January 21, 2016

Programming Announced For Lincoln Center Festival 2016

Lincoln Center Festival

PRESS CONTACT

Eileen McMahon

212.875.5391

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PROGRAMMING ANNOUNCED FOR

LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2016

 

20th Anniversary season of festival to run from July 13-31, 2016

 

New York, NY, January 21, 2016 — Nigel Redden, Director of Lincoln Center Festival, today announced the line-up for the Festival, which runs from July 13 - 31, 2016. Artists and ensembles from seven countries, many of them making their Lincoln Center Festival debuts, will gather for the festival, now celebrating its 20th anniversary, and which continues its mission of presenting the finest classical and contemporary arts from around the world.  An array of 49 dance, music, and theater performances will animate seven venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus.

 

Said Mr. Redden, “From the elegance of Noh, to the dancing in the aisles music of Goran Bregovic, from a Shylock who redefines the role, to one of the most memorable Kunju singers of China, Lincoln Center Festival 2016 promises to be a wonderful exploration of fascinating works from around the world.”

 

Lincoln Center Festival opens on July 13 with two elegantly ritualized productions with origins in Japan and China.  One of Japan’s oldest and most venerated Noh theater companies, Kanze Noh Theatre led by Kiyokazu Kanze, the 26th Grand Master of the Kanze School and a blood descendent of the founders of Noh, makes a rare New York appearance at the Festival.  Japan's approximately 700-year-old classical theater art of extreme refinement is known for its resplendent costumes and masks, hypnotic music, and intricately stylized performance on an austere set featuring a single pine tree. In a Noh play the divide between the natural and supernatural is bridged as spirits and humans interact in a world rife with symbolism. On an official Noh stage that is being specially built by Lincoln Center Festival at the Rose Theater, Kanze Noh Theatre will give six performances, each one unique and including the traditional comic interlude known as Kyogen, with some of the plays repeating throughout the run.

 

Sharing opening night on July 13 is the one-act opera, Paradise Interrupted, created by Chinese American composer Huang Ruo and visual artist Jennifer Wen Ma, known to global audiences for her work on the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  The piece, a Lincoln Center Festival co-commission, fuses and reimagines the biblical story of Eve’s search for utopia after being expelled from the Garden of Eden with an episode from the Kun opera, The Peony Pavilion, which dates from 1598. Acclaimed Kun opera soprano Qian Yi, who so memorably made her New York debut in the marathon production of The Peony Pavilion at Lincoln Center Festival 99, stars.

 

Joining her onstage is a vocal quartet consisting of tenor (Yi Li), countertenor (John Holiday), baritone (Joo Won Kang), and bass baritone (Ao Li), who sing in a tonally based Western idiom. Wen-Pin Chien leads a chamber orchestra mixing Western and Chinese instruments in a score written by Chinese American composer Huang Ruo that is a continuation of Kun opera tradition and yet, entirely new.  There will be three performances in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

 

Tony and Olivier Award-winning actor Jonathan Pryce, the slyly sinister High Sparrow of Game of Thrones, returns to the New York stage after an absence of ten years as Shylock in the Globe Theater of London’s acclaimed production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, directed by Jonathan Munby.  Joining the star onstage in the esteemed Globe troupe is Phoebe Pryce, Jonathan’s daughter, in the role of Jessica, the anguished moneylender’s daughter. The Merchant of Venice will run for seven performances only at the Rose Theater.

  

Another play by Shakespeare brings the National Ballet of Canada to the festival with renowned British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s version of The Winter’s Tale. The production is ravishingly designed by Bob Crowley with music by Joby Talbot, who collaborated with the choreographer on his previous Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with lighting design by Natasha Katz, projection design by Daniel Brodie, and with stunning silk effects from recent MacArthur Grant winner, artist Basil Twist. In this ambitious work by the Tony Award-winning choreographer, elements of fairy-tale, comedy, tragedy, and fantasy are woven together into a complex and deeply touching meditation on loss, redemption, love, jealousy, and the nature of family. There will be five performances at the David H. Koch Theater.

 

Takarazuka, Japan’s celebrated all-female musical revue troupe based in and named after the Japanese city of the same name, celebrates the centennial of its founding with its first appearance in New York in over 25 years with Takarazuka CHICAGO, running concurrently with the Tony Award-winning show, with a legendary book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander, and lyrics by Fred Ebb, and now the number one longest-running American musical in Broadway history.  Leading the cast are several of Takarazuka’s former top stars: Saori Mine, Saki Asaji, Asato Shizuki, Yoka Wao, Wataru Kozuki, Hikaru Asami, Natsuki Mizu, and Yuga Yamato. As in all of its productions, Takarazuka CHICAGO will be cast with women in every role, and as a coda to the evening’s entertainment, an over-the-top revue—replete with glittering costumes and dance—will be performed by the entire company, as is the tradition with all its shows, which attracts an audience of 2.5 million annually. Takarazuka CHICAGO will play at the David H. Koch Theater for six performances only.

 

Multi-award winning London-based performance company 1927, which specializes in combining performance and live music with animation and film to create magical filmic performance, makes its Lincoln Center Festival debut with Golem, a dark and fantastical production that explores the ways in which our digital world has created a monster, inspired by the shadowy figure from Jewish folklore as well as the early 20th-century literary work by Gustav Meyrink.  There will be eight performances at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

 

The iconic and pioneering American composer Steve Reich, who was the focus of a multi-genre performance series at Lincoln Center Festival 1999, returns for this summer’s festival, with Reich/Reverberations, three concerts highlighting classic chamber music works from across his career. Some of New York’s leading contemporary music ensembles—So Percussion, JACK Quartet, and Ensemble Signal conducted by Brad Lubman—will perform a selection of Reich’s most famous chamber works including Drumming, Different Trains (Grammy Award 1989), the Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet, and Music for 18 Musicians (Grammy Award 1998), widely considered a masterpiece of American minimalism and “a landmark of 20th-century music” (The Guardian).

 

Charismatic Balkan superstar Goran Bregovic and his raucous Wedding and Funeral Orchestra return for their third Lincoln Center Festival visit — two boisterous concerts in which he will serve as catalyst and ringmaster in a musical spectacle unlike any other.  For two nights David Geffen Hall will reverberate with the ecstatic energy of an Eastern European wedding, accented with soulful invocations and new world rhythms.

 

Paris’s renowned Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, last seen at the festival in 2011 with its acclaimed A Magic Flute staged by Peter Brook, returns with its critically-acclaimed production of Molière’s masterpiece, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, set to music by Jean-Baptiste Lully, which gently satirizes the pretensions of a social climber whose affectations are absurd to everyone but himself.  The director is award-winning director Denis Podalydès.  The exquisite costumes are by Christian Lacroix. There will be five performances at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

 

Over three nights in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, So Percussion, comprised of percussionists Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting, with their “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New Yorker), will guide listeners through the thrilling and sensuous sound world they’ve created with works by composers John Cage, Bryce Dessner, Cenk Ergun, David Lang, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, Steve Reich, Dan Trueman, and Iannis Xenakis.

 

Lincoln Center Festival 2016 will present the first duo U.S. appearance of musicians Wang Li (kouxiang, or jew’s harp) and Wu Wei (sheng)—two Chinese artists who marry ancient and modern musical traditions in surprising and novel ways—in the intimate Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse for one night only. 

 

Tickets: Lincoln Center Festival packages go on sale on January 21 to Friends of Lincoln Center and to the general public on January 28. Single tickets for the entire festival go on sale to Friends of Lincoln Center on March 28 and the general public starting April 11. For more information and to buy tickets, visit LincolnCenterFestival.org or go to the David Geffen Hall or Alice Tully Hall Box Offices, or call CenterCharge, 212.721.6500.

 

Programs, artists, and ticket prices are subject to change.

 

Lincoln Center Festival lead support is provided by American Express

 

Lincoln Center Festival 2016 is also made possible by The Shubert Foundation, Nancy A. Marks, LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, The Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, The Katzenberger Foundation, Inc., Jennie and Richard DeScherer, J.C.C. Fund of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of New York, Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater, Sharp Fund PLD at The New York Community Trust, Great Performers Circle, Chairman’s Council, and Friends of Lincoln Center.

 

Public support for Lincoln Center Festival 2016 is provided the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and National Endowment for the Arts.

 

Endowment support is provided by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Nancy Abeles Marks.

 

MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center

 

“Summer at Lincoln Center” is supported by Diet Pepsi

 

 

MORE ABOUT THE PRODUCTIONS

 

DANCE

 

The National Ballet of Canada

The Winter’s Tale

Ballet in a Prologue and Three Acts

July 28 - July 31, 2016

Five performances, David H. Koch Theater (Broadway at 63rd Street)

Choreographer: Christopher Wheeldon

Staged by: Jacquelin Barrett and Anna Délicia Trévien from the Benesh Movement Notation score

Scenario: Christopher Wheeldon and Joby Talbot

Music: Joby Talbot

Designs: Bob Crowley

Lighting Design: Natasha Katz

Projection Design: Daniel Brodie

Silk Effects Design: Basil Twist

The National Ballet of Canada Orchestra

David Briskin, Music Director and Principal Conductor

A co-production of The National Ballet of Canada and The Royal Ballet (U.K.)

 

Deemed “a triumph” (Telegraph, U.K.) at its premiere by The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in April 2014 and “a major artistic achievement” (Toronto Star) when it was presented by The National Ballet of Canada this past November, The Winter’s Tale is the work of one of today’s most acclaimed and in-demand choreographers, Christopher Wheeldon.

 

For The Winter’s Tale, Wheeldon reunited with the creative team behind his popular 2011 story-ballet, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  Joby Talbot’s beautiful score, Bob Crowley’s magical sets and costumes joined with Natasha Katz’s exquisite lighting design, and stunning silk effects from renowned artist Basil Twist, (whose work has been showcased previously at Lincoln Center Festival, Great Performers, and the White Light Festival) underscore the bold expressionism and inventiveness of Wheeldon’s choreography. In this ambitious work elements of fairy-tale, comedy, tragedy, and fantasy are woven together into a complex and deeply touching meditation on loss, redemption, love, jealousy, and the nature of family.

 

The Tony Award-winning choreographer (for the 2014 Broadway revival of An American in Paris) imbues Shakespeare’s late, dark comedy with lush choreography, imaginative staging, astute characterization, and emotional resonance to achieve what The Telegraph describes as “a superb ballet…the great arc from abject despair to reconciliation is traced in movement that attains its own poetry.”  

