Met Chorus Artists will perform on May 4
A few photos on the Met Chorus Artists website show five singers and an accompanist performing at the Howland Cultural Center in 2018.
On Sunday (May 4), the group will return with a pianist and narrator along with two tenors, three sopranos, a mezzo-soprano and a bass-baritone to present History of Opera: Up Close.
There’s a long tradition of classical chamber settings featuring vocalists, usually paired with a piano or small ensemble. The repertoire is known as lieder in Germany, melodie in France and art songs elsewhere, says Sara Heaton, a soprano who will be performing.
But selling tickets for stripped-down vocal concerts can be a challenge, says Akiko Sasaki, music director at the Howland Chamber Music Circle.
In 2017, Sasaki introduced a Classics for Kids series and eight years ago, Met Chorus Artists performed a show for the wee ones. On May 4, they will present a young person’s concert in the afternoon that pulls examples from The Magic Flute to punctuate points.
The 4 p.m. adult-oriented retrospective is being performed for the first time ever. Selections range from the Baroque era, represented by Claudio Monteverdi (born 1567) and George Friedrich Handel, to contemporary opera, including works by Igor Stravinsky and Kevin Puts (born 1972). Excerpts by the genre’s one-name stars — Mozart, Verdi, Wagner and Puccini — will also air.
Heaton and Sasaki’s friendship spawned the 2018 visit from Met Chorus Artists, a nonprofit outreach for members of the Metropolitan Opera chorus.
“We started it a few years ago with the goal of bringing the music to other spaces outside the opera house and to work on a smaller scale than the grand opera that we do at the Met,” says Heaton.
Sasaki also takes chamber music beyond the concert hall by programming pop-ups in libraries, art galleries and Beacon Music Factory (on May 3). But the Howland Cultural Center, with its renowned acoustics for unplugged instruments, is a special place to see such a performance, she says.
“A program like this fits well in a chamber setting,” she says. “It’s exciting because opera is usually performed in a big house with 4,000 people in the audience. Here, the singing fills up the room and you can feel their vibrato.”
The narrator, Whitney Young, a composer and conductor who shatters the stereotype with sleeves, neck tattoos and attitude, inspired the format after several singers in the Met Chorus attended Young’s lecture on the history of the string quartet at the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan. The lecture was augmented with a cellist, violist and two violinists who provided live examples on the spot, says Heaton, who lived in Beacon for seven years but moved in 2022 to Westchester to shorten her commute to Lincoln Center.
Bringing an expansive ensemble from New York City that provides flexibility to mix and match presents a more varied performance than a soloist singing lieder and art songs. “This is such a great format,” she says. “We worked hard putting together a taste of Opera 101.”
The Howland Cultural Center is located at 477 Main St. in Beacon. Opera for Kids will be performed at 1 p.m. on May 4. Tickets are $15 for adults and free for children. All ages are welcome, but it is recommended for ages 6 and older. The Met Chorus Artists concert is scheduled for 4 p.m. on May 4. Tickets are $35, or $10 for students ages 25 and younger. See howlandmusic.org/tickets for both shows.
