MILE-LONG OPERA

With a rehearsal and production process that spanned two years, countless rehearsals workshops and preliminary stagings at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, on the High Line and in community centers, rehearsal studios, and churches across all five boroughs, 38 community choirs and 250 professional freelance singers participated in the project led by Music Director Donald Nally and Co-Directed by Elizabeth Diller and Lyndsey Peisinger. Nearly 17,000 audience members experienced this free event in person.

The work focuses on the changing meaning of 7:00 pm, the time the performance began each evening, and a time that represents a transition from day to night, when people shift from one activity to the next. It is also a time traditionally associated with family, stability and home, yet today, those associations are less predictable. The diverse stories told in The Mile-Long Opera were inspired by first-hand interviews with New Yorkers from all walks of life. Their individual experiences reflected unique ways of coping with the contemporary condition—anxiety, humor, nostalgia, vulnerability, joy, and outrage—that together form a biography of 7 o’clock.

Target provided lead sponsorship for the project which included a full 360 interactive video which can be seen on the website below. Additional designers and collaborators included Lighting by John Torres, Costumes by Carlos Soto, Sound by Jody Elf, Assistant Director Matthew Johnson, Assistant Music Director Kevin Vondrak, and collaborators Robert Currie, Ragnar Kjartansson and Peoplmovr. A key element included extensive community engagement initiative that activated non-profit cultural partners across all five boroughs. Seven Anchor Partners served as a hub for engaging local audiences—from recruiting singers, to holding and welcoming the public for open rehearsals and workshops, to hosting social and cultural events in the lead-up to the performances.

The Mile-Long Opera website

“The singers and actors catch your eye as you walk, because each one has a story to tell, in urgent speech or leisurely incantation. You have to stop and lean in to hear what they’re saying, but if you just keep going, you realize that another chorus member picks up the same note and the same words, though perhaps at a different emotional pitch.

“I’ve always loved this hour of the day,” someone sings, and as you move on another performer repeats the line as if the thought had only just occurred to her. Pause for a moment, and she will say it again, though the observation is meant for the listener coming up behind you. A few blocks further along, you hear the words again, at a distance, perhaps, or trailing off, and each time it reminds you to savor the moment.

The piece is subtitled A Biography of Seven O’Clock, and even on this unseasonably warm October night, New York is on its best behavior, mixing glamour with ordinary urban life. An ambulance howls by, ripping through the soft fabric of music, and after it passes you realize what a miracle it is that the city is quiet enough here for you to hear an a cappella opera outdoors.”

source: Vulture.com