 

Established as a classical company by founder Celia Franca in 1951, The National Ballet of Canada presents a full range of traditional full-length classics. The company's repertoire includes works by the world’s most celebrated 20th- and 21st-century masters: Sir Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, John Cranko, William Forsythe, James Kudelka, Jirí Kylián, John Neumeier, Rudolf Nureyev, Glen Tetley, Christopher Wheeldon, Wayne McGregor, and Alexei Ratmansky. In addition to its classical repertoire, the company also embraces contemporary works and encourages the creation of new ballets and the development of Canadian choreographers. Artistic Director since 2005, Karen Kain is a former Principal Dancer, Artist-in-Residence, and Artistic Associate of the company. In addition to its regular season performances at home in Toronto, the company has toured throughout Canada and the United States and performed in Great Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Israel, Hong Kong, Japan, Italy, and Mexico. The National Ballet is committed to outreach and education for families and youth who may not otherwise have the opportunity to experience the joys of ballet. Its wide range of programs designed to engage with schools and children in the Greater Toronto Area and communities across Canada includes its signature program, YOU dance, designed to introduce students in grades four through six to the world of dance through free workshops and performances. The National Ballet employs 120 artists, dancers, and musicians, as well as production and administrative staff.

 

The National Ballet of Canada is privileged to have its own full Orchestra with over 60 members. The Orchestra has performed in each of the National Ballet’s seasons and is led by Music Director and Principal Conductor David Briskin. The company’s first Music Director was George Crum who, along with Founder Celia Franca, was a pioneer of the company. Mr. Crum held the position from the company’s inception in 1951 to 1984, when he was appointed Music Director Emeritus. The Orchestra was led by Ermanno Florio from 1985 to 1990. Ormsby Wilkins was Music Director and Principal Conductor from 1990 to 2006. The National Ballet of Canada Orchestra has toured extensively with the company through Canada, the US and Europe. Over the years, the Orchestra has received much acclaim from audiences and critics alike and has recorded two CDs of Michael Torke’s compositions for The Contract (The Pied Piper) and An Italian Straw Hat. The Orchestra made their concert debut at Koerner Hall on April 3, 2012, in celebration of the company’s 60th anniversary.

 

Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet in 1991. He joined New York City Ballet in 1993 and was promoted to Soloist in 1998.  He served as NYCB’s first-ever Artist-in-Residence in 2000/01 and was named NYCB’s first Resident Choreographer in July 2001. Mr. Wheeldon has created productions for all the world’s major ballet companies including: New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, and The National Ballet of Canada.

 

In 2007, Mr. Wheeldon founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and was appointed an Associate Artist for Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. For the Metropolitan Opera he choreographed Dance of the Hours for La Gioconda (2006) and Richard Eyre’s production of Carmen (2012) as well as ballet sequences for the feature film Center Stage (2000) and Sweet Smell of Success on Broadway (2002).

 

In 2014, Mr. Wheeldon directed and choreographed the musical version of An American in Paris, which premiered in Paris in 2014 at the Théâtre du Châtelet. The Broadway production premiered at the Palace Theatre on April 12, 2015, and won Mr. Wheeldon the 2015 Tony Award for Best Choreography and Outer Critics Award for Best Choreography and Direction. His awards also include the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center, the American Choreography Award, a Dance Magazine Award, and the London Critic’s Circle Award for Best New Ballet for Polyphonia. In 2013 and 2015 his production of Cinderella and The Winter’s Tale won the Prix Benois de la Danse. He is an Olivier Award winner for Aeternum and for The Winter’s Tale and won the 2014 Leonard Massine Prize for Choreography.

 

Born in 1971, composer Joby Talbot studied with Brian Elias and earned his Master of Music (Composition) under Simon Bainbridge at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

 

Mr. Talbot’s diverse catalogue includes a trumpet concerto for Alison Balsom and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (Desolation Wilderness, 2006); a 60-minute a cappella choral work, Path of Miracles, for Nigel Short’s Tenebrae (2005); an eighth movement of Holst's The Planets for the Philharmonia Orchestra (Worlds Stars Systems Infinity, 2012); arrangements of songs by Detroit rock duo The White Stripes alongside existing works for Wayne McGregor’s Chroma (The Royal Ballet, 2006); and the score for Christopher Wheeldon’s full-length ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (2011), followed in 2014 by a second such collaboration, The Winter's Tale, adapted from Shakespeare's play. Further works created with Mr. Wheeldon include Fools’ Paradise (Morphoses, 2007) and Tide Harmonic (Pacific Northwest Ballet, 2013); and with Mr. McGregor, Genus (Paris Opera Ballet, 2007) and Entity (Random Dance, 2008). Mr. Talbot wrote his 2012 Chamber Symphony for Medhi Walerski's Nederlands Dans Theater work Chamber.

 

Mr. Talbot most recently premiered his first opera, the one-act work Everest, with the Dallas Opera in January 2015 to critical acclaim.

 

Set, costumes, and properties designer Bob Crowley’s recent productions include An American in Paris (Paris and Broadway, Tony Award), The Audience (West End and Broadway), Skylight (Broadway), Once (Broadway, Tony Award and West End), The Glass Menagerie (American Rep Theatre, U.S. & Broadway),and Disney’s The Little Mermaid (Netherlands, Russia). His designs for the National Theatre include The Hard Problem, People, The Habit of Art, The Power of Yes, Phèdre, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Gethsemane, Fram (also co-directed), The History Boys, (Broadway, Tony Award), Carousel (Lincoln Center, Tony Award), and Mourning Becomes Electra. For the Royal Shakespeare Company, Mr. Crowley designed Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Broadway) and The Plantagenets (Laurence Olivier Award). In addition, Mr. Crowley designed The Capeman, Sweet Smell of Success, Disney’s Aida (Tony Award), Tarzan (which he also directed), Mary Poppins (Tony Award), The Year of Magical Thinking and Coast of Utopia (Tony Award), The Magic Flute (English National Opera), Alice in Wonderland, Anastasia and Pavane (The Royal Ballet), and Don Carlos and La Traviata (The Royal Opera). His film credits include Othello, Tales from Hollywood, Suddenly Last Summer, and The Crucible (costumes). Mr. Crowley has received the Royal Designer for Industry Award and the Robert L.B. Tobin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatrical Design.

 

American lighting designer Natasha Katz has a strong creative relationship with The Royal Ballet Artistic Associate Christopher Wheeldon and has collaborated with him and the company on Tryst (2002), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2011), and The Winter's Tale (2014). Ms. Katz’s other collaborations with Mr. Wheeldon include Continuum (San Francisco Ballet, 2002), Carnival of the Animals and An American in Paris (New York City Ballet), and Swan Lake (Pennsylvania Ballet, 2004) and the premiere of An American in Paris at Théâtre Châtelet (2014) and on Broadway (2015), for which she won a Tony Award.

 

Ms. Katz’s Broadway credits include Skylight, The Glass Menagerie (Tony Award), Aladdin, Once (Tony Award), Motown, Hedda Gabler, Coast of Utopia: Salvage (Tony Award), A Chorus Line, Disney’s Aida (Tony Award), Sweet Smell of Success, Twelfth Night, and Beauty and the Beast. In London, she designed Skylight (Wyndham’s Theatre), Sister Act (Palladium), Buried Child (National Theatre), and Cyrano (The Royal Opera). Ms. Katz has also designed extensively Off-Broadway and for American regional theaters. Her permanent installations include lighting for the audio-visual shows at Niketown London and New York City, The Masquerade Village at the Rio Casino, Las Vegas, and Big Bang at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

 

Production designer Daniel Brodie was born in Las Vegas and now lives in Brooklyn. He graduated with a degree in theater and media design from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. He designed the projections for Christopher Wheeldon's The Winter’s Tale (The Royal Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada) and Cinderella (Dutch National Ballet and San Francisco Ballet) and has worked regularly with puppeteer Basil Twist, both on The Winter's Tale and Cinderella and on Mr. Twist’s Behind the Lid, Arias with a Twist, and The Rite of Spring. Mr. Brodie’s Broadway credits have included Motown the Musical, Jekyll & Hyde, and Disney’s Aladdin. He has also created large-scale video designs for Kanye West, Mariah Carey, and for the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. Mr. Brodie's awards include the United States Institute of Theatre Technology’s Rising Star Award (2011), and he has also worked as a guest lecturer at Yale University and New York University. Mr. Brodie is an Artist-in-Residence at the New York City IFP Media Center. 

 

Recent MacArthur Grant winner, silk effects designer Basil Twist is a native of San Francisco.  He is the sole American to graduate from the École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres, France. Highlights of Mr. Twist’s work include the multiple award-winning Symphonie Fantastique, Petrushka (commissioned by Lincoln Center), Ottorino Respighi's 1922 puppet opera La bella dormente nel bosco for Lincoln Center Festival 2005, Dogugaeshi (The Japan Society), Behind the Lid (Silver Whale Gallery), and Arias with a Twist (HERE). On Broadway, Mr. Twist created and staged the puppetry in The Addams Family and for The Pee-Wee Herman Show. Mr. Twist made his debut at La Comédie-Francaise as designer and co-director of A Streetcar Named Desire. His work in dance includes Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella for Dutch National Ballet and San Francisco Ballet, Wheeldon’s The Winter's Tale for The Royal Ballet, Darkness and Light for Pilobolus, and Wonderboy with Joe Goode Dance Company. Mr. Twist has been honored with an Obie Award, a Drama Desk Award, five UNIMA Awards, two Bessie Awards, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, a Henry Hewes Design Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a United States Artists Fellowship, and a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. He is currently Artistic Director of HERE Art Center’s Dream Music Puppetry Program, one of the few programs in the country to develop and commission contemporary, adult puppet works.

 

Performance schedule: Thursday, July 28 at 8:00; Friday, July 29 at 8:00; Saturday, July 30 at 2:00 and 8:00; Sunday, July 31 at 2:00

Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes, with two intermissions

 

The Lincoln Center Festival 2016 presentation of The Winter’s Tale is made possible in part by generous support from The LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.

 

Lead philanthropic support for The Winter’s Tale is provided by The Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation, Richard M. Ivey, C.C., an anonymous friend of the National Ballet and The Producers’ Circle.

 

The Producers’ Circle: Mark & Gail Appel, John & Claudine Bailey, Inger Bartlett & Marshal Stearns, David Binet, Susanne Boyce & Brendan Mullen, Gail Drummond & Bob Dorrance, Sandra Faire & Ivan Fecan, Kevin & Roger Garland, Emmanuelle Gattuso and Allan Slaight, The William & Nona Heaslip Foundation, Rosamond Ivey, Hal Jackman Foundation, Anna McCowan-Johnson & Donald K. Johnson, O.C., Judy Korthals & Peter Irwin, Judith & Robert Lawrie, Mona & Harvey Levenstein, Joan & Jerry Lozinski, The Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain, C.C., Julie Medland, Sandra Pitblado & Jim Pitblado, C.M., Lynda & Jonas Prince, Susan Scace & Arthur Scace, C.M., Q.C., Sandra L. Simpson and Noreen Taylor & David Staines, O.C.

