November 26, 2024 - PORTLAND, OR - On January 18th and 19th, New Wave Opera presents a double-bill of two family-friendly "o-paw-ras" that focus on animals and found family: PEPITO (Nicolás Lell Benavides & Marella Martin Koch) and MEOW AND FOREVER (Jodi Goble & Basil Considine). The program will take place at the Mago Hunt Recital Hall at University of Portland.

"We couldn't be more proud to present these two works, both written by living composers and librettists," says NWO president & resident mezzo, Lisa Neher. "We are so grateful to Nicole Hanig and her department at University of Portland for providing this space for us to share these two fantastic operas."

Pepito follows the story of a lonely shelter dog (Timothy Lafolette) who is - at last - being considered for adoption by a young couple (Brandon Michael and Lindsey Rae Johnson). However, as Pepito begins to bond with one partner more than the other, tensions arise to the point where the shelter owner (Lisa Neher) asks them the hard question: are they sure they are ready for this?

Meow and Forever features two cats (Lisa Neher and Dru Rutledge) looking on at their owner's love life (Gina Adorno). As their owner gets swept away in a whirlwind romance with a newfound love (Lindsey Rae Johnson), she neglects her best friend (Henriët Fourie) - and her cats! One misunderstanding leads to another, but - as the librettist promises - "happy ending guaranteed!"

The productions will be directed by Jeffrey Puukka, with Susan McDaniel at the piano. "It has been a dream of mine to direct opera," shares Puukka, who brings over 20 years of experience directing theatrical productions, ranging from classics to immersive performance art projects, to world premiere productions of new plays. "I am delighted to collaborate with New Wave Opera for the first time!"

The production is supported by RACC (Regional Arts and Culture Council), which provided support for ASL interpreting services (available on the Saturday evening performance), as well as support for live-captioning for both performances.

"We are especially thankful to RACC for supporting this project," says NWO resident soprano and board treasurer Lindsey Rae Johnson. "Thanks to their help, we are able to provide this programming to a wide array of families, first-time attendees, and audiences often overlooked by standard productions. We are proud to be providing the captions and ASL services as part of this run of performances."​

NOVEMBER 8, 2024 - PORTLAND, OR - Last month, New Wave Opera produced our first-ever fully-staged production: NIGHT OF THE LIVING OPERA, featuring four operas by living composers, as well as a new art song. Over 500 people attended, filling the Manor with lively conversation and applause throughout both evenings. 

In the coming weeks, we will be sharing more about our next program (WAGS & WHISKERS), recordings of the five contemporary works featured on NIGHT OF THE LIVING OPERA, as well as our dreams for future seasons. If you've enjoyed any of our programming this year, we encourage you to join our community horde of supporters and get on our newsletter to stay up-to-date on all our projects!

On October 21st & 23rd, New Wave Opera heads back to Raven's Manor Haunted Bar for our first fully-produced opera program: NIGHT OF THE LIVING OPERA. Today, we are excited to share more about our wonderful performers who will be bringing these four regional premieres to life!

LINDSEY RAE JOHNSON, SOPRANO
CAROLYN QUICK, SOPRANO
LISA NEHER, MEZZO
ALLISON KIM-YOK KNOTTS, MEZZO
BRANDON MICHAEL, TENOR
DEAC GUIDI, BASS
SEQUOIA, PIANO

On Friday, October 11th through Friday, October 25th, New Wave Opera will be holding an online auction in support of our future programming - all featuring items from local arts organizations, restaurants, individual artists, and more!!

Concert tickets for sure-to-sell out shows, merch and CDs from beloved arts organizations, exclusive access to exciting new programs, beautiful handmade goods, and several **mystery prizes** are all on offer - with MORE items being added between now and the auction opening!

SOME UNIQUE ITEMS ON OFFER:

The auction will open in mid-October, and run until 11:59pm PT on Friday, October 25th. Sign up for the New Wave Opera newsletter to be first in-the-know when the bidding goes live!

RESERVATIONS FOR THIS EVENT ARE STRONGLY RECOMMENDED AND SPACE IS LIMITED. Reservations are available though the Raven’s Manor website (be sure you have the correct number of people in your party selected to view available seating options!). A $10 cover charge applies when you reserve online (non-refundable), or $15 at the door. Reservations will only be held for a maximum of 10 minutes from your arrival time. If you need to cancel your reservation, please do so through your reservation confirmation email. While walk-ins are welcome, wait times are expected to vary widely throughout the night. 21+ only. For full reservation information, visit the event page (bottom of page).

