OPERA FEROCE
... opera that bites!
“Sitting in the front row of an un-air-conditioned church, opera had finally come alive.”
Opera Feroce’s creations pay tribute to the Spirit of the Baroque: lively, inventive, elaborate, and endlessly new. They are the product of a deep respect for the music and performance practice married to a witty, irreverent approach. The “serious chops” of the singers and instrumentalists render these fresh takes on old forms musically satisfying, highly entertaining, and surprisingly sophisticated.
The essence of Opera Feroce is a playful riffing on the musical and dramatic forms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, focusing the Baroque spirit through a very personal, shrewd and somewhat quirky dramaturgical lens. We debuted in August 2010 with Amor & Psyche, a short, staged pasticcio opera set to the music of thirteen Baroque masters. A&P, the staple of our repertoire, has received enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics alike (“a satisfying whole” – The New York Times) for its beautiful singing, strong music-making, and sheer fun. To date, Amor & Psyche has had more than 20 performances in venues ranging from our former home-base Christ Church Cobble Hill (Brooklyn), to such diverse venues as the off-Broadway Abingdon Theatre, the renowned Falcon Jazz Club in Marlboro, NY (for a sold-out audience), and at Columbia University in an ongoing collaboration with the Music Department.
Opera Feroce's work has received memorable reviews, including "wonderfully small" and "magically twisted" (The Traveling Schubert Society), "Opera Feroce's witty staging mixed pathos and bathos" (The New York Times), "their voices blend with the ease and depth of an artisanal latte" (WQXR Operavore), "It is funny, it is touching, and it is thoroughly entertaining" (Woman Around Town), "...I realized I was too busy laughing to look at the program...opera had finally come alive" (Artcards Review).
“Miles away from this uptown glitz, it wasn’t until halfway through the show that I realized I was too busy laughing to look at the program. Sitting in the front row of an un-air-conditioned church opera had finally come alive.”
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