 

Generously supported by The Monument Trust.

 

MUSIC

 

Paradise Interrupted, an opera in one act

July 13 - 16, 2016

Three performances, Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College (524 West 59th Street)

Music by Huang Ruo

Directed and Designed by Jennifer Wen Ma

Libretto by Ji Chao, Jennifer Wen Ma, Huang Ruo, and Qian Yi

Inspired by Tang Xian Zu’s text
Conducted by Wen-Pin Chien

Cast:

Qian Yi, soprano

Yi Li, tenor

John Holiday, countertenor

Joo Won Kang, baritone

Ao Li, bass-baritone

 

Sung in Mandarin with English supertitles

 

In this arresting new one-act opera co-commissioned by Lincoln Center Festival, traditional Chinese and contemporary Western idioms intertwine in Chinese American composer Huang Ruo’s chamber opera, Paradise Interrupted, performed in an exquisite setting from the imagination of revered visual artist Jennifer Wen Ma, known worldwide for her work on the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The piece, a Lincoln Center Festival co-commission, fuses and reimagines the biblical story of Eve’s search for utopia after being expelled from the Garden of Eden, with an episode from the Kun opera, The Peony Pavilion, which dates from 1598. The woman’s passionate search triggers the proliferation of a lush, interactive garden made from cut paper sculptures and illuminated by stunning visual effects.

 

The star is soprano Qian Yi whose performance in Lincoln Center Festival’s acclaimed 20-hour production of The Peony Pavilion in 1999 introduced New Yorkers to the 600-year-old Kun opera tradition. Joining her onstage is a vocal quartet consisting of tenor (Yi Li), countertenor (John Holiday), baritone (Joo Won Kang), and bass baritone (Ao Li), who sing in a tonally based Western idiom. Wen-Pin Chien leads a chamber orchestra mixing Western and Chinese instruments in a score that is a continuation of Kun opera tradition and yet, entirely new

 

Wen-Pin Chien leads a chamber orchestra of both Western and Chinese instruments in Chinese American composer Huang Ruo’s haunting, sensual score that weaves the melismatic vocal style of kunqu with Western tonality. It includes three Chinese instruments, pipa (lute), sheng (mouth organ), and dizi (bamboo flutes), plus a vocal quartet consisting of tenor, countertenor, baritone, and bass baritone. The opera’s world premiere at Spoleto Festival USA this May was lauded by the Wall Street Journal to have “gloriously fused Western and Chinese idioms, modernity and tradition.”

 

In 1999, Qian Yi was cast in the lead role of Lincoln Center Festival’s epic 20-hour production of The Peony Pavilion. The production toured internationally, playing at major international festivals in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Since coming to the U.S., she has starred in numerous re-workings of Chinese opera for a Western theater context, including Ghost Lovers (Spoleto Festival USA), The Orphan of Zhao and My Life as A Fairytale (Lincoln Center Festival), and Snow in June (American Repertory Theater). In 2008, she had her Western opera premiere, singing a leading role in the San Francisco Opera’s new production of Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter's Daughter. Most recently, she starred in the Contemporary Legend Theatre’s The Butterfly Dream, which premiered at Taiwan’s National Theater as part of its 20th anniversary celebration.

 

First Prize winner of the Luxembourg International Composition Prize, Huang Ruo draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls “dimensionalism.” His music has been premiered and performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and National Polish Radio Orchestra and under conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, James Conlon, Dennis Russell Davies, and Ed Spanjaard, among many others. Huang Ruo’s opera, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, received its American premiere by the Santa Fe Opera in 2014. He is the Artistic Director and Conductor of Future In REverse (FIRE) and was selected as a Young Leader Fellow by the National Committee on United States-China Relations in 2006. He recently has also been named Composer-in- Residence for the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

 

Jennifer Wen Ma’s first major monograph was published in 2013 by Charta, distributed by DAP. Some recent projects include: a new commission at Vancouver Art Gallery, Nonuments, 5x5 Project, Washington D.C., 2014, Isle of Enchantment, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2013; permanent public lighting installation for the National Aquatic Center, aka The Water Cube, Beijing, 2013; and a project for Performa 13, New York. Notable solo exhibitions include Hanart Square, Hong Kong, 2013. In 2011, Ma was the Artistic Director for The Republic of China Centennial Grand Countdown, Taipei, 2010. In 2008, she was one of the seven members on the core creative team for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics and the chief designer for visual and special effects. Additionally, she won an Emmy for the U.S. broadcast of the ceremony.

 

Conductor Wen-Pin Chien won Taiwan’s National Awards for Arts in 2014 and has been appointed as Artistic Director designee of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, which due to open in late 2017. Also, since the 1996-97 season, he has been Kapellmeister of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. As the Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Chien was the central artistic force behind its innovative annual Subscription Concerts and Opera series, including the first-ever production in the Chinese speaking regions of Wagner’s complete Ring cycle in 2006. Highlights from his career also include conducting the Deutsche Oper am Rhein’s tour production of Der Rosenkavalier (2007) and Opera Australia’s Carmen (2009) at the National Theater in Taipei; conducted the world première of Franz Hummel’s Beuys and Anno Schreier’s Mörder Kaspar Brand, the German premiere of Peter Eötvös’s Drei Schwestern, Giorgio Battistelli’s Richard III and the world première of Eleni Karaindrou’s ballet Phädra at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein; and appearing as a guest conductor at the Wiener Kammeroper, The Nederlands Opera, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Komische Oper Berlin, Opernhaus Graz, and Theater Bonn.

 

Performance schedule: Wednesday, July 13 at 8:00; Friday, July 15 at 8:00; Saturday, July 16 at 8:00

Running time: 80 minutes, no intermission

 

Paradise Interrupted is co-commissioned and co-produced by Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, and Singapore International Festival of Arts with the generous support of Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar Tang—Tang Family Foundation.

 

***

 

Goran Bregovic and his Wedding and Funeral Orchestra

July 15 - 16, 2016

Two performances, David Geffen Hall (Broadway and 64th Street)

 

Charismatic Balkan superstar Goran Bregovic was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in February 2015. This July at Lincoln Center, the contemporary composer and his festive ensemble of Gypsy brass players, Bulgarian vocalists, and conservatory-trained string players return to Lincoln Center Festival for another boisterous affair in which he serves as catalyst and ringmaster for a musical spectacle unlike any other.  For two nights only, David Geffen Hall will reverberate with the ecstatic energy of an Eastern European wedding, accented with soulful invocations and new world rhythms. Performing together since 1998, the Wedding and Funeral Orchestra whips up a party atmosphere wherever it goes.

 

Bregovic, whose sensational New York debut at the 2006 festival was followed by the 2008 festival’s presentation of Tales and Songs from Weddings and Funerals, in which he and his nine-piece band performed songs from his CDs and gypsy opera. Since his last appearance at Lincoln Center, he wrote the text and music for Margot, Diary of an Unhappy Queen, which premiered at the Festival de Saint-Denis in 2010, and he will premiere the symphonic version of his big band concert From Sarajevo at 2016’s Festival de Saint-Denis. This summer at Lincoln Center, Bregovic will present music from his most recent releases, which include Karmen with a Happy Ending, Alkohol, and Champagne for Gypsies, the latter a heartfelt musical reaction to the extreme pressure that Gypsies, or Roma, have experienced across Europe in the past several years.

 

The most famous rock star of the former Yugoslavia, Goran Bregovic was born in Sarajevo to a Croatian father and a Serbian mother and gained international renown for his kaleidoscopic, Gypsy-flavored scores to the award-winning movies of Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica.   Bregovic still makes appearances in the former Yugoslavia, and a December 2013 charity concert he gave in Sarajevo with his ensemble and other musicians from the region marked both the creation of a foundation he named Gorica after the traditional Gypsy area in Sarajevo and his official return to his hometown. The mission of Gorica is to help Bosnian Roma receive a musical education. “You cannot help the Roma if you don’t give them education,” Bregovic says. “Only an educated man is a free man. With Roma, it has always been the biggest problem.”

 

Bregovic is currently working on a new opera, Orfeo di Bregovic, and a television film version of his album Karmen with a Happy Ending.

 

Performance schedule: Friday, July 15 at 8:00; Saturday, July 16 at 8:00

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes, no intermission

 

***

 

Reich/Reverberations

July 16 - 21, 2016

 

Steve Reich: Drumming (1970-71)

One performance, Alice Tully Hall (Broadway at 65th Street)

So Percussion and friends: Doug Perkins, David Degge, Victor Cacesse, and Yumi Tamashiro

Saturday, July 16 at 8:00

 

Steve Reich: Triple Quartet (1998), WTC 9/11 (2010), Different Trains (1988; Grammy Award 1989 )

One performance, The Appel Room (Time Warner Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street)

Ensemble Signal

Brad Lubman, conductor

JACK Quartet

Tuesday, July 19 at 8:00

 

Steve Reich: Double Sextet (2007, Pulitzer Prize), Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76; 1998 Grammy Award)

One performance, The Appel Room (Time Warner Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street)

Ensemble Signal

Brad Lubman, conductor

Thursday, July 21 at 8:00

 

The iconic and pioneering American composer Steve Reich, who was the focus of a multi-genre performance series at Lincoln Center Festival 1999, returns for this summer’s festival, with three concerts highlighting classic chamber music works from across his career. Each of these performances of works by an artist The New Yorker calls “the most original music thinker of our time” will illustrate his path-breaking

use of pattern, phasing, and percussion. 
 

The first event in this showcase features the full-version of Drumming, one of Reich’s earliest works and still one of his most recognized, at Alice Tully Hall on Saturday, July 16. Reich’s teenage percussion studies and early phasing investigations were encouraged by his trip to Ghana in West Africa and led him to create a work inspired by the structure of African drumming using his own original ideas of pattern repetition and phasing. The resulting work is a landmark piece of music featuring bongos, marimbas, glockenspiels, a piccolo and female voices, with overlapping rhythms revealing hypnotic rhythms and colors. This one-night performance of Drumming will be performed by the acclaimed quartet So Percussion, who have presented many of Reich’s works throughout their career. They will be joined by guest percussionists  Doug Perkins, David Degge, Victor Cacesse, and Yumi Tamashiro, as well as singers, and piccolo.
 

