by Stephanie Manning
Asked at the post-concert talkback about her musical influences, composer Kamala Sankaram described an eclectic hodgepodge — Kaija Saariaho, Radiohead, and the Cameroonian electronic musician Francis Bebey, to name a few. “For the most part, things that I write sound very different from each other,” she said. “So it’s interesting that these two pieces sound kind of similar.”
Sankaram was referring to the pairing of A.E. Reverie and Rise, a duo of chamber operas recently co-presented by Baldwin Wallace Opera and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The February 1 performance in the Museum’s Gartner Auditorium showcased a double-bill united not just by composer but also by topic: both operas center on female protagonists pushing against gender stereotypes.