Cincinnati Opera’s 2023 Summer Festival will present favorite works while also elevating new voices and fresh perspectives, said artistic director Evans Mirageas.
Next summer, four productions will be mounted in Music Hall: Donizetti’s Scottish tragedy “Lucia di Lammermoor,” the world stage premiere of “The Knock” (an opera about military families by Alexandra Vrebalov and Deborah Brevoort, Rossini’s hilarious “The Barber of Seville,” and a groundbreaking new production of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly.”
In June and July, the festival will present “The Knock” in the intimate Harry T. Wilks Studio at Music Hall. Based on interviews with spouses of soldiers, it offers a rare glimpse into the lives of America’s military families and the terrible consequences when a soldier dies. The cast of characters includes three wives, performed by Mary-Hollis Hundley, Briana Elyse Hunter and Stephanie Sanchez, and the officer who must deliver the bad news, sung by Armando Contreras. It will be directed by Alison Moritz and conducted by Stephanie Rhodes Russell.
The opera is a co-commission with the Glimmerglass Festival, where it was slated to premiere in 2021. Due to Covid, that was canceled and instead, the company released an hourlong film, which is available on its website. Opera News describes it as “an evocative and beautifully woven piece.”