Reich composed three different string quartets over his career, and they will all be performed in one evening on July 21 in The Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Each were written at different points in his career, though each demonstrate a unique aspect of Reich’s style. Different Trains (1988; Grammy Award 1989) features a live string quartet joined by three pre-recorded string quartets and pre-recorded speaking voices whose speech melodies are doubled by the viola and cello. The piece is partly autobiographical, first using the voices of Reich’s nanny and a train conductor, recalling train trips he made between New York and Los Angeles in the 1930s between his divorced parents.  In the second movement you hear voices of fellow Jews in Europe, Holocaust survivors, who experienced train trips to far different destinations. Reich followed the acclaim of this work with Triple Quartet for three string quartets in 1998. This purely instrumental work can be played live (as it will be July 21) or with one live and two pre-recorded quartets.   The piece was partly inspired by the last movement of Bartok’s fourth quartet.  Affected by the devastation of the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, the longtime downtown New York resident composed WTC 9/11 (2010), once again using layered and pre-recorded sounds and voices drawn out and synced to the music. The special evening of Reich’s work for string quartet is performed by members of Ensemble Signal, conducted by Brad Lubman, in collaboration with JACK Quartet. JACK Quartet will perform Different Trains in the version for string quartet and tape.

 

The closing event of Lincoln Center Festival’s focus on Reich juxtaposes two highly regarded creations by the composer. Starting the program on July 23 in The Appel Room is Double Sextet, which in 2007 garnered Reich a Pulitzer Prize, featuring two ensembles, each consisting of the flute, clarinet, violin, cello, vibraphone, and piano. Double Sextet is a late-career example of Reich’s ability to successfully combine complex melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic material through unexpected contrapuntal relations between the two identical ensembles.  Among all of his works, one has long stood out as a hailed masterpiece: Music for 18 Musicians, premiered 40 years ago in 1976. Approximately one-hour in length, Music for 18 Musicians is a tour de force of colors, sounds, rhythms, and propulsion, performed by another uncommon ensemble of percussion, string, and wind instruments and voices. This work shows Reich’s influences from Stravinsky and Perotin, to Coltrane, African drumming, and Balinese Gamelan, all absorbed into a totally unique musical work. Besides an unending pulse from marimbas and pianos or xylophones, there are pulses lasting only as long as a single breath can sustain them from the bass clarinets and voices, imitated by the strings ebbing and flowing from beginning to end. Performing both Double Sextet and Music for 18 Musicians is Ensemble Signal, led by conductor Brad Lubman.  Lubman, who has a long association with Steve Reich, having premiered numerous Reich works throughout his career including Three Tales, Daniel Variations, and Radio Rewrite, has performed other Reich works at Lincoln Center Festival in recent years, including The Cave in 1999. The ensemble recorded Music for 18 Musicians (harmonia mundi) in 2015 to great acclaim, with The New York Times including it in its Best of 2015 list and noting, “In no other recording of this work is there such attention to timbre, such a sense of ceremony, such an intensity of transition.”

 

Steve Reich (b. 1936) has been called "America’s greatest living composer" (The Village VOICE), "...the most original musical thinker of our time" (The New Yorker), and "...among the great composers of the century" (The New York Times). His music has influenced composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. Music for 18 Musicians and Different Trains have earned him two GRAMMY awards, and in 2009 his Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize. His documentary video opera works—The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot—have been performed on four continents. His  latest work Quartet, for percussionist Colin Currie, sold out two consecutive concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London shortly after tens of thousands at the Glastonbury Festival heard Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) perform Electric Counterpoint followed by the London Sinfonietta performing his Music for 18 Musicians. In 2012 he was awarded the Gold Medal in Music by the American Academy of Arts and letters. Earlier he won the Preamium Imperale in Tokyo, the Polar Prize in Stockholm, the BBVA Award in Madrid and recently the Golden Lion at the Biennale de Venzia. He has been named Commandeur de l’ordre des Arts et letters and has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Juilliard School, the Liszt Academy in Budapest and the New England Conservatory of Music among others. "There's just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them," states The Guardian.

 

Performance schedule:

Drumming: Saturday, July 16 at 8:00 in Alice Tully Hall

Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes, no intermission

 

Triple Quartet, WTC 9/11, Different Trains: Thursday, July 19 at 8:00 in The Appel Room

Running time: 1 hour 17 minutes, with one intermission

 

Double Sextet, Music for 18 Musicians: Thursday, July 21 at 8:00 in The Appel Room

Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes, with one intermission

 

***

 

So Percussion: Trilogy

July 28 - 30, 2016

Three performances, Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse (165 West 65th Street, 10th floor)

Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting

 

Thursday, July 28 at 8:00

Steve Reich: Music for Pieces of Wood

Bryce Dessner: Music or Wood and Strings

David Lang: The so-called laws of nature

 

Friday, July 29 at 8:00

Iannis Xenakis: Metaux from Pleaides

Cenk Ergun: Proximity

Dan Trueman: Neither Anvil nor Pulley

 

Saturday, July 30 at 8:00

John Cage: Third Construction

Paul Lansky: Threads

Steven Mackey: It Is Time

 

When So Percussion was founded 15 years ago, its initial aim was to perform the iconic works for percussion ensemble and expand the repertoire. The quartet has succeeded in their original objective, and in the process, has become one of the most recognized percussion ensembles in the world, continually pushing boundaries and pioneering new works for their unique instrument and arrangement. So Percussion performed at Lincoln Center Festival in 2007 and 2010 and returns this summer with a triptych of performances (July 28-30, 2016 in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse) of works by composers John Cage, Bryce Dessner, Cenk Ergun, David Lang, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, Steve Reich, Dan Trueman, and Iannis Xenakis.

 

Each of the three concert events by So Percussion—Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting—will pair up an iconic work of the repertoire alongside works that the ensemble has commissioned over the last 15 years as part of its bold artistic mission.  Early works include John Cage’s path-breaking work Third Construction, Steve Reich’s seminal Music for Pieces of Wood, and Iannis Xenakis’s Metaux from Pleaides. The remaining works were all commissioned specifically by the ensemble and offer a range of modern voices, both American and international. Included are Bryce Dessner’s Music for Wood and Strings, Cenk Ergun’s Proximity, Dan Trueman’s Neither Anvil nor Pulley, Paul Lansky’s Threads, Steve Mackey’s It Is Time, and David Lang’s The so-called laws of nature (which was the ensemble’s first commission). Combined, these works show off a variety of styles for the percussion section and display how the resulting sounds can be concert music, but also intimate chamber music.

 

In the first concert, listeners will hear shifting patterns as they rise and fall in hypnotic arcs in Reich’s exuberant Music for Pieces of Wood (1973), performed entirely on pitched claves. A clear homage to Reich’s piece, Bryce Dessner’s atmospheric Music for Wood and Strings suspends similarly intricate patterns in clouds of reverb. The evening culminates in David Lang’s breakthrough percussion quartet, The so-called laws of nature, which reveals an entirely new realm of music through a whimsical orchestra of invented instruments, many constructed by the performers themselves.

 

The specific timbres of metal are at the heart of the second program, which features major works by Iannis Xenakis, Cenk Ergun, and Dan Trueman. In Métaux, from Xenakis’s groundbreaking 1978 work Pleiades, ghostly overtones rise above the sharp pings of struck metal creating a truly otherworldly experience. Proximity, a contemplative 25-minute piece by the Turkish-born, Oakland-based composer and improviser Cenk Ergun, continues the sense that different combinations of metallic sounds—made here by bells, cymbals, vibes, glockenspiels, and tam tams—can unlock new sonic realms.  The crackle and fuzz of a needle dropping on vinyl opens Dan Trueman’s five-act story of man and machine in the digital age, which pulls in metronomes, drum machines, repurposed video game controllers, mics, amps, digital filters, and much more, all to dazzling effect.

 

In the third program, creatively used found objects, exotic artifacts, and traditional instruments expand So Percussion’s sound palette in pieces by John Cage, Paul Lansky, and Steve Mackey. John Cage’s Third Construction from 1942 represents a landmark in composing for percussion. Here, instruments from around the world—including rattles, drums, tin cans, claves, cowbells, lion's roar, cymbal, ratchet, teponaxtle, quijades, cricket caller, and conch shell—are arranged and re-arranged into various combinations to create an astonishing array of colors and rhythms. The second piece, Paul Lansky’s Threads, is one of the most popular works ever written for percussion ensemble. Structured like a Baroque cantata, it swings between moments of intense delicacy and ecstatic drumming. Finally, the four mini-concertos of Steve Mackey’s It Is Time marshals the virtuosity of the individual members of So Percussion to speed up, slow down, warp, celebrate, and mourn one’s perception of time.

 

Aside from their live performances the world over, So Percussion’s career now spans 18 albums, collaborative projects, and several ambitious education programs, including its annual Summer Institute where they train and mentor the next generation of percussionists.

 

Performance schedule:

Steve Reich: Music for Pieces of Wood, Bryce Dessner: Music or Wood and Strings, David Lang: The so-called laws of nature

Thursday, July 28 at 8:00

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes, with one intermission

 

Iannis Xenakis: Metaux from Pleaides, Cenk Ergun: Proximity, Dan Trueman: Neither Anvil nor Pulley Friday, July 29 at 8:00

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes, with one intermission

 

John Cage: Third Construction, Paul Lansky: Threads, Steven Mackey: It Is Time

Saturday, July 30 at 8:00

Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes, with one intermission

 

***

 

Wang Li & Wu Wei (first joint U.S. appearance)

Saturday, July 23 at 8:00

One performance, Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse (165 West 65th Street, 10th floor)

Wang Li, kouxiang, or jew’s harp

Wu Wei, sheng

 

Lincoln Center Festival 2016 will present the first joint U.S. appearance of Wang Li and Wu Wei—two Chinese artists who marry ancient and modern musical traditions in surprising and novel ways—in the intimate Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse. 

 

The unusual soundscapes that the duo creates stem from the instruments they play and how they use them. Wang Li, last heard at Lincoln Center at the 2012 White Light Festival,  is a master on the kouxiang, or jew’s harp, and the Calabash flute, while Wu Wei is a formidable soloist on the sheng, a 4000 year-old instrument, which in his hands has been transformed into an innovative force in contemporary music-making. The twang of the jew’s harp and expansive ambience of the sheng are supported by circular breathing and throat singing; the drones are punctuated with exhilarating rhythms, tricking the ears into hearing electronic sounds where there are none, creating a futuristic, multi-layered, and deeply meditative aural experience.

 

The duo’s first CD, Overtones, will be released in June 2016 on harmonia mundi’s Latitudes label.

