Transformations

An operatic adaptation by Conrad Susa

of the poems by Anne Sexton

JoAnn Kulesza, music director

conducting a chamber instrumental ensemble

Jennifer Blades, stage director and designer

Douglas Nelson, lighting designer

Friday and Saturday, February 19 & 20, 2010, at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, February 21, 2010, at 3:00 p.m.

Theatre Project, 45 West Preston Street, Baltimore

Admission $25 / Seniors $15 / Students with ID $10

Tickets available from Theatre Project online, or call 410/752–8558

Shortly before she took her own life in 1975, poet Anne Sexton collaborated with composer Conrad Susa in bringing her collection, Transformations, to the musical stage. Her sources were the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, familiar and not so familiar. Why “Transformations”? Sexton’s characters, like their originals, are transformed by the powers of magic, whether good or more frequently malevolent. The stories themselves are transformed to reflect the flip contemporary sensibility of the television sitcom and the movies. On a deeper level yet, Transformations refers to the many aspects of being a woman, and in particular to the tormented struggle with her own demons that formed the script for Anne Sexton’s life and the key to her death. Fittingly, for Sexton herself used to tour with a rock band, Conrad Susa’s music refers to a wide range of popular styles, yet he has moments of ravishing lyricism that are entirely operatic. This is an entirely new production of a work last presented by the Peabody in 1999.

A Feminist Far from Grimm: Anne Sexton and her Transformations. Illustrated essay by Roger Brunyate, giving more information about the background of the opera.

CAST

Maggie Finnegan
Stephanie Miller
Jennifer Hamilton
Curtis Bannister
Andrew Spady
David Diehl
James Parks
Peter Tomaszewski