Coming up on Saturday, October 5th, New Wave Opera is heading to Mendelssohns classical music bar for an evening of silly & seriously spooky vocal music. The event, Scream Queens, will feature selections exclusively from living composers - including collaborations with living librettists, as well as modern settings of classic texts by authors like Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll.

Today we're taking a closer look at the origins of this event, as well as introducing you to a few scream queens of our own!

So why SCREAM QUEENS?
In the spirit of the Halloween season, we've named this event in honor of both the amazing actresses who have played "scream queen" roles in horror films and as well as a lighthearted reference to treble voices being thought of as "screaming" out high notes.

While "Hitchcock blondes" like Janet Leigh certainly did their share of screaming throughout the decades, the 1960's and 1970's brought a slew of horror genres, both in the United States and abroad. Marilyn Burns' harrowing portrayal of Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Jamie Lee Curtis's iconic Laurie Strode from Halloween (1978) are among some of the more famous examples from the United States, but the giallo films (a genre spawned from Italian crime-mystery pulp novels with yellow covers [giallo means yellow in Italian]) brought scream queens out of "pure horror" films and into mystery and crime with films like Blood and Black Lace (1964), Orgasmo (1969), Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key​ (1972), All the Colors of the Dark​ (1972), and giallo-king Dario Argento's films like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and Suspiria (1977).

By the 1980's, horror had become a rich, varied, and well-established genre. While there was certainly its share of sexploitation and racist tropes, horror had also meaningfully confronted and explored a number of social issues with films like Night of the Living Dead (1968), Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), Black Christmas (1974), The Stepford Wives (1975), and Carrie (1976) - to name a few. Scream queen roles proliferated throughout the 80's, 90's, and early thousands, seeing stars like Debbie Rochon, Neve Campbell (star of several Troma Production horror films), Sheryl Lee (Twin Peaks), Bollywood's Bipasha Basu (Raaz [2002] and Aatma [2014]), and Shauna Macdonald (The Descent [2005] is NOT for the faint of heart!), while continuing to defy sexist tropes and push & transform the power of scream queens.

New Wave Opera's programming this season heavily features treble voices, and includes the work of several dozen composers & librettists whose identities have been underrepresented in opera. We love a good horror story, the operatic form, and so many of the classic tales & characters who got us interested in music as storytelling - but we've had enough of the death-by-love-or-tuberculosis! We are ready for opera's Laurie Strode, Sally Hardesty, Carrie - and new stories and roles that better reflect our modern understanding of what it means to be a fully-realized character.

New Wave Opera is proud to announce the cast for our upcoming program at Mendelssohns classical music bar, SCREAM QUEENS: AN EVENING OF VOICES IN TREBLE, on Saturday, October 5th from 8-10pm.

Pianist Hannah Early (left) joins mezzo Lisa Neher and sopranos Lindsey Rae Johnson and Carolyn Quick for an evening of fun & spooky art songs, opera arias and duets, and more. Featured selections include works by New Wave Opera composers Kimberly Osberg & Lisa Neher, plus selections by Melissa Dunphy & Nikita Gill, Jodi Goble & Basil Considine, Monica Chew & Sandra Flores-Strand, William Bolcom, Jake Heggie, Portland's own Dianne Davies and Carolyn Quick, and more. Read more about the artists on our bios page!

Registration for the event not required, so drop by anytime between 8 and 10 to hear the music and enjoy a pun-derful cocktail or delicious bites. The only thing higher than our notes is the iconic high-rise stage, so be sure to drop by and check out this musician-favorite spot for yourself.

We hope you can join us for a screaming-good time!

SEPTEMBER 10 - PORTLAND, OR - New Wave Opera announces a stretch campaign to raise $2,000 in support of the upcoming production, NIGHT OF THE LIVING OPERA, before November 1st.

"With four regional premieres as part of these evenings, we really hope to make the performances something special," says NWO President Lisa Neher. "With additional support from our community, we can not only ensure a great live experiences for those who attend, but also make this work accessible online for free - giving each of these shows a life after the performance."

NECROMANCERS will receive a truly unique thank you in addition to the benefits of the familiars - one of the currently unnamed characters in THUMP will be specially named after you, and you'll even get a signed copy of the score to prove it to your friends!