 

Based in Paris, Wang Li has attained a seemingly impossible level of virtuosity on some of the world’s oldest and humblest musical instruments. By employing circular breathing and throat-singing techniques with masterful subtlety on the jew’s harp and the Calabash flute, he has created improvisational solo performances that are utterly transfixing. Wang Li hails from Qingdao, a coastal city in northeastern China on the Yellow Sea, where he grew up playing a jew’s harp. In college, he played bass in Western-influenced bands, but once he graduated, his life took a surprising turn: he wound up in an austere French monastery, where he came to a new musical vision. After four years there, he studied jazz at the Paris Conservatory and turned to improvisation. Returning to China, he traveled throughout his native region learning from local musicians. All of these experiences are reflected in his highly personal yet universal music.

 

Wu Wei studied the sheng at the Shanghai Conservatory and was a soloist with the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra before studying at the Hanns Eisler Academy with a DAAD scholarship in Berlin, where he is now based. In addition to many prestigious national and international competitions for traditional Chinese music, he won the Musica Vitale Competition in Germany in 1996 and 2002 and the Global Root folk prize in 2004. In 2011, he won the Herald Angels Award at the Edinburgh International Festival. Since 1996, he has appeared as a soloist with many leading orchestras and ensembles, including the Berlin Philharmonic under Kent Nagano, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel, the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra under Myung-Whun Chun. He has given the world premieres of more than 150 works (including ten concertos for sheng and Orchestra) by composers including John Cage, Unsuk Chin, Toshio Hosokawa, Enjott Schneider, Joerg Widmann, Guus Janssen, Tan Dun, Chen Qigang, Guo Weijing, and Ruo Huang. Wu Wei is also a prolific composer for the sheng.

 

Performance schedule: Saturday, July 23 at 8:00

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

 

THEATER

 

Kanze Noh Theater

July 13 - 17, 2016

Six performances, Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center (Time Warner Center, Broadway at 60th Street)

Grand Master Kiyokazu Kanze

 

Wednesday, July 13 at 7:30

Noh Okina

Noh Hagoromo (The Robe of Feathers)

 

Thursday, July 14 at 7:30

Noh Sumida Gawa (Sumida River)

Kyogen Busshi (The Fake Sculptor)

Han-Noh Shakkyo (The Stone Bridge)

 

Friday, July 15 at 7:30

Noh Hagoromo (The Robe of Feathers)

Kyogen Kaki Yamabushi (The Persimmon Thief)

Noh Sumida Gawa (Sumida River)

 

Saturday, July 16 at 1:30

Noh Okina

Noh Aoi No Ue (The Lady Aoi)

 

Saturday, July 16 at 7:30

Noh Hagoromo (The Robe of Feathers)

Kyogen Busshi (The Fake Sculptor)

Noh Aoi No Ue (The Lady Aoi)

 

Sunday, July 17 at 2:00

Noh Okina

Han-Noh Shakkyo (The Stone Bridge)

 

**Please note: artists and programs are subject to change

 

Kiyokazu Kanze, the 26th Grand Master of the Kanze School and a blood descendent of the founders of Noh (actor-author-musician Kanami,1333-1384, and his son, Zeami, ca. 1363-1443), brings one of the oldest and most venerated Noh theater companies, Kanze Noh Theatre, to New York for its Lincoln Center Festival debut.  There will be six performances, each one unique, and including the traditional comic interlude known as Kyogen, with some of the plays repeating throughout the run. The actors, chorus, and musicians will perform on a traditional Noh stage with floor boards made of Japanese cypress that is being specially built for Lincoln Center Festival.

 

During the festival engagement the company will perform two of Zeami’s plays, Hagoromo and Aoi No Ue. The latter, “The Lady Aoi,” is based on a story from The Tale of the Genji, the 11th century classic Japanese novel written by a Heian court lady known as Murasaki Shikibu. Books written by Zeami himself and Noh masks that are believed to have been worn by Kanami and Zeami have been passed down within the Kanze family.

 

The young son of the Grand Master, Saburota Kanze, who will one day assume his father’s position in the company, will join his father onstage for performances of Okina, one of the plays which will open the festival.  Okina, older than any Noh play, consists of a group of dances with special religious significance, and so it is performed at times of special celebration.  Another play in the roster, Sumida Gawa or “Sumida River,” by Motomasa (ca. 1401-1432), was the inspiration for Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River. 

 

In the enigmatic Japanese dramas of Noh, ancient stories from classical Japanese literature and oral traditions come to life in a sublime, highly stylized blend of poetry, music, drama, and dance, employing masks and elaborate costumes. The divide between the natural and supernatural is bridged as spirits and humans interact in a world rife with symbolism. The main actor in a Noh play usually performs wearing a special mask.  All the performers—actors, singers, and musicians—are male, but unlike Kabuki, there are no formalized male or female role specialists.

 

There are five schools of Noh actors: Kanze, Komparu, Hosho, Kongo, and Kita, of which Kanze is the largest. The 700-year-old dramatic form is one of the world’s oldest performance arts and was recently designated an “Intangible Cultural Heritage” by UNESCO.

 

The essence of Noh has been transmitted through the centuries through strict instruction and training. There are more than 200 different plays in existence today. The audience tries to hear the "cry
of soul" in the very subtle movements of the actors. Noh performances are composed of several basic actions called kata (forms) or shosa (movements). The audience may not recognize each of the continuous actions, such as slight movements of the arms and the legs or shifts in the center of gravity under the costumes, but actors cannot truly perform Noh plays without completing these basic movements. The basic form of locomotion is called hakobi (pace). Actors shift their weight to walk naturally with their feet sliding on the floor without changing the height of the center of gravity. The beautiful movement of hakobi cannot be performed without basic skills cultivated by rigorous discipline.

 

Stemming from popular entertainment in Nara during the Heian period (794-1185), in conjunction with various dances tied to ritual offering, Noh was created during the latter half of the Kamakura period (1185-1333) and the early part of the Muromachi period 1336-1573. While under the patronage of the shogunate and high-ranking noblemen, Noh also came under the influence of some of the Muromachi period’s popular arts, including ink painting, as well as Zen Buddhism. Playwright Zeami Motokiyo is one of the most important historical figures in Noh and Japanese theater in general. A collection of his treatises on Noh, “Fushi Kaden,” was published some 200 years before Shakespeare’s theatrical debut.

 

Kiyokazu Kanze was born in Tokyo in 1959. His father was Sakon (Motomasa) Kanze, the 25th Grand Master of the Kanze School, whom Kiyokazu succeeded in 1990. He has performed across Japan and in many other countries, including France, India, Thailand, China, the United States, Germany, Poland and Lithuania, in revived plays such as Hakozaki and Akoyanomatsu and new plays such as Rikyu and The Conversion of St. Paul. He has received the New Face Award and other top awards from Japan’s Minister of Education in culture, sports, science, and technology, as well as the Chevalier Award from the French government. In Noh, he has been honored as the holder of “an important intangible cultural property” of Japan. He is Chairman of the Kanze Bunko Foundation and the Kanze-Kai Association, a Councilor of the Japan Arts Council, Managing Director at the Nihon Nohgaku Association, and Managing Member of the Japan-China Cultural Exchange Association. His books include Ichigo Shoshin.

 

Synopsis of the plays:

 

Aoi No Ue

Prince Genji, who was married to his wife Lady Aoi at a young age, has taken a mistress, Lady Rokujo, who had been married to the crown prince. The death of her husband robbed her of the chance to become empress and left her powerless. Following an episode in which she is humiliated in public by Lady Aoi, Rokujo is enraged to discover that Lady Aoi is pregnant. Prince Genji begins ignoring Rokujo, and in her jealousy her living spirit leaves her body and possesses Lady Aoi, resulting in her rival’s death. The action of the play focuses on a miko (female shaman) and a priest exorcising the spirit of Lady Rokujo from the body of Lady Aoi, who does not appear on stage. Rather, an empty kimono serves to represent her.

 

Hagoromo

A fisherman is walking with his companions at night when he finds the Hagoromo, the magical feather-mantle of a dancing airborne spirit hanging on a bough. The spirit sees him taking it and demands the feather’s return—she cannot return to Heaven without it. The fisherman argues with her, and finally promises to return it, if she will show him her dance or part of it. She accepts his offer. The Chorus explains the dance as symbolic of the daily changes of the moon. The words about "three, five, and fifteen" refer to the number of nights in the moon's changes. In the finale, the spirit disappears, like a mountain slowly hidden in mist.

 

Okina

It is said that “Okina is a Noh play, yet it isn’t.” Unlike many other pieces, it does not belong to any category and has no storyline. Okina sacred rite, in which the actors become divine figures who dance for peace, prosperity, and safety across the land. The performance of Okina starts even before it begins on stage. The performer must purify himself for a certain period of time before he performs the play. By doing so, he prepares his body and mind for the performance.

 

On the day of the performance, often shimenawa (a sacred rope made of rice straws) is placed above across the stage to purify the place. The altar is established in the kagami-no-ma (“mirror room” or anteroom). Some of the offerings include a men-bako (the mask box), which contains the masks used for the performance, and sake, which is offered at the altar and used for a ritual.

 

Shakkyo

A monk by the name of Jakushô (also known as Ôe no Sadamoto) comes upon a stone bridge at Mt. Shôryôzen (in modern-day Shanxi province) during his travels in China. He meets a small boy, who says that the land on the other side is the Buddhist holy land belonging to the bodhisattva Monju, but that only those who have spent many years in ascetic training in preparation for crossing the bridge have been able to do so safely.

 

One or two lions (depending on the performance) appear and come across the bridge to where Jakushô is standing, dancing and playing among peony flowers. When their dance is finished, they cross the bridge again, and return to the holy land.

 

Sumida Gawa

The story takes place on the Sumidagawa (the main river running north-south along the eastern edge of Musashi province, and of Edo/Tokyo). Musashi was a remote and sparsely populated place in the pre-modern period. The play begins with a traveler (waki) asking a ferryman for a spot in his boat, so as to cross the river. A distraught noblewoman in elegant garments then appears. A sprig of bamboo carried by the actor is a standard Noh convention indicating her madness. She explains, through poetry, that her only son was kidnapped by slave traders, and that her love for him has led her here, though she has gone mad along the way as a result of her distress.

 

The boatman is hesitant to have a mad person in his boat, and says that he will allow her onboard if she performs a crazy dance for him. Offended, she replies in refined Kyoto language that she is a noblewoman and will not stoop to such things; she recites, too, a famous poem from the Tales of Ise, "O, birds of Miyako / If you are worthy of your name, / Tell me, does my love still live?" Moved by her own poem, the woman does a crazy dance, and is permitted to enter the boat.

