Join award-winning food journalist Patrick Evans-Hylton as he shows us how to have "a real nice Clambake" inspired by Carousel!
The Virginia Opera production of A Streetcar Named Desire gave a new perspective on a classic American play, then movie and now an opera (1998). Director Sam Helfrich has said “I discovered that the music had the ability to cleverly reveal aspects of each character that could easily remain hidden in a straight reading of the play.”
“Who wants real? I know I don’t want it. I want magic!” are lines of dialogue many know. In the past, these lines from Tennessee Williams’ legendary 1948 Pulitzer Prize winning “A Streetcar Named Desire” have been spoken, and not associated with music or singing. That has now changed. As an opera, with music in a key central role throughout, the rarely performed in D.C, “Streetcar,” with its memorably rich, damaged characters, takes on a whole new life.
Does it conjure up images of long dead classical composers like Mozart and Verdi; centuries old tales filled with plot twists involving Valkyries and sprites; divas belting out songs in German or Italian? The Virginia Opera is boldly trying to change those perceptions of opera with a season filled with modern and American opera selections. An operatic version of the classic Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire opened Saturday night at the Harrison Opera House.
A trunk. A sofa. A dinette set. In the mind of stage director Sam Helfrich, these items represent the three main characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” a 1998 opera composed by André Previn and based on Tennessee Williams’ classic 1947 play. The Virginia Opera production of “Streetcar” opens tonight at Harrison Opera House in Norfolk.
