Spotlight Sunday - Michelle Hendrick
Hope you are keeping warm this wintry weekend!
We are very excited to feature Michelle Hendrick this week. Michelle was the founding Artistic Director of Hartford Opera Theater. This season her work has been featured on the stage at UCONN. Her production of HMS Pinafore recently closed and she will be opening a new production of Le nozze di Figaro - March 24 & 26 also at UCONN.
Michelle Hendrick (Stage Director) has staged the operas Albert Herring, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, The Enchanted Child, Noye's Fludde and The Elixir of Love, Hansel and Gretel and Die Fledermaus for the University of Connecticut; The Rape of Lucretia, Trouble in Tahiti, The Telephone, A Hand of Bridge, Hansel and Gretel, The Old Maid and the Thief, Der Schauspieldirektor, Bastien und Bastienne, and the world premiere of Tom Sawyer for Hartford Opera Theater; Le mariage aux lanternes and the East Coast premiere of The Three Hermits for the Hartt School; Le mariage aux lanternes and Les Bavards for the Intermezzo Opera Festival. She also directed the plays Eurydice and Romeo and Juliet at Trinity College and eight short new operas for Hartford Opera Theater's New in November Festival. In addition to being Stage Director of UCONN Opera Theater, she is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Trinity College and from 1998 to 2008 was an Associate in Opera at the Hartt School/University of Hartford. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts and has taught workshops at the Intermezzo Opera Festival, the International School of the Philippines, Central Connecticut State University and Harttord's Trust House. She was founding Artistic Director of Hartford Opera Theater from 2008 to 2012. Her professional work as an actress includes roles in A Christmas Carol, Macbeth, The Threepenny Opera, The Nutcracker, Beauty and the Beast, Cymbeline, As You Like It, The Laramie Project, A Little Night Music, Eracism, and Arcadia at Hartford Stage, TheaterWorks, Playmakers Repertory Company, and the Ko Festival among others. Ms. Hendrick earned a BA from the University of Massachusetts and an MFA from the University of North Carolina, Professional Acting Training Program.
Here is Michelle has to say about "opera without borders" -
I love the idea of opera without borders. Borderless opera would explore all aspects of the art form and foster a curiosity about its possibilities. Where can an opera be performed? In a tent? In a town square? A temple? A home? What is opera design? How might designers, dramaturgs, directors, musicians, actors who sing be used to create the most dynamic staging? Is there a place for visual art? Can we explore gender boundaries? Use color conscious casting? Electrify the instruments? Use puppets? How do we move this amazing art from into 2017, keeping to tradition and remaining current? A commitment to borderless opera would be unafraid of these questions. Bravo Hartford Opera Theater!
Thanks, Michelle! Have a wonderful week opera fans and we will see you next Sunday!