 

Shortly afterwards, the boatman, traveler, and madwoman begin to hear chanting from the opposite riverbank. The ferryman explains that a year earlier, a twelve-year-old boy who had been kidnapped by slave traders fell ill and died; the locals buried him here, he explains, and they are now saying prayers for him. The woman realizes this boy was her own son, Umewakamaru. She wails and cries, and the boatman leads her out of the boat to the gravesite, where the locals ask her to lead the prayer service. But she is at first unable to speak, and simply collapses to the ground, before finally uttering a few words of the prayer. Then, her son (played by a child actor, a kokata) appears from behind the mound, but when she reaches out to him, the ghost fades away and disappears, and as morning comes, the mother is left heartbroken.

 

In some versions, the boy does not appear at all, but only his voice is heard. Today, the Buddhist temple Mokubo-ji stands on the supposed site of his grave.

 

Schedule of performances and additional credits:

 

Wednesday, July 13 at 7:30

Noh Okina - Noh Hagoromo (The Robe of Feathers)

 

Noh Okina

Lead part (Okina) Kiyokazu Kanze

The companion of Shite (Senzai) Saburota Kanze

Kyogen part (Sambaso) Yasutaro Yamamoto

Kyogen part (Menbako) Noritaka Yamamoto

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Seiichi Iida

Masayoshi Ko  

Yukihiko Yokoyama

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Takahiro Ueda, Kimitake Ueda

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Hisahiro Oka

Shigehiko Fujinami

Fumihisa Onishi

Kojiro Sumi

Yoshinari Shimizu

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Takanobu Sakaguchi

Yoshimaru Sekine

 

Running time: 65 minutes

 

Noh Hagoromo (The Robe of Feathers)

          Wago No Mai (Kogaki: name of a special variant performance)

          By Zeami

Lead part (Shite, Angel) Yoshinobu Kanze

Supporting part (Waki, Fisherman) Tsuneyoshi Mori

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Seiichi Iida

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

Stick drum (Taiko) Motonori Kanze

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Motoharu Yoshii, Takanobu Sakaguchi

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Hisahiro Oka

Shigehiko Fujinami

Masashi Nomura

Kojiro Sumi

Yoshinari Shimizu

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Toshiya Kaneko

Hironoshin Inoue

 

Running time: 50 minutes

 

***

 

Thursday, July 14 at 7:30

Noh Sumida Gawa (Sumida River) - Kyogen Busshi (The Fake Sculptor) - Han-Noh Shakkyo (The Stone Bridge)

 

Noh Sumida Gawa (Sumida River)

Lead part (Shite, the mother of Umewaka-maru) Kiyokazu Kanze

The companion of Shite (Ko-kata, the ghost of Umewaka-maru) Shigeteru Fujinami

Supporting part (Waki, a ferryman) Tsuneyoshi Mori

Supporting part (Waki-tsure, a traveler) Jotaro Mori

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Seiichi Iida

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Yoshinobu Kanze, Kimitake Ueda

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Hisahiro Oka

Motoharu Yoshii

Fumihisa Onishi

Masashi Nomura

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Toshiya Kaneko

Yoshimaru Sekine

Hironoshin Inoue

 

Running time: 70 minutes

 

Kyogen Busshi (The Fake Sculptor)

Lead part (Shite, Sculptor of Buddhist images) Yasutaro Yamamoto

Supporting part (Ado, Country man) Noritaka Yamamoto

 

Running time: 20 minutes

 

Han-Noh Shakkyo (The Stone Bridge)

          O-Jishi (Kogaki: name of a special variant performance)

Lead part (Shite, White-Lion) Shigehiko Fujinami

The companion of Shite (Tsure, Red-Lion)

Kojiro Sumi

Yoshinari Shimizu

Takanobu Sakaguchi

Supporting part (Waki, Priest) Jotaro Mori

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Yukihiko Yokoyama

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

Stick drum (Taiko) Motonori Kanze

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Takahiro Ueda, Masashi Nomura

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Yoshinobu Kanze

Kimitake Ueda

Motoharu Yoshii

Fumihisa Onishi

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Toshiya Kaneko

Yoshimaru Sekine

Hironoshin Inoue

 

Running time: 25 minutes

 

***

 

Friday, July 15 at 7:30

Noh Hagoromo (The Robe of Feathers) - Kyogen Kaki Yamabushi (The Persimmon Thief) - Noh Sumida Gawa (Sumida River)

 

Noh Hagoromo (The Robe of Feathers)

          Wago no Mai (Kogaki: name of a special variant performance)

Lead part (Shite, Angel) Hisahiro Oka

Supporting part (Waki, Fisherman) Tsuneyoshi Mori

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Masayoshi Ko 

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

Stick drum (Taiko) Motonori Kanze

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Kimitake Ueda, Yoshinari Shimizu

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Takahiro Ueda

Motoharu Yoshii

Fumihisa Onishi

Masashi Nomura

Kojiro Sumi

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Toshiya Kaneko

Hironoshin Inoue

 

Running time: 50 minutes

 

Kyogen Kaki Yamabushi (The Persimmon Thief)

Lead part (Shite, YAMABUSHI) Noritaka Yamamoto

Supporting part (Ado, Persimmon owner) Yasutaro Yamamoto

 

Running time: 10 minutes

 

Noh Sumida Gawa (Sumida River)

Lead part (Shite, the mother of Umewaka-maru) Kiyokazu Kanze

The companion of Shite (Ko-kata, the Ghost of Umewaka-maru) Shigeteru Fujinami

Supporting part (Waki, a ferryman) Tsuneyoshi Mori

Supporting part (Waki-tsure, a traveler) Jotaro Mori

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Seiichi Iida

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Yoshinobu Kanze, Shigehiko Fujinami

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Takahiro Ueda

Kimitake Ueda

Motoharu Yoshii

Kojiro Sumi

Yoshinari Shimizu

Takanobu Sakaguchi

Toshiya Kaneko

Yoshimaru Sekine

 

Running time: 70 minutes

 

***

 

Saturday, July 16 at 1:30

Noh Okina - Noh Aoi No Ue (The Lady Aoi)

 

Noh Okina

Lead part (Okina) Kiyokazu Kanze

The companion of Shite (Senzai) Saburota Kanze

Kyogen part (Sambaso) Noritaka Yamamoto

Kyogen part (Menbako) Yasutaro Yamamoto

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi)

Seiichi Iida

Masayoshi Ko 

Yukihiko Yokoyama

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Takahiro Ueda, Kimitake Ueda

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Yoshinobu Kanze

Shigehiko Fujinami

Fumihisa Onishi

Masashi Nomura

Yoshinari Shimizu

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Takanobu Sakaguchi

Yoshimaru Sekine

 

Running time: 65 minutes

 

Noh Aoi No Ue (The Lady Aoi)

          Azusa no De

          Ku no Inori (Kogaki: name of a special variant performance)

Lead part (Shite, Spirit of Lady Rokujo) Hisahiro Oka

The companion of Shite (Tsure, Miko) Kojiro Sumi

Supporting part (Waki, Holy priest) Tsuneyoshi Mori

Supporting part (Waki-tsure, High official) Jotaro Mori

Explanatory interlude (Ai, Servant) Yasutaro Yamamoto

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Seiichi Iida

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

Stick drum (Taiko) Motonori Kanze

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Motoharu Yoshii, Yoshinari Shimizu

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Takahiro Ueda

Shigehiko Fujinami

Fumihisa Onishi

Masashi Nomura

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Toshiya Kaneko

Yoshimaru Sekine

Hironoshin Inoue

 

Running time: 50 minutes

 

***

 

Saturday, July 16 at 7:30

Noh Hagoromo (The Robe of Feathers) - Kyogen Busshi (The Fake Sculptor) - Noh Aoi No Ue (The Lady Aoi)

 

Noh Hagoromo (The Robe of Feathers)

          Wago no Mai (Kogaki: name of a special variant performance)

Lead part (Shite, Angel) Yoshinobu Kanze

Supporting part (Waki, Fisherman) Jotaro Mori

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Masayoshi Ko

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

Stick drum (Taiko) Motonori Kanze

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Kimitake Ueda, Yoshinari Shimizu

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Hisahiro Oka

Shigehiko Fujinami

Motoharu Yoshii

Fumihisa Onishi

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Toshiya Kaneko

Yoshimaru Sekine

Hironoshin Inoue

 

Running time: 50 minutes

 

Kyogen Busshi (The Fake Sculptor)

Lead part (Shite, Sculptor of Buddhist images) Yasutaro Yamamoto

Supporting part (Ado, Country man) Noritaka Yamamoto

 

Running time: 20 minutes

 

Noh Aoi No Ue (The Lady Aoi)

          Azusa no De

          Ku no Inori (Kogaki: name of a special variant performance)

Lead part (Shite, Spirit of Lady Rokujo) Kiyokazu Kanze

The companion of Shite (Tsure, Miko) Takanobu Sakaguchi

Supporting part (Waki, Holy priest) Tsuneyoshi Mori

Supporting part (Waki-tsure, High official) Jotaro Mori

Explanatory interlude (Ai, Servant) Noritaka Yamamoto

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Seiichi Iida

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

Stick drum (Taiko) Motonori Kanze

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Takahiro Ueda, Kojiro Sumi

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Hisahiro Oka

Kimitake Ueda

Shigehiko Fujinami

Masashi Nomura

Yoshinari Shimizu

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Toshiya Kaneko

Hironoshin Inoue

 

Running time: 50 minutes

 

***

 

Sunday, Jul 17 at 2:00

Noh Okina - Han-Noh Shakkyo (The Stone Bridge)

 

Noh Okina

Lead part (Okina) Kiyokazu Kanze

The companion of Shite (Senzai) Saburota Kanze

Kyogen part (Sambaso) Yasutaro Yamamoto

Kyogen part (Menbako) Noritaka Yamamoto

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Seiichi Iida

Masayoshi Ko

Yukihiko Yokoyama

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Takahiro Ueda, Motoharu Yoshii

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Hisahiro Oka

Yoshinobu Kanze

Fumihisa Onishi

Masashi Nomura

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Toshiya Kaneko

Yoshimaru Sekine

Hironoshin Inoue

 

Running time: 65 minutes

 

Han-Noh Shakkyo (The Stone Bridge)

          O-Jishi (Kogaki: name of a special variant performance)

Lead part (Shite, White-Lion) Kimitake Ueda

The companion of Shite (Tsure, Red-Lion) Kojiro Sumi

Yoshinari Shimizu

Takanobu Sakaguchi

Supporting part (Waki, Priest) Tsuneyoshi Mori

 

Flute (Fue) Ichikazu Sugi

Shoulder drum (Ko-tsuzumi) Seiichi Iida

Large hand drum (O-tsuzumi) Hirotada Kamei

Stick drum (Taiko) Motonori Kanze

 

Supervision and arrangement (Koken) Fumihisa Onishi,

Masashi Nomura

 

Chorus (Jiutai)

Hisahiro Oka

Yoshinobu Kanze

Takahiro Ueda

Motoharu Yoshii

Nobuyuki Kizuki

Toshiya Kaneko

Yoshimaru Sekine

Hironoshin Inoue

 

Running time: 25 minutes

 

Kanze Noh Theatre’s participation in the Lincoln Center Festival is sponsored by the Arts Council Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture).

