Metro Weekly magazine: 2019-08-29 edition (PDF)
By Metro Weekly Contributor
on
August 29, 2019
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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were upstaged by a gaggle of drag queens at the Kennedy Center Opera House during a performance of the French Revolution-set hit musical Les Misérables on Wednesday, June 11.
The couple’s appearance -- Trump’s first of the term at the historic venue -- coincided with a special fundraising night aimed at supporting the reportedly financially struggling arts institution.
According to the The Washington Post, ticket sales have slumped following Trump’s takeover of the storied institution, long considered a cornerstone of D.C.’s theater scene. Subscriptions for the upcoming season are down by $1.6 million -- roughly 36% -- compared to last year.
If there is one opera lost or won by its chorus and characters, it's George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. In this perfect storm of a story, it's all about the tight-knit fishing community that cradles, carries, and sometimes condemns its own. It's only if you believe in their hardscrabble lives and insistence on dignity that you feel what it means to lose them. In this respect, the Washington National Opera's Porgy and Bess absolutely nails it.
Of course, it starts with the vision of director Francesca Zambello and her talent for bringing intimacy to grand themes. Here, those themes run the gamut of ill-fated love: Porgy's tragic devotion, Bess' addiction to the dangerous Crown, and the reality that no union can outrun death.
"I had the original toaster-like Macintosh in 1984," says Mark Campbell. "And I have been a devotee of Apple since." Good thing, then, that he was asked to write the libretto for The evolution of Steve Jobs with composer Mason Bates.
Over the past two decades, Campbell has become one of contemporary opera's leading librettists, winning a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award, among other accolades. He's also been staggeringly prolific, having helped to create nearly 40 works since his first opera in 2004.
So it's surprising to learn he didn't set out to pursue this career, much less to make a name in opera.
