Iphigenia: A New Opera at Zellerbach Hall

Wayne Shorter & Esperanza Spalding
Iphigenia: A New Opera

West Coast Premiere
A Cal Performances Co-commission

A living legend of jazz collaborates with one of the brightest lights of the younger generation in the West Coast premiere of a Cal Performances co-commission that reimagines what opera can be, and asks us to reexamine the stories we have inherited and the choices we make as a society.

Wayne Shorter, 11-time Grammy-winning composer and saxophonist, has composed the music, and Esperanza Spalding, four-time Grammy-winning bassist, composer, and vocalist, is the librettist and plays the title role in Iphigenia, a radical new take on Euripides’ ancient Greek play Iphigenia in Aulis. Classical and jazz forms collide in an expansive score that features Shorter’s groundbreaking method of symphonic improvisation, lifting up Spalding’s artfully poetic and fractured libretto....

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Wayne Shorter & Esperanza Spalding
Iphigenia: A New Opera

West Coast Premiere
A Cal Performances Co-commission

A living legend of jazz collaborates with one of the brightest lights of the younger generation in the West Coast premiere of a Cal Performances co-commission that reimagines what opera can be, and asks us to reexamine the stories we have inherited and the choices we make as a society.

Wayne Shorter, 11-time Grammy-winning composer and saxophonist, has composed the music, and Esperanza Spalding, four-time Grammy-winning bassist, composer, and vocalist, is the librettist and plays the title role in Iphigenia, a radical new take on Euripides’ ancient Greek play Iphigenia in Aulis. Classical and jazz forms collide in an expansive score that features Shorter’s groundbreaking method of symphonic improvisation, lifting up Spalding’s artfully poetic and fractured libretto.

The fully staged work is performed by a 28-piece chamber ensemble; three members of the venerated Wayne Shorter Quartet; a cast of nine vocalists; and a chorus of 10 singers; with set design by icon Frank Gehry and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz. As Spalding explains, “Our Iphigenia has at its core a sense of autonomy—in this adventure of life, you have freedom of choice. The overarching sentiment is one of humanistic love, of wanting to re-awaken the dreams of youth free of the pressures of adulthood.”

Iphigenia is commissioned by Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley; The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; The Broad Stage, Santa Monica, CA; ArtsEmerson Boston, MA; Carolina Performing Arts and Mass MoCA.

Members of the Wayne Shorter Quartet:

Wayne Shorter, composer
esperanza spalding, librettist and performer
Frank Gehry, set designer
Lileana Blain-Cruz, director
Clark Rundell, conductor
Montana Levi-Banco, costume designer
Jen Schriever, lighting designer
Mark Grey, sound designer

Produced by Real Magic, Cath Brittan and Octopus Theatricals

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