OBSCURA NOX

WATCH HERE

“This is a taut and refreshing surprise of an adaptation brought to life in visually vibrant and compelling terms. The story is a journey from the intellectual complacency of empirical knowledge to the uncharted waters of philosophical reasoning. The journey is literally immersive.” – Schmopera.com
 

Produced by: Julia Dawson and Alexander Brusencev

Starring: Julia Dawson, Evie Poiros, and others

Choreographed by: Claudia Schreier

Designed by: Grace Laubacher and Sara Jean Tosetti

Cinematography by: Thilo Jaeger

Directed by: Mary Birnbaum

TABLE MANNERS:
a duet / duel for two sopranos and 40 pounds of silverware

WATCH HERE

The struggle between finding connection with each other and settling for having material stuff instead, conveyed with comedy and drama punctuated by mercurial moments of openness. Using a poem by Phillis Levin as a kind of ground base, the fight escalates as we loop through the poem, with theft and embarrassment accumulating in each iteration. While the work was originally created for live, staged performance, the pandemic provided an opportunity: Ariadne Greif proposed creating a composite music video in which she performs both parts. The video format allows her to draw the two characters closer to each other and position them as two sides of the same mind.
 

Ariadne Greif…..Alpha and Beta
Funny Hands…..Ashely Everhart

Commissioned by: Ariadne Greif,
with funding from the Queens Council on the Arts New Works Grants.

Phillis Levin wrote the poem ‘Table Manners,’ used here with permission.

Director: Mary Birnbaum
Art Director and Costumer Designer: Johnny Vendiola
Hair and Makeup Artist: José André Sibaja
Composer: Sheree Clement
Video Editor: Ariadne Greif

Cinematography by: Caroline Mariko Stucky
Produced by: Sheree Clement

Due to Covid-19, Mary began exploring new ways of telling stories, from writing her own pilot to collaborating on editing, filming, and producing digital work with musical artists. In July 2020, she directed two videos for EU OperaVision's "Opera Harmony.” You can watch and vote for them over the next two weeks below:

APART/MENTAL

WATCH HERE

Two Jewish women in New York, one says, “Do you see what's going on in Poland?” 
The other says "I live in the back, I don't see anything." – Henny Youngman 

Inside 88 west 66th street, someone has stolen disinfectant wipes from the basement. Follow
concierge Sofia as she snoops on the residents to find out who did the dirty deed (and who is using the wipes to cover their tracks!).

Inspired by Rear Window and a long stare-off with a neighbor through our respective windows one Tuesday afternoon, APART/MENTAL grew out of composer Ken Steen, writer Mary Birnbaum, and director Anna Pool’s discussions of the people we unknowingly share our lives with and the secrets they may hold.

When visual artist Jojo Karlin sent Mary wry and whimsically crafted paper dolls of each character, our puppet opera concept was born: a remedy for how to film a cast who live across the world, from Hong Kong to Peru.

Within Ken Steen’s imaginative, foley-infused score, ensconcing each apartment in their own unique sound world, APART/MENTAL asks: what leads to trust in a community? What incentive do we have to take care of each other? Oh, and how many times can you disinfect a doorknob?

Sofia…..Gilda Lyons
Theo…..Will Liverman
Hope…..Anna Laurenzo
Ming…..Vivian Yau
Pablo…..Santiago Pizzaro
David…..Benjamin Rauch
Susan…..Jaylyn Simmons
Skye…..Britt Hewitt
Nancy…..Raehann Bryce-Davis

Violin…..Anton Miller
Viola…..Rita Porfiris
Celtic Harp…..Haley Hewitt
Electric Guitar…..Thomas Shuttenhelm

Composer: Ken Steen
Co-Director/Writer/Puppeteer: Mary Birnbaum
Co-Director/Dramaturge: Anna Pool
Scenic Design & Puppet Maker: Jojo Karlin

THRESHOLD

WATCH HERE

Faced with an unprecedented quarantine, two students return home to their elderly parents. Very different products of millenial Britain, Jon is ripped from his medical studies and Steph is plunged back into fraught family life. As each struggle with the confines of Covid-19, their impressions and views on life gradually alter through their fragile friendship.

In THRESHOLD, two strangers, thrown together by unusual circumstances, find themselves faced with challenges and questions that begin to re-shape their views and lives. Similarly, the four creatives drawn together by Opera Harmony’s lynchpin Ella Marchmont, were faced with some unprecedented questions: how would we film this concept with actors in different countries? Could we successfully capture the rich vibrancy of opera through the available technology?  Taking Zoe Vail’s spoken-word edged libretto, singer and composer James Schouten set about creating a dynamic, rock-influenced sound, that would capture the turbulent emotional landscape of the young leads. Director Mary Birnbaum’s unwavering positivity for the creative task at hand ensured the project kept on track despite some very real world challenges along the way that saw Kady Evanyshyn stuck in Germany until the last minute, returning to her native Canada to complete recording and James Schouten moving house. Intrigued by lockdown’s interruption in our lives and the feared, enforced isolation it commanded, THRESHOLD focuses on the tense gulf between our virtual identities and our real world selves.
 

Steph…..Kady Evanyshyn
Jon…..James Schouten

Composer: James Schouten
Libretto: Zoe Vail
Director/Editor: Mary Birnbaum
Filmed by: Katherine Schouten and Andrew Evanyshyn