 

***

 

Shakespeare’s Globe

The Merchant of Venice

By William Shakespeare

(North American premiere production)

July 20 - 24, 2016

Seven performances, The Rose Theater (Time Warner Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street)

Directed by Jonathan Munby

Designed by Mike Britton

Composed by Jules Maxwell

Choreographed by Lucy Hind

With Jonathan Pryce and Stefan Adegbola; Michael Bertenshaw; Philip Cox; Scott Karim; Ben Lamb; Daniel Lapaine; Christopher Logan; Dominic Mafham; Brian Martin; Dorothea Myer-Bennett; Regé-Jean Page; Rachel Pickup; Phoebe Pryce; and David Sturzaker

 

After its exceptional Twelfth Night and Richard III double bill that played to sold-out houses on Broadway in 2014-15, Shakespeare’s Globe returns to New York this summer for its Lincoln Center Festival debut with the North American premiere of director Jonathan Munby’s critically acclaimed  production of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice starring one of our leading actors, Oliver and Tony Award winner Jonathan Pryce, exacting a highly sympathetic portrayal of Shylock, the Jewish moneylender—at once a vengeful tyrant and a piteous, persecuted outcast. The Guardian declared it, “a production that anyone who has never seen a first-rate Shylock should not miss.”

 

Joining the esteemed actor onstage is Pryce’s own daughter, Pheobe Pryce, in the role of Jessica, Shylock’s daughter.  The production also features Dominic Mafham as Antonio; Rachel Pickup as Portia; Daniel Lapaine as Bassanio; David Sturzaker as Gratiano; Stefan Adegbola as Lancelot Gobbo; Michael Bertenshaw as the Duke of Venice/Tubal; Philip Cox as Balthasar; Scott Karim as Prince of Morocco; Ben Lamb as Lorenzo; Christopher Logan as Prince of Arragon; Brian Martin as Salarino; Dorothea Myer-Bennett as Nerissa; and Regé-Jean Page as Solanio.

 

The Merchant of Venice has proven to be one of the most challenging of Shakespeare’s plays to transpose to modern tastes. Bawdy humor and romantic hijinks co-exist with difficult questions of tolerance and intolerance, religious law and civil society, justice and mercy. Director Jonathan Munby’s approaches these challenges with nuance, intelligence, and wit in a glistening production where “the lighter and darker elements combine in a seamless whole” (Telegraph, U.K.).

 

The story begins when Portia, a wealthy heiress of Belmont, is forced to challenge her suitors. The winner will win her hand in marriage. In Venice, the epicenter of conspicuous consumption, speculation, and debt, Bassanio borrows money from his friend Antonio to finance his attempt at Portia’s hand. Antonio, in turn, takes out a loan from the moneylender Shylock. The loan will be repaid when Antonio’s ships return to the city. But if the ships fail to return, and the money cannot be repaid, Antonio will give Shylock a pound of his own flesh. When Antonio cannot pay his debt, Shylock, one of the most memorable outsiders in all theater, demands his ‘bond’.

 

Jonathan Pryce is best known for his Tony Award-winning performance as the Engineer in Miss Saigon, which also earned him Drama Desk, Olivier, and Outer Circle Critics’ Awards for Best Actor in a Musical. He is also known for portraying Governor Weatherby Swann in Disney’s first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, Juan Perón in Evita, and Sam Lowry in Terry Gilliam’s 1985 cult film, Brazil. He won the 1977 Tony Award for ‘Best Actor’ for his Broadway debut in Comedians and the 1980 Olivier Award for Best Actor for Hamlet (Royal Court). Other notable stage credits include King Lear (Almeida); Glengarry Glen Ross (Apollo); and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Broadway). His film appearances include The Affair of the Necklace, Tomorrow Never Dies, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Glengarry Glen Ross. He has also recently appeared in the television adaptations of Game of Thrones and Wolf Hall.

 

Director Jonathan Munby most recently directed Wendy & Peter Pan (RSC) and A Human Being Died That Night (Hampstead Theatre/Fugard Theatre, South Africa). His previous work for Shakespeare’s Globe includes Antony & Cleopatra and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was nominated for a What’sOnStage Award as Best Shakespearean Production in 2008. He was nominated for the Outstanding Director Helen Hayes Award in 2010 for The Dog in the Manger (Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington). His other notable directorial credits include The Canterbury Tales, and Madness in Valencia (RSC); Julius Caesar (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre); The Recommendation (Old Globe, San Diego); The Prince of Homburg, and Life is a Dream (Donmar Warehouse); A Number and The White Devil (Meiner Chocolate Factory); and 24 Hour Plays (The Old Vic).

 

Founded by the pioneering American actor and director Sam Wanamaker, Shakespeare's Globe is a unique international resource dedicated to the exploration of Shakespeare's work and the playhouse for which he wrote, through the connected means of performance and education. Since the Globe Theatre reconstruction opened for performances in 1997, Shakespeare's Globe has welcomed visitors from all over the world to take part in workshops, lectures and staged readings; to visit the exhibition and tour the Globe Theatre, and to watch productions, ranging from original practices to world premieres of new writing and the first play by a woman ever to be performed here.

 

Performance schedule: Wednesday, July 20 at 7:30; Thursday, July 21 at 7:30; Friday, July 22 at 7:30; Saturday, July 23 at 1:30 & 7:30; Sunday, July 24 at 1:30 & 7:30

Running time: Approximately 2 hours and 50 minutes, with intermission

 

***

 

C.I.C.T. / Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme

Comédie-ballet by Molière with music by Lully

July 20 - 24, 2016

Five performances, Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College (524 West 59th Street)

Directed by Denis Podalydès, Sociétaire de la Comédie Française

Conducted by Christophe Coin

Artistic collaborator Emmanuel Bourdieu

Stage designer, Éric Ruf, Sociétaire de la Comédie Française

Lighting designer, Stéphanie Daniel

Costume designer, Christian Lacroix

Choreographer, Kaori Ito

Wigs and Make up, Véronique Soulier-Nguyen and Gwendoline Quiniou

with:

Comedians: Manon Combes, Julien Campani, Isabelle Candelier, Bénédicte Guilbert, Elodie Huber, Manuel Le Lièvre, Francis Leplay, Nicolas Orlando, Laurent Podalydès, Pascal Rénéric, Alexandre Steiger and Thibault Vinçon

Dancers: Windy Antognelli, Flavie Hennion and Artemis Stavridis

Singers: Romain Champion (tbc), Cécile Granger, Marc Labonnette, Francisco Mañalich

 

With l’Ensemble la Révérence

Christophe Coin cello, Maria Tecla Andreotti flute,
Vincent Robin oboe, Stephan Dudermel and Louis Creach violin,
François Guerrier harpsichord

 

Performed in French with English supertitles

 

Paris’s renowned Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord brings its critically acclaimed production of Molière’s satirical masterpiece, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, one of the great comedies of Western literature, as staged by award-winning director Denis Podalydès as a comedy-ballet, accompanied by the score Jean Baptiste Lully composed for the first performance for Louis XIV in 1670, with exquisite costumes by fashion designer Christian Lacroix.

 

In Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Molière presents us with Monsieur Jourdain, a commoner, who is looking to acquire the manners of an aristocrat. He decides to order a new outfit more in keeping with his new status and throws himself into learning about fencing, dance, music, and philosophy, all of which seem to him to be indispensable to a gentleman. He woos Dorimène, a Marchioness who is brought under his roof by her lover, an overbearing count who intends to make the most of the gullibility he perceives in Monsieur Jourdain and Dorimène. The count’s wife and Nicole, his maidservant, initially make fun of him but grow concerned upon seeing his envy and try to bring him back to reality and concentrate on the impending marriage of his daughter Lucile to Cléonte. However, since Cléonte is not a gentleman, Monsieur Jourdain refuses to accept the match. In order to win his favor, Cléonte decides to enter into Monsieur Jourdain's delusions of nobility and, with the help of his valet, Covielle, he poses as the son of the Sultan of Turkey. In this guise Cléonte receives the blessing of Monsieur Jourdain, who believes himself to have reached the highest rank of nobility after being promoted to “Mamamouchi” in a comic Turkish ceremony organised by Covielle's accomplices. After countless comic episodes, Monsieur Jourdain finally has his moment of glory, and it is played out in music and dance, when ridicule gives way to pure wonder.

 

Produced by C.I.C.T. / Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme has toured extensively, earning acclaim in France, Belgium, Germany, China, and Russia since its premiere in Paris in 2012.

 

A director, as well as an accomplished actor of both stage and screen, Denis Podalydès has appeared in more than 80 feature films since his 1989 film debut. His portrayal of French president Nicolas Sarkozy in The Conquest garnered him a Best Actor nomination at the 2012 César Awards.

 

Podalydès, who made his stage debut in 1988, first performed with the renowned Comédie-Française during the 1996-97 season. He has since essayed dozens of roles for the company, was named a Sociétaire of the Comédie-Française in 2000, and began directing there in the 2005-06 season. Podalydès’s extensive stage work features appearances in plays by Corneille, Feydeau, and Marivaux, along with Molière, with whom he has become closely associated as an actor and director. Podalydès has won France’s highest theater award, the Molière, twice: in 1999, as Best Male Newcomer for his performance in Gogol’s The Government Inspector and in 2007, as Best Director for Edmund Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac at the Comédie-Française. At the Théâtre des Bouffes-du-Nord, in addition to Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, he has directed Chekhov’s monologue On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco and Maurice Maeterlinck’s marionette play, La Mort de Tintagiles.

 

Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord is located near the Gare du Nord in Paris. Built in 1876, the theater battled with an out-of-the-way location and a long succession of directors until it was finally condemned and closed in 1952. In 1974, Peter Brook, one of the world’s most celebrated modern theater practitioners, found the former music hall in decline and decided to honor the theater’s 100-year history by preserving it in a state of decay. Since Brook revived it, it has presented revolutionary productions, including La Tragedie de Carmen, The Mahabharata, and Tierno Bokar. Lincoln Center co-produced and presented Peter Brook’s A Magic Flute with C.I.C.T. / Le Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Festival 2011. Brook and partner Micheline Rozan, in addition to retaining the building’s history, decided to make the theater as open and accessible as possible with reasonable ticket prices and family friendly matinees. Brook stepped down in 2011, handing the directorship to Olivier Mantei and Olivier Poubelle.

