Vertical Player Repertory, a pioneer of the alternative opera movement in New York City, was founded in 1998 by Judith Barnes. VPR began life in a storefront in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, bringing an ensemble theatre aesthetic to intimate performances.<\/p>\n
The 2003 world premiere of composer Yoav Gal\u2019s comic opera The Dwarf<\/i> brought the company notice in The New York Times feature article “Never Say Die in Indie Opera” by opera critic Anne Midgette. Other world premieres include\u00a0Ben Yarmolinsky’s The Constitution, A Secular Oratorio<\/em>,\u00a0<\/i>Isidore Elias\u2019 original vaudeville Bucky and his Friends,<\/i> and Opera Feroce\u2019s baroque pasticcio operas Amor & Psyche <\/i>and Armenio in Armenia<\/em>. Pieces VPR has developed include Der Rosenkavalier: The True Story<\/i>, a hybrid opera-theater reworking of Strauss\u2019 classic with a speaking role for Baron Ochs, and The Peace<\/i>, an opera based on Aristophanes\u2019 stinging social satire, by composer Nizan Leibovich and librettist Isidore Elias. The Dwarf<\/i>, which VPR premiered in 2003, was revived in 2013 at The Blue Building in NYC, directed by Doug Fitch.<\/p>\n VPR’s ground-breaking site-specific productions outdoors at the Red Hook Container Port in 2007 and 2008, at the invitation of Sal Catucci, CEO of American Stevedoring Inc, garnered international acclaim. Il Tabarro<\/i> was performed on the deck of the oil tanker The Mary Whalen, and Les contes d\u2019Hoffmann<\/i> was staged atop tons of raw lumber in an amphitheatre made of stacked shipping containers. These productions brought thousands of people to a spectacular location previously inaccessible to the public.<\/p>\n In 2009,\u00a0port access was restricted nationwide by Homeland Security while VPR was preparing for a site-specific staging of A View from the Bridge<\/i>, William Bolcom\u2019s powerful opera about Brooklyn longshoremen, to be set on the very Red Hook docks where the story takes place. VPR returned to its storefront venue with a new chamber arrangement of the opera, created in collaboration with the composer. In 2011, VPR brought Francesco Cavalli\u2019s bedroom comedy of the gods, La Calisto,<\/i> to a post-industrial factory courtyard on the banks of the Gowanus Canal.<\/p>\n Repertoire at VPR has included works as varied as Pacini’s Malvina di Scozia<\/em>, Handel\u2019s Alcina<\/i>, Mozart\u2019s Idomeneo<\/em>, Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s Jen\u016ffa<\/i> and Milhaud\u2019s M\u00e9d\u00e9e<\/i>. In addition to full operas in varied unconventional locations, VPR continues to give intimate performances of opera and recital repertoire as part of its miniatures behind the door<\/i> series.<\/p>\n VPR has received grants from the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC), the Independence Community Foundation, The New York Community Trust, BRIC\/Rotunda, The Field, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and many generous contributions from private donors. VPR is a proud founding member of NYOA, the New York Opera Alliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vertical Player Repertory, a pioneer of the alternative opera movement in New York City, was founded in 1998 by Judith Barnes. VPR began life in a storefront in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, bringing an ensemble theatre aesthetic to intimate performances. The 2003 world premiere of composer Yoav Gal\u2019s comic opera The Dwarf brought the company notice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2995,"parent":5,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4497,"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59\/revisions\/4497"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vpropera.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}