Curiosity Cabinet to Present NO MAN'S LAND World Premiere Original Opera
The production opens on June 17 and 18.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz May. 02, 2025
NO MAN'S LAND reunites composer/conductor WHITNEY GEORGE and stage director ATTILIO RIGOTTI for the first time since 2022, when the Curiosity Cabinet's critically acclaimed Jazz Age operetta Fizz & Ginger premiered to sold-out crowds in the East Village at the New York Comedy Club.
NOW, supported by the composer's Discovery Award from Opera America, GEORGE returns to the podium to conduct the Curiosity Cabinet orchestral ensemble in the Brooklyn-based contemporary-music collective's newest work: an original opera scored by GEORGE and set in the Dust Bowl in 1930s Oklahoma.
NO MAN'S LAND tells the story of a Faustian bargain made by a young farm girl (Mezzo KAYLA RODRIGUEZ PÉREZ) during the Great Depression in Oklahoma's panhandle. The two-act opera explores themes of desperation and resilience, set to song in high relief against the most devastating man-made climate disaster in American history.
GEORGE's composition is characteristically innovative, deftly weaving popular and historic elements into a contemporary and immersive soundscape with genre-bending features, and highlights Cabinet's principal violinist ADAM VON HOUSEN. The violin takes life as a character in itself, conjuring the Devil (Tenor Shane Brown), who incarnates as a salesman for malevolent ends.
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