Saturday, January 19, 2019 | 8:00pm
Charles Wuorinen Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Heather Buck, Haroun Khalifa
Stephen Bryant, Rashid Khalifa
Brian Giebler, Iff, the water genie
David Salsbery Fry, Butt - Hoopoe
Wilbur Pauley, Mali, King of Gup
Michelle Trainor, Oneeta - Princess - Batcheat
Matthew DiBattista, Snooty Buttoo
Charles Blandy, Prince Bolo
Neal Ferreira, Mr. Sengupta - Khattam-Shud
Aaron Engebreth, General Kitab

Gil Rose, conductor

Program is subject to change

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Program notes (opens in new window)

To purchase regular tickets:

Tickets are no longer available for online reservation through BMOP. Please contact the Jordan Hall Box Office at 617.585.1260 or place your order here.

To all Federal workers:

BMOP is proud to support federal workers and their families during the shutdown. Bring your federal employee ID to the Jordan Hall Box Office to get up to ten free tickets to Haroun and the Sea of Stories.  And please share with anyone you know who might be affected!

Take this opportunity to invite your friends, families, colleagues to this one night only concert to show that you appreciate them. 
 
To claim tickets in advance, please email tickets@bmop.org or sign up here. Only one person in your party needs to show proof of federal employment. Walk-ups on the night of the performance are also welcome at the Jordan Hall Box Office. If you have any questions, please call the Jordan Hall Box Office at 617-585-1260.

News and Press

[Concert Review] Through a Storm to Haroun

Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s innovative semi-staged concert production of the complex, rich and fanciful two-act opera, Haroun and the Sea of Stories deserved more than the single Boston premiere performance Saturday at Jordan Hall. The multiple levels and nested plots of the story have so much depth that listeners need multiple iterations fully to appreciate the work. Based on the children’s novel by Salman Rushdie, with 12-tone music by the contemporary American composer Charles Wuorinen and intricate libretto by James Fenton, a renowned British poet and friend of Rushdie, this satirical 2004 work was created in the post 9-11 era, yet it is even more than relevant to our times. Opera News entitled a conversation about the New York City Opera’s opening night as a “Fearsome Fairyland;” their writer Leighton Kerner had interviewed Wuorinen and Rushdie together, and that seems apt. Gil Rose made use of all of the score’s electricity, eerie sounds, fright, joy and fancy to go along with a production replete with bright costumes, mechanical birds, water genies and beautifully bizarre beasts.

The Boston Musical Intelligencer Full review
[Concert Review] Haroun and the Sea of Stories a surreal, timely treat

Those of you who are faithful Schmopera readers will likely recall that, when I reviewed Brokeback Mountain at the conclusion of last year’s New York City Opera season, I pointed at the paradox of Wuorinen’s highly dissonant score used to depict a romance, and the ways that paradox works in that opera’s favor. At the time, I figured it was a logical choice, considering how Annie Proulx’s prose worked to set up such a paradox.

Schmopera Full review