Organization

Admin

Northwestern Bienen School of Music

Stage director

Joachim Schamberger

Set designer

Conductor

Alan Pierson

Ben Bolter

Assistant Conductor

Tim Lambert

Assistant Stage Director

Ashley Brewer

Emma Rothfield

Repetiteur

Teresa Kang

Singer

Seoyong Lee

Woodcutter

Geoffrey Schmelzer

Andrew Sprague

The Outlaw

David Wolfe

Casey Lyons

Priest

Eugene Hwang

Lauryn Nelson

Medium

Michelle Mariposa

Lifan Deng

Policeman

Daniel Uglunts

Bradyn Debysingh

The Settler

Adam Clayton

Megan Fleischmann

Leona Raines

Isobel Anthony

Avery Winick

Leona's Mother

Julianna Smith

Paige Klemenhagen

Agent 1

Madeleine Zuckerman

Agent 2

William Johnson

Agent 3

Uma Singh

Vocalist

In a Grove

Evanston

United States

Ryan Center for the Musical Arts

In a Grove Cerrone

Public

Hands

Anna-Maria Gkouni

Approved

Northwestern University Opera Theater and the Contemporary Music Ensemble present two compelling and thought-provoking works: Christopher Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischmann's In a Grove, together with François Sarhan's Hands.

Hands, a title referring to both the subject of the piece and the physicality of its performance, is a set of short musical-theatrical works based on true stories from within the last century of US history. Through the lens of immigrants, families, and children often overlooked by mainstream society, Hands explores how our hands represent our roles in the world around us. 

The Wall Street Journal praised the Pittsburgh Opera’s February premiere of Christopher Cerrone’s In a Grove as “alluring and dramatically hypnotic.” With a libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann, based on the short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, the opera is set in 1921 in a ghost forest in the Oregon mountains. Seven witnesses—some of them suspects—provide testimony about events that transpired in a mountain grove, where an aspiring botanist goes missing and her new husband, a schoolteacher, appears to have been murdered. But all is not as it seems, and each new revelation in this suspenseful tale draws the audience deeper into an examination of the subjective nature of truth and the human experience. 

Content warning: In a Grove contains material that may be distressing to viewers, including sexual assault, physical violence, firearms, gunshot sound effects, strobe lights, self-harm, fog, and upsetting topics.

English

In a Grove by Cerrone, Hands by Sarhan, From (2022/2022), Directed by Joachim Schamberger,, Conductor Alan Pierson, Ben Bolter, Ryan Center for the Musical Arts, Evanston, United States

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues