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Brian SchoberBrian SchoberWhite Witch is a new contemporary America opera premiering October 23-25. Set in 1831, the opera - a tale of voodoo, murder, revenge and hubris - is based on the 19th century Jamaican legend of Annie Palmer, a white English plantation owner notoriously known as The White Witch of Rose Hall. Annie had an overblown ego, an insatiable sexual appetite and knowledge of voodoo gleaned from her childhood Haitian nanny. She used this experience in the black arts to kill three husbands and a series of lovers and rivals - including plantation slaves - in cold blood. Her remorse came too little, too late. Ultimately, her slave lover used the same voodoo power Annie employed to preside over Rose Hall to seal her fate.
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The score, a perfect symbiosis of Joan Ross Sorkin's libretto and Brian Schober's music, is suggestively evocative and exotic, atdifferent times delicately ethereal, dramatically angular, deeply psychological - always captivating. Renowned contralto Christina Ascher plays the title role in this one-act monodrama accompanied by percussionist Jared Soldiviero. The production is directed and choreographed by Lynn Neuman with video and projection design by Gail Scott White and costumes by Malinda Crump.
White Witch Premiere at Symphony Space
October 23-25 at 8:00pm
37 Broadway (at 95th st)
General Seating: $25
Symphony Space Members/students/seniors: $15
