RIAM Opera, in collaboration with IADT Design for Stage + Screen, present two productions, on alternate evenings, of Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon and Dominick Argento’s Postcard from Morocco at the Project Arts Centre from Monday 4 – Friday 8 March, with a double bill presentation of both operas on Saturday 9th March.
The production of two operas in a double-bill presentation is the culmination of several months of intensive work involving performances from third level vocal students of the Royal Irish Academy of Music and production, costume and make-up design from IADT Design for Stage + Screen students. Third level RIAM orchestral students make up the RIAM Opera Orchestra conducted by David Adams (Cendrillon) and Andrew Synnott (Postcard from Morocco). Both operas are directed by Hélène Montague, with movement by Diane Richardson and lighting by John Comiskey. IADT Visual Design Communications students Niamh Crean and Andrea Parra Rada created the visual identity, programme and poster design for this year’s productions.
Pauline Viardot created her version of Cinderella, a comic opera in three tableaux for seven solo singers, chorus and piano, to her own libretto and premiered it in April 1904 in her Paris salon when she was 84 years old.
As a singer and composer, Pauline Viardot was at the centre of artistic life in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century. She wrote over 100 songs, including transcriptions of Chopin’s 12 mazurkas, four operettas and her opera Cendrillon. Taking the lead from Viardot’s salon setting, our production of Cendrillon brings a group of performers together in the same space to tell the well-known story with some modern twists and unexpected turns!
Dominick Argento’s Postcard from Morocco, with a libretto by John Donahue, premiered in 1971 in Minneapolis and was a huge success. In one-act and with no linear plot, the opera asks us to ponder and embrace the absurdity of life. Hailed as “a remarkable work” by The Washington Post and “A strange and often beautiful evening of theatre!” by The New York Times, RIAM Opera and IADT are proud to present the Irish première of this surrealistic chamber opera.
Tickets are available now from Project Arts Centre at https://projectartscentre.ie and 01 881 9613