (Los Angeles Times). He has worked both with international houses like the San Francisco Opera, the Mariinsky Theater, the Bregenzer Festspiele in Austria, and the Komische Oper Berlin, as well as experimental venues like Berkeley Opera, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Deitch Projects. He was assistant director to Achim Freyer on the Los Angeles Ring Cycle. Sharon was Project Director for four years of New York City Opera’s VOX, an annual workshop of new American opera, which became the most important crucible for new opera in the country under his direction.  Sharon will also be directing Jessye Norman, Meredith Monk, and Joan LaBarbara in the John Cage Songbooks this March as part of San Francisco Symphony’s Mavericks Festival at Carnegie Hall.  More information is at http://www.yuvalsharon.com.

Ages –
For 12 and older

Tix –
TBD

Website – www.TheIndustryLA.org
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Industry/124606140952622
Twitter – TheIndustry_LA
YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/user/TheindustryArts

Press Contact:
Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada – 213-840-1201 – lynn@greengalactic.com

The Los Angeles artists creating new installation works for Crescent City are:
1) Olga Koumoundouros (photo credit: Robert Wedemeyer)
2) Katie Grinnan (photo credit: Robert Wedemeyer)
3) Liz Glynn (photo credit: Maryanne Williams)
4) Alice Konitz (photo credit: Gene Ogami)
5) Mason Cooley (photo credit: Josh White)
6) Brianna Gorton (photo credit: Brendan Threadgill)
Please note: Works shown are representative of these artists’ sensibility, though not the actual Crescent City installations.