by Jarrett Hoffman
During the Civil War, writer Mary Chesnut — the wife of a senator and Confederate officer — kept a diary where she recorded significant moments in the conflict, wrote about the state of Southern society, and revealed secret feminist and abolitionist views.
She worked to revise the diary as a book, but died nineteen years before its eventual publication under the name A Diary from Dixie. Writers and historians continued to study the text as they discovered more of her papers, and the work’s staying power was affirmed when a 1981 annotated version won the Pulitzer Prize for History.
That woman’s perspective on the Civil War will now make its way to the opera stage. On Friday, June 15 at 7:00 pm at Cleveland Public Theatre’s James Levin Theatre, ContempOpera/ Cleveland will present the premiere of Mary Chesnut by Steven Mark Kohn, composition faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Soprano Andrea Anelli will take the title role in this production directed by Marla Berg and featuring Lorenzo Salvagni at the piano. [Read more…]
With a mission to “give a voice to the composers of our time,” the latest addition to Northeast Ohio’s opera scene, 
With a mission to “give a voice to the composers of our time,” the latest addition to Northeast Ohio’s opera scene, 
With characters like Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois, its setting in the French Quarter of New Orleans in the 1940s, and its subplots of sensuality, delusion, and madness, Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire makes it a shoo-in for operatic treatment. Composer André Previn and librettist Philip Littell took that task on in 1995, and Cleveland Opera Theater chose their adaptation of Streetcar for its second show at the Masonic Performing Arts Center, mounting a production that was admirable for its ambition and impressive in its results. 
Steeped in desire, passion, and deceit, it’s no wonder that Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire eventually found its place on the opera stage. On Friday, December 4 at 7:30 pm in Masonic Auditorium, Cleveland Opera Theater will present the Ohio premiere of composer André Previn’s and librettist Philip Littell’s 1995 opera based on Williams’ iconic play. The production will be repeated on Sunday, December 6 at 3:00 pm. (Left, Previn conducting the L.A. Philharmonic in 1986).
Opera Per Tutti, founded by Andrea Anelli in 2006, made the bold announcement in December of 2014 that it would re-brand itself as Cleveland Opera Theater. The change was made with one purpose in mind: to create a sustainable model for an opera company in the 21st century in Cleveland. This is the first of three articles that will examine the many exciting endeavors the company is undertaking to make its vision to reality.