Transgressive Theatre-Opera

COMPANY UPDATE: Driving Out of the Storm with Transgressive Theatre-Opera

As we hold our collective breath, hoping that the most violent times of the COVID-19 pandemic are behind us, TT-O would like to express our gratitude to our donors, board, directors, artistic associates, artists, and especially to our audience. We refused to give in the very real threat of crippling despair but pushed ahead with our scheduled season by using technology to mount our shows digitally and added programming acknowledging our times.

We produced a new adaptation of a Handel opera with a fantasy-feel and trills galore. Light In The Piazza, our first full musical, was thrillingly received, and Resident Music Director Sarah Jenks’ Mozart For Millennials version of Le Nozze di Figaro garnered much praise. Hope Heard ‘Round The World: Echoes of Healing From Every Continent, another brain-child of Sarah’s, acknowledged the health crisis, and Genevie Thiers gifted us a benefit performance of her comic masterpiece, Anna Russell: A Visitation. TT-O is also very proud to have produced a public reading of the new play, The Clinic, by playwright Will Brumley, in association with Acting Out.

We are delighted to share with you that in the upcoming summer and fall we hope to be able to return to live performance. We’ll see how the arts community adapts, but expect Poulenc’s, La Voix Humaine starring Mary Govertsen, in a double bill with Puccini’s Suor Angelica, as we continue to acknowledge women in opera with another all-treble event.

We ask that you all continue to hang in with TT-O as we find our feet in these challenging times. Prepare for more MUSIC THAT IS AS SPOKEN AS IT IS SUNG and SPOKEN TEXT SO EVOCATIVE AND LYRICAL THAT IT SINGS.

Soprano Mary Govertsen has had quite a season at Transgressive Theatre-Opera, going on the wild ride with us through thick and thin as we worked to make art and engage with our audience during the pandemic.

As we ALL became film makers. I think it's fair to say that, pretty much across the boards (no pun intended), it was against our wills.

She began the season as Deceit in a staged, new adaptation of Handel's first (and last) oratorio, re-titled to reflect a shift in character agency as "Beauty's Truth," a role tailored to her multi-colored, fantastically flexible instrument. As Handel and the librettist revised this piece many times over their lifetimes, many of the arias in the original version were dropped from subsequent versions for one reason or another and have been most unfairly sitting on the shelf for far too long. With some changes of lyrics and character redistribution this role was re-created specifically to highlight Mary's acting and vocal prowess, making this just one of the premieres Mary has sung this season, and if you missed it...well, perhaps we'll give you another shot at hearing it this summer. She hits it out of the park.

She continued the TT-O season as Signora Naccarelli in "The Light In The Piazza," presenting an Italian mother who is quietly running her family with a carefully placed word here and there, playing the subservient wife externally, while surviving and keeping her family safe by sheer wit. She was also hysterically funny as one of the two characters who were allowed to knock down the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience, assuring us that, "I don't speak English, but I have to tell you what's going on." And a high "C" that was heard in Yugoslavia.

She is helping us close out the season with the Countess in our upcoming version of "Le Nozze di Figaro, The Millennial Version," another fresh adaptation where the story is told in English narration, surrounded by the most beloved music in the score delivered in the original Italian. She is lovely as the betrayed wife who, with the help of her maid, sets out to right the situation and save her honor and her marriage. Not everyone who sings some of the high-flying coloratura roles in Mary's repertoire can sing this role, which calls for long, lyrical phrases, often hanging out for long periods of time in the vulnerable middle register, alternating with high "Cs," of course. Mary makes it seem like a walk in the park, which it most certainly isn't, but she will make you forget all about the difficulty of the music. She disappears into her characterizations, never taking the audience out of the story to wonder if she's going to make the next crazy high note. Of course she is. She's the real ticket, the total pro, "the package," as some might say.

We are so lucky to have had Mary with us all season. Come to your living room to see her performance NEXT WEEKEND, streaming on Thursday, May 6 and Friday, May 7 at 7:00 PM, Saturday, May 8 at 6:00 PM, and Sunday, May 9 at 3:00 PM, all CST. Here's the link for tickets:
www.eventbrite.com/e/le-nozze-di-figaro-tickets-150624815879

We're in the editing phase (it's like tech week only scarier because it's newer and there is always a fresh precipice around the corner), and don't yet have any footage to show you, but here are a few screenshots of her performance, which will give you an idea of what you're in for! Don't miss it!