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Press Releases
Blued Trees, A Modern Opera (preview)
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Blued Trees, a contemporary opera to challenge climate law, previews in Brooklyn on August 26 |
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Based on The Blued Trees Symphony, a copyrighted ecoart installation by Aviva Rahmani to block fracked gas pipeline construction, the opera boldly questions 21st century ethics and the law’s protection of art On August 26, 2023, the first preview for Blued Trees, an opera named for an interstate, transdisciplinary installation by ecoartist Aviva Rahmani, will premiere in Brooklyn’s Soapbox Gallery. The opera is a collaboration between Rahmani, composer Julia Schwartz, and librettist Catherine Filloux with projectionists Lauren Petty and Shaun Irons, that harnesses not only the power of art as a means for climate change awareness and exploration of ethical debates, but also of challenging environmental law itself and that vital question - who it really protects. When it debuted in 2016, Rahmani’s The Blued Trees Symphony sought the protection of the Federal statute |
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trees in areas threatened by imminent pipeline construction. The aerial topography of the installation represents a musical score, with the trees as the notes on the staff; thus, Blued Trees envelops the regions on which it is painted - from New York State to Saskatoon, Canada - making a layer of defensible protection.
The opera asks both philosophical and practical questions about climate change as it pertains to human rights, personal ethics, the judicial system, and more. Its pseudo-allegorical libretto by Filloux highlights the generational conflicts about our environment through the lens of Gary, a pipeline executive, who is being charged with ecocide for his company’s destruction of the forest. Despite opposition from his daughter, an obstetrician whose argument on the basis of human rights for babies and children highlights common familial tensions about the gravity of climate change, Gary is relentless in his vision of his business success. The company has destroyed the forest in which an art installation stands, thus violating the artist’s moral rights of ownership as stated by VARA. This scenario, which mirrors the successes and struggles of The Blued Trees Symphony in practice and in its subsequent mock trial in April 2018 at the Cardozo School of Law, ultimately sheds light on big oil’s blatant disregard for the law, the environment, and human rights, and generates crucial conversations about these tenets of civility.
Blued Trees, a preview of the modern opera Saturday, August 26, 2023, 8PM
Soapbox Gallery, Brooklyn (636 Dean Street) JULIA SCHWARTZ, composer
CATHERINE FILLOUX, librettist
AVIVA RAHMANI, creative director
SHAUN IRONS & LAUREN PETTY, projectionists
LIANNE COBLE, soprano (Daughter, Lawyer)
CATHERINE MIEUN CHOI-STECKMEYER, mezzo-soprano (Wife, Artist) ROSS BENOLIEL, baritone (Gary)
JOSEPH VAZ, piano
Preview program:
Aria (Gary) “Art is beautiful”
Aria (Daughter, with Gary) “I never want to see you”
Duet (Lawyer and Artist) “What is The Blue Trees Symphony?”
Aria (Gary and Wife) “The settlement I will offer”
Arias (Artist and Gary) “What do you do?” & “Once I bought a painting”
Aria (Wife) “I often take the train to the city” (Read by librettist or by singer playing Wife TBD)
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Hannah Goldshlack-Wolf hannah@wildkatpr.com 1 917 330 2046 |
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