IN Series Opera announced its 2023/24 season, “Resurrection,” with five innovative productions that continue to push the boundaries of music, theater, and drama. The season, opening on September 23, examines the concept of hope in all its forms.
“This season explores ‘resurrection,’ bearing out the idea that the making of art is itself an audacious act of hope, of faith, of believing that from nothing something can be made,” Artistic Director Timothy Nelson said. “Art is the purest form of the literal ‘resurrection,’ and this season we celebrate that in bold, brave, and inspiring ways.”
The season kicks off with the tragicomedy Alceste, running September 23 – October 1 at Dupont Underground, Gala Hispanic Theatre, and the Baltimore Theatre Project. IN Series reimagines Euripides’ iconic work of theatre, written at the dawn of the art form, with a score by G. F. Handel. Originally composed to accompany a now lost 18th century translation of Alceste, IN Series will present the first production combining the score and prose.
In another mashup of legendary theater works, IN Series continues the season with The Promised End, combining Verdi’s REQUIEM with Shakespeare’s King Lear. The production is part of the inaugural Shakespeare Everywhere Festival, and will be presented at Source Theatre and the Baltimore Theatre Project November 17 – December 17. The work was first presented in 2018, when it was named the #1 classical music event of the year by the Washington Post.
In celebration of 100 years of bilateral relationships between the United States and Mexico, IN Series presents Las Místicas de Mexico, March 9 – 24 at Dupont Underground and the Mexican Cultural Institute Baltimore. Contemporary voices of Mexican women creatives accentuate the poetry of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, songs of María Grever, images by Frida Kahlo, and more in an immersive art installation. Las Místicas de Mexico is presented in collaboration with the Mexican Cultural Institute.
IN Series presents the second installment of their Monteverdi Trilogy with The Return of Ulysses | Song of My Father May 11 – June 2 at Source Theatre and the Baltimore Theater Project. The classic story of Trojan War hero Ulysses is retold with interviews from Vietnam War veterans and Thai contemporary dance company 18 Monkeys. The production honors the lives lost in Vietnam sixty years ago with Southeast Asian Kohn dance, newly-commissioned arrangements of popular Vietnam-era songs by composer Emily Lau in the style of Monteverdi madrigals, and the words of Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong.
The season closes with the U.S. premiere of An Alcestiade, summer 2024 in Washington, DC and Baltimore. Composed by Louise Talma, with a libretto by Thornton Wilder, the landmark opera tells the story of Euripides’ life after death. IN Series partners with the Library of Congress in a return to the story of Alceste, encapsulating the theme of Resurrection.
The 2023/24 Season
ALCESTE
DATES: September 23 – October 1, 2023
LOCATIONS: Dupont Underground
Gala Hispanic Theatre
Baltimore Theatre Project
Play by Euripides
In translation by Ted Hughes
Music by GF Handel
New texts by Sybil Roberts
INnovātiō Baroque Orchestra
Directed and Conducted by Timothy Nelson
With art by Ingrid Matthews
Michelle Rogers – Alceste
KenYatta Rogers – Admetos
Maribeth Diggle – Hercules
Featuring – Dawna Rae Warren, Janna Critz, Oliver Mercer, and Rob McGuinness
Written at the dawn of theater itself, Euripides’ tragicomedy masterpiece Alceste blends the funny and the sad with the surprising and transcendent. Presented for the first time with a stunningly beautiful score by G.F. Handel, written to accompany a now lost 18th century translation of Euripides’ play, as well as music from Handel’s opera Admeto (an early take on the same myth). Real life husband and wife KenYatta and Michelle Rogers take the title couple role, joined by Maribeth Diggle (Desdemona) as the irreverent hero Hercules. Euripides’ Greek chorus becomes an ensemble of some of the best Baroque voices in the area, all accompanied by the acclaimed INnovatio Baroque Orchestra. Famed poet Ted Hughes’ free and imaginative translation is the heart of this production, with new texts by DC playwright Sybil Roberts.
THE PROMISED END
DATES: November 17 – December 17, 2023
LOCATIONS: Source Theatre
Baltimore Theatre Project
Verdi’s Requiem
Shakespeare’s King Lear
Conceived by Timothy Nelson
Texts by Marjorie Garber
Directed by Steven Scott Mazzola
Music Direction by Emily Baltzer
Design by Jonathan Dahm Robertson
Starring – Nanna Ingvarsson
Featuring – Natalie Conte, Teresa Ferrara, Elizabeth Mondragon, Cara Schaeffer, and Brian Arreola
Named the #1 Classical Music event of the year by the Washington Post, the extraordinary theater-music experience that defined a new era for IN Series returns to the stage as part of Districtwide SHAKESPEARE EVERYWHERE Festival. This original and unlikely piece brilliantly weaves together the entirety of Giuseppe Verdi’s shattering Requiem, performed by eight exceptional vocal artists in a version that allows audiences to hear this music as if for the first time, and a one-woman monodrama depicting the composer Verdi, the play King Lear, and aged King Lear himself. The text is formed by Artistic Director Timothy Nelson from an essay by renowned Shakespeare scholar Dr Marjorie Garber. Nanna Ingvarsson returns to reprise her shattering interpretation of the role. It is a piece that only IN Series could have made, a work which transformed the organization forever, an experience that those who witnessed will never forget.