 

Performance schedule: Wednesday, July 20 at 7:30; Thursday, July 21 at 7:00; Friday, July 22 at 7:00; Saturday, July 23 at 7:00; Sunday, July 24 at 2:00

Running time: 3 hours 15 minutes, with intermission

 

The Lincoln Center Festival 2016 presentation of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme is made possible in part by generous support from the Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater and Sharp Fund PLD of The New York Community Trust.

 

With the support of the French Embassy in the United States.

 

Production C.I.C.T. - Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord

 

Coproduction Les Nuits de Fourvière / Département du Rhône; Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg; Théâtre de La Place/ Liège; Théâtre de Caen; Opéra Royal / Château de Versailles Spectacles; Ensemble Baroque de Limoges / Fondation Laborie; Maison de la Culture d’Amiens; Châteauvallon CNCDC; Printemps des Comédiens. With the participation of ENSAD from Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon, l’ENSATT and JTN.

Tromba marina: luthier Jean-Claude Condi, Mirecourt.

 

***

 

Takarazuka CHICAGO

(North American premiere)

July 20 - 24, 2016

Six performances, David H. Koch Theater (Broadway at 63rd Street)

Lyrics by Fred Ebb

Music by John Kander

Book Fred Ebb & Bob Fosse

Scenic Design by John Lee Beatty

Costume Design by William Ivey Long

Lighting Design by Ken Billington

Orchestrations by Ralph Burns

Vocal Arrangements by Rob Fisher

Dance Music Arrangements by Peter Howard

Script Adaptation by David Thompson

Based on the presentation by City Center’s Encores!SM

Recreation of Original Production Direction by David Hyslop

Recreation of Original Production Choreography by Gary Chryst

Choreographer Original New York Production Ann Reinking in the style of Bob Fosse

Director Original New York Production Walter Bobbie

 

Starring: Saori Mine, Saki Asaji, and Asato Shizuki who alternate as Billy Flynn; Yoka Wao, Wataru Kozuki, and Natsuki Mizu who alternate as Velma Kelly; and Hikaru Asami and Yuga Yamato who alternate as Roxie Hart

 

Performed in Japanese with English supertitles

 

Ichizo Kobayashi, a railway business operator, founded this troupe in Takarazuka, the terminus of a railway line, in order to boost train ridership. The troupe’s first performance was in 1914, and they celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2014. The all-female Takarazuka Revue has grown into a true Japanese cultural phenomenon, with a devoted fan base of mostly young women clamoring for the company’s sparkling adaptations of classic Western and Japanese stories, movies, and plays, as well as its stars. Takarazuka makes its first Lincoln Center Festival appearance with the North American premiere of Takarazuka CHICAGO, the classic Tony Award-winning musical, Chicago. With a legendary book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander, and lyrics by Fred Ebb, Chicago is now the number one longest-running American musical in Broadway history.

 

Set amidst the razzle-dazzle decadence of the 1920s, Chicago is the story of Roxie Hart, a housewife and nightclub dancer who murders her on-the-side lover after he threatens to walk out on her. Desperate to avoid conviction, she dupes the public, the media, and her rival cellmate, Velma Kelly, by hiring Chicago’s slickest criminal lawyer to transform her malicious crime into a barrage of sensational headlines, the likes of which might just as easily be ripped from today's tabloids.

 

Leading the cast of Takarazuka CHICAGO are several of Takarazuka’s former top stars: Saori Mine, Saki Asaji, and Asato Shizuki alternate as Billy Flynn, the manipulative lawyer who defends both Velma and Roxie; Yoka Wao, Wataru Kozuki, and Natsuki Mizu alternate as Velma Kelly; and Hikaru Asami and Yuga Yamato alternate as Roxie Hart.

 

As in all of its productions, the troupe features women in every role, and as a coda to the evening’s entertainment, an over-the-top revue—replete with glittering costumes and dance—is performed by the company.

 

The Takarazuka troupe has not appeared in New York since 1989’s Radio City Music Hall performances, described by The New York Times as “Japan's answer to the Ziegfeld Follies, the Folies-Bergere, Las Vegas floor shows, and the Music Hall's own spectaculars all rolled into one glittering…package.” A scaled-down touring group put on a dance program at the Joyce Theater in 1992.

 

Although much of Takarazuka’s repertory consists of original works and adaptations of traditional tales and Japanese manga (comic books), short stories, and even video games, other Broadway-style stagings include such iconic musicals as Guys and Dolls, Kiss Me Kate, Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, and West Side Story, along with more recent hits, Catch Me If You Can and The Scarlet Pimpernel. There have also been adaptations of operas (Aida, Tristan und Isolde, Turandot), Shakespeare plays (Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet), and even novels (The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, The Count of Monte Cristo), and movies (Casablanca, JFK, An Officer and a Gentleman).

 

Takarazuka Revue was founded by Ichizo Kobayashi, founder of Hankyu Railways, in Takarazuka. The terminus of a railway line from Osaka, the city was already a destination for tourists because of its hot springs, and Kobayashi wanted another attraction that would bring more visitors to the city, boosting train ridership in the process. In a nod toward the original model of Kabuki theater—in which only men performed—Takarazuka Revue became a female-only troupe. Its first performance was in 1914; ten years later, it was popular enough to have its own theater in Takarazuka. Today, the company operates another theater in Tokyo, and annually performs for millions of fans throughout Japan.

 

Produced by Barry and Fran Weissler, Chicago is the winner of six 1996 Tony Awards including Best Musical Revival and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Cast Recording. The Broadway production is directed by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie and choreographed by Tony Award winner Ann Reinking. Chicago features set design by John Lee Beatty, costume design by Tony Award winner William Ivey Long, lighting design by Tony Award winner Ken Billington, and sound design by Scott Lehrer.

 

Performance Schedule: Wednesday, July 20 at 8:00; Thursday, July 21 at 7:30; Friday, July 22 at 7:30; Saturday, July 23 at 2:00 and 8:00; Sunday, July 24 at 2:00

Running time: Approximately 2 hours, 45 minutes, with intermission

 

***

 

1927

Golem

July 26 - 31, 2016

Eight performances, Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College (524 West 59th Street)

Created by 1927 

Directed & Written by Suzanne Andrade 

Film, Animation & Design by Paul Barritt

Music by Lillian Henley

Associate Direction & Design Esme Appleton

Sound Design by Laurence Owen

Costume by Sarah Munro 

Dramaturgy: Ben Francombe

Animation Associate: Derek Andrade

Percussion & Drums: Will Close

Projection Screen Design: James Lewis

Set Built by Joe Marchant & West Yorkshire Playhouse 

Costume Construction Sarah Munro, Assisted by Martha Copeland

Production Manager: Helen Mugridge

Sound Technician: Chris Prosho 

Producer: Jo Crowley

Performed by Esme Appleton, Lillian Henley, Rose Robinson, Shamira Turner, and Will Close

Voice of Golem: Ben Whitehead

Additional voice over: Suzanne Andrade

 

Like a giant graphic novel burst into life, the award-winning London-based performance company 1927 makes its Lincoln Center Festival debut with Golem, a dark and fantastical production that explores the ways in which our digital world has created a monster. Acclaimed as “funny, unsettling and unforgettable…a Frankenstein for the 21st century…alive with irony, imagination and humanity” (Times, U.K.), and it draws on the Jewish myth of the golem, a creature shaped out of clay and magically brought to life in order to do his creator’s bidding, and the work of early 20th century writer, Gustav Meyrink.1927’s Golem, however, is not a re-telling or adaptation of the myth but an original story that examines the relationship between an extraordinarily ordinary man and his golem.

 

Blending 1927’s signature synthesis of handmade animation, claymation, live music, and performance—the troupe’s 2008 cabaret piece Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea at PS122 earned it Drama Desk Award nominations for Unique Theatrical Experience and Projection & Animation—Golem is set in a fictional yet familiar world where technology and the market economy have evolved to a point of transcending the boundaries of human control.  The golem has been marketed as a time-saving, life-simplifying gadget bought by the masses—a nightmare of the digital revolution made all the more ghoulish by the candy-colored, half-human world in which it is set.

 

Golem is performed by Esme Appleton, Lillian Henley, Rose Robinson, Shamira Turner, and Will Close. Created by 1927, it is directed and written by Suzanne Andrade, with film, animation, and design by Paul Barritt. Produced by Jo Crowley, with music by Lillian Henley, sound design by Laurence Owen and costumes by Sarah Munro. Golem was originally created in co-production with Salzburg Festival, Théâtre de la Ville Paris, and Young Vic Theatre London.

 

1927 is a multi-award winning London-based performance company that specializes in combining performance and live music with animation and film to create magical filmic performance. Founded in 2005 by writer, performer, and director Suzanne Andrade and animator and illustrator Paul Barritt, the multi-award winning company works across the performance fields of theater, opera, music, and film. 1927’s Co-Artistic Directors are Suzanne Andrade and Paul Barritt, with Associate Artistic Director Esme Appleton, Associate Artist (Composer) Lillian Henley, Animation Associate Derek Andrade, and Producer Jo Crowley. 1927 is based in London and is an Associate Company of the Young Vic Theatre and Resident Artists at Stratford Circus.

 

Performance schedule: Tuesday, July 26 at 7:30; Wednesday, July 27 at 7:30; Thursday, July 28 at 7:30; Friday, July 29 at 7:30; Saturday, July 30 at 2:00 and 7:30; Sunday, July 31 at 2:00 and 7:30

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes, no intermission

 

A 1927, Salzburg Festival, Theatre de la Ville Paris and Young Vic co-production

 

Development supported by The Tolmen Centre Cornwall, Harrogate Theatre, Stratford Circus and The Old Market

 

The creation of Golem was supported by funding from Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts Golem had its world premiere at Salzburg State Theatre, Salzburg Festival on August 22, 2014.

 

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Now in its 21st season, Lincoln Center Festival has received worldwide attention for presenting some of the broadest and most original performing arts programs in Lincoln Center’s history. The festival has presented nearly 1422 performances of opera, music, dance, theater, and interdisciplinary forms by internationally acclaimed artists from more than 50 countries. To date, the festival has commissioned more than 43 new works and offered some 143 world, U.S., and New York premieres. It places particular emphasis on showcasing contemporary artistic viewpoints and multidisciplinary works that challenge the boundaries of traditional performance. LincolnCenterFestival.org

 

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 15 series, festivals, and programs including American Songbook, Avery Fisher Artist Program, Emerging Artist Awards, Great Performers, LC Kids, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing,  Meet the Artist, Mostly Mozart Festival, and the White Light Festival, as well as the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and 11 resident organizations: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the School of American Ballet and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. For more information: AboutLincolnCenter.org

 

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