This exclusive perk will only be available to three recipients.

However method or however much you choose to give, please let us know how you'd like to be acknowledged on our supporter lists! All donors will be acknowledged on our programs and websites, with larger gifts also being acknowledged on video content. If you'd prefer to stay anonymous, just let us know!

If you'd like to donate with cash, get in touch with us directly at [email protected]. 

SEPTEMBER 5, 2024 - (Portland, Oregon) - On Saturday, October 5th, New Wave Opera heads to Mendelssohns bar for SCREAM QUEENS: An Evening of Voices in Treble! Enjoy a pun-derful cocktail or simple wine alongside delectable bites as New Wave Opera treble vocalists accompany your evening with tuneful opera arias, duets, and art songs from Mendelssohns' iconic high-rise stage!

With selections ranging from the gorgeously serene to the seriously silly, there will be plenty for long-time opera fans and first-time listeners to enjoy.

Earlier this week, New Wave Opera had the joy of performing at Raven's Manor Haunted Bar for MUSIC IN THE MANOR. With a bustling house from open to close, we were thrilled to see so many familiar faces from the opera community (including friends from Lark Opera, the recent OrpheusPDX production of The Rose Elf, and singers involved in our upcoming production Night of the Living Opera), as well as meet those who had never heard opera before!

Today we share some of our favorite moments from throughout the night!

We were also excited to unveil excerpts from our upcoming show at The Manor, NIGHT OF THE LIVING OPERA, which will see fully-costumed and fully-staged performances of four contemporary operas. For Music in the Manor, we shared excerpts from THUMP (Kimberly's setting of "The Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe), she conjures (a wicked one-woman opera by Lisa Neher & Bea Goodwin), and Serial Killers and the City (Del'Shawn Taylor & Joanie Brittingham). Given the enthusiastic response from our listeners on Monday, we can tell these shows will be a big hit in October!

We are so grateful to everyone who came out to support us, and to our hosts at Raven's Manor for providing delectable food, incredible & whimsical drinks, and a truly welcoming atmosphere throughout the evening. We can't wait to be back at The Manor in October!

On August 19th, New Wave Opera lands at Raven's Manor Haunted Bar to perform a selection of operatic works and art songs by living composers. In the coming weeks, we'll be sharing a bit more about these pieces and their writers - including a world premiere!

Today we dive deeper into three works that will be new to Portlanders - and all of which feature stories around food - the hilarious opera Serial Killers and the City, the chuckle-inducing COVID Bake-Off, and an equally-punderful opera trio, If You Cheese (a world premiere)!

Why We Love This Work: Sandra's libretto skillfully captures the relationships and personalities of all the characters in such succinct ways - even from this short duet we perform, listeners already have a strong sense of the stakes, the characters, and the relationship they share. We love how Monica's setting of these words slips in and out of different styles seamlessly as the characters become more introspective. Her use of tempo changes, moments of a cappella, and reeling wind-ups in the piano really capture the emotional journey from anxiety and frustration to hope and triumphant joy. It is impossible to hear the end of this duet without having a smile on your face!

Read more about composer Monica Chew here. Read more about librettist Sandra Flores-Strand here.

Why We Love This Work: Joanie's libretto is absolutely stuffed with hilarious puns, witty quips, and killer one-liners. We love how Del'Shawn uses the voices to overlap like a natural conversation between gal pals, while still leaving plenty of room for the text to be heard (and reacted to!). The seamless transitions from duets, trios, and arias keep listeners rapt with attention from start to finish, and his use of grooves propels scenes forward in such a natural way. Lisa has performed this work in the past (most recently with the amazing New York-based company, Experiments in Opera!), and has loved how much laughter the opera brings to audiences.

​Read more about composer Del'Shawn Taylor  here . Read more about librettist Joanie Brittingham here. ​Learn more about the amazing folks at Experiments in Opera (NYC) here.

Why We Love This Work: This short opera scene is absolutely stacked with fantastic cheese-based puns, playful vocal lines, and super-dramatic moments from both vocalists and piano. Kimberly's writing really captures the anxiety of preparing something important last-minute, and - as mezzo Allison Kim-Yok Knotts said recently - you will never hear a more beautiful piece about cheese!
​
​Read more about composer Kimberly R. Osberg here.