LAS MÍSTICAS DE MEXICO
DATES: March 9 – 24, 2024
LOCATIONS: Dupont Underground
Mexican Cultural Institute Baltimore
Created by Maribeth Diggle,
Tina Chancey, Anna Deeny Morales,
Marta Pérez García, and Abigail Hoke-Brady
2024 opens with a thrilling immersive music-drama-art experience from IN Series, one that brings together music, poetry, art, and creative expression of over four centuries of mystical Mexican female artists. The iconic poet nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, songstresses María Grever, Toña la Negra, and Chavela Vargas, and images by the great Frida Kahlo are joined with contemporary voices of Mexican women creatives continuing the legacy of making visionary art. These artists adorn an anonymous 11th century chant drama in a new English translation by Anna Deeny Morales, who leads a team of non-Mexican female artists finding inspiration in Mexican mystical art. It is a collaboration with the Mexican Cultural Institute to celebrate 100 years of bilateral relationships between our two countries.
Audiences will experience this immersive art installation with transporting projections by Abigail Hoke-Brady and a new work imagined by one of DC’s most acclaimed artists, Marta Pérez García. Tina Chancey (Desdemona), of the Hesperus Ensemble, leads the music for the mobile performance, featuring ten of IN Series most beloved vocalists, the Washington Children’s Chorus, and traditional Mexican dance.
THE RETURN OF ULYSSES | SONG OF MY FATHER
DATES: May 11 – June 2, 2024
LOCATIONS: Source Theatre
Baltimore Theatre Project
Music by Claudio Monteverdi and Emily Lau
Texts based on diaries of veterans of the Vietnam Conflict
Inspired by “Odysseus in America” by Dr. Jonathan Shay
Directed and conducted by Timothy Nelson
INnovātiō Baroque Orchestra
Choreographer by Jitti Chompee
Design by Lawrence E. Moten III and Abigail Hoke-Brady
Robert Mellon – Ulysses
Elizabeth Mondragon – Penelope
Featuring – Aryssa Leigh Burrs, Janna Critz, and Oliver Mercer
IN Series’ lauded Monteverdi Trilogy continues with the second installation in the cycle. 2024 is the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the start of official military action by the United States in Vietnam. It was a conflict that would change the face of America forever. The young souls that fought were wounded most acutely in ways that were invisible, and their return home was only the beginning of an epic struggle to live again.
Monteverdi’s second opera sets the story of Trojan War hero Ulysses’ traumatic homecoming from the epic The Odyssey. IN Series will bring this rarely heard masterpiece to life with an expansive work that incorporates a new English text crafted from interviews taken with Vietnam veterans, and the Thai contemporary dance company 18 Monkeys, bringing their unique mix of modern and traditional Southeast Asian Kohn dance to the production. Monteverdi’s score will be joined by newly commissioned arrangements of popular Vietnam-era songs, set by composer Emily Lau in the style of Monteverdi madrigals, and the words of Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong. An all star cast is led by Robert Mellon (Othello) and Elizabeth Mondragon (Zavala-Zavala), and is accompanied by a period instrumental ensemble from around the world. Memorial Day performances offer a moving and unique way to remember and honor the lives and living that was lost in those seas and jungles sixty years ago.
AN ALCESTIADE
DATES: Summer 2024
LOCATIONS: TBA, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Md.
A reading re-creation
Music by Louise Talma
Text by Thornton Wilder
Led by Emily Baltzer
A resurrection season ends by returning to the timeless story of Alceste. In 1962 the first opera by an American female composer was presented in Europe and was proclaimed a masterpiece. The Alcestiad by composer Louise Talma, with a libretto by one of America’s most important and famed playwrights, Thornton Wilder (Our Town), sets Euripides’ story of life after death. It has never been performed in America. When Thornton Wilder died in 1975, Louise Talma, also his devoted friend, organized a memorial service at Yale University in which a portion of this landmark opera was presented with Talma at the piano. IN Series partners with the Library of Congress to bring this neglected and important work to the attention of American audiences with a recreation of that memorial performance. DC audiences will be the first to hear this music performed live in a program that will also tell the story of Talma and Wilder’s friendship and partnership.
ABOUT IN SERIES
IN Series is the standard-bearer for innovative opera theater in Washington DC. We make theater from music: transforming artists, audiences, and community by disrupting expectations, nourishing empathy, stimulating insight, and deepening the conversation. IN Series envisions a thriving global community in which opera is a fully integrated and essential part of collective conversation. In picturing the journey to this end, IN Series is a change-maker – a force that, with each groundbreaking production and outreach event, radically transforms perceptions of the “who”, “what”, “where”, and “why” of opera: who gets to make opera and for whom is it made; what is defined as an operatic experience; where operas take place; why we make opera; and why opera matters.
Founded by Carla Hübner in 1982 as a concert series of the former Mount Vernon College, “The In Series” became an independent non-profit arts organization in 2000 and has been a resident company at Source Theater since 2008. Timothy Nelson assumed the artistic directorship in 2018, quickly establishing the newly rebranded “IN Series” as DC’s home for “Thought, debate, history, and innovation” in opera.
