Eliogabalo March 15, 2013

Gotham Chamber Opera continues its 2012-2013 Season with ELIOGABALO (1667) by Francesco Cavalli. The show will run from March 15-29, 2013 at 8pm at The Box, 189 Chrystie Street, NYC. Tickets are $30-$175 and are available on www.ticketcentral.com or by phone at 212-279-4200.

Opera is full of courtesans and lechers and in the 20th century, outright acts of perversion. (Salome, anyone?) But you have to go back almost 350 years for the work with the most depraved protagonist of all: Eliogabalo, by Francesco Cavalli. Based on the life of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus, who reigned from 218 to 222, the opera tells the story of a man who even today remains notorious for his sexual appetites, his appointment of an all-female senate, and his well-deserved assassination. Cavalli (1602-1676) died without ever seeing a performance of the opera, which was written for the Venice festival of 1668 but was withdrawn and replaced by another opera on the same subject. Ignored for centuries, Cavalli's opera finally received its world premiere in 1999 in Crema, Italy, the composer's birthplace.

This production of Eliogabalo will be staged by James Marvel and produced in cooperation with Randy Weiner (Sleep No More) in one of New York’s most decadent nightspots: The Box, on the Lower East Side. Starring Christopher Ainslie as Eliogabalo, the cast will also include Micaëla Oeste, Susannah Biller, Maeve Höglund, Emily Righter, Daryl Freedman, Randall Scotting, John Easterlin, and Brandon Cedel. Music direction by Grant Herreid, associate music direction by Neal Goren, direction by James Marvel, assistant direction and choreography by Austin McCormick.

Official Website: http://www.gothamchamberopera.org