Curtis Opera Theater opens season with “Comet/Poppea”

Curtis Opera Theater will open its 2024-25 anniversary series with the East Coast premiere of “The Comet / Poppea” at the historic 23rd Street Armory in Philadelphia.

Performances will take place on November 1, 2 and 3, 2024 and include MacArthur Prize-winning composer George Lewis and librettists’ highly imaginative operatic setting of Pan-African civil rights activist WEB Du Bois’s 1920 science fiction short story Douglas Kearney. “The Comet” in contrast to Claudio Monteverdi’s “L’incoronazione di Poppea”.

The production is directed by Yuval Sharon and features emerging young stars from Curtis Opera Theater as well as original cast members bass-baritone Cedric Berry, soprano Joelle Lamarre and mezzo-soprano Amanda Lynn Bottoms.

The cast includes members of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia theorbist Theodore Creek and viol player Gretchen Gettes, as well as Reese Revak on harpsichord under the direction of conductor Marc Lowenstein.

In a statement, Sharon said: “‘The Comet / Poppea’ explores exclusion in classical music, creating an uneasy tessellation between baroque and contemporary and enacting the experience of double consciousness.”