Eastman Opera Theatre (EOT) is thrilled to announce its 2022-2023 season. The season offers a remarkably diverse lineup including: Lear on the Second Floor (2013), an opera by Anthony Davis inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear; Alcina (1735) by Georg Friedrich Händel; and Florencia en el Amazonas (1996) by Daniel Catán, inspired by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Love in the Time of Cholera.

Launching the season on November 3-6, Lear on the Second Floor will be performed in Kilbourn Hall, directed by Steve Daigle, conducted by Timonthy Long. Aging, family dynamics, manipulation, suffering, madness, foolishness, order, vision, and loyalty: the themes and character relationships in Shakespeare’s epic tragedy King Lear haunt present-day reality in Davis and Havis’ opera Lear on the Second Floor. Dr. Nora Lear, a respected, successful neuroscientist, as well as a mother with high expecations and feuding children, is plagued by early-onset Alzheimer's Disease, leading to betrayal by her family and her own loss of memory.  She is grasping for control and eventually gives in to what she has become. Davis’ musical language allows the listener to inhabit Nora’s mind, with her feelings of confusion, fear, panic, and loneliness.

Handel’s Alcina will be the winter production (January 28-29 and February 2-5), directed by James Kenon Mitchell (candidate for the MM in Opera Direction), conducted by Timothy Long. Alcina tells a tale that pits true love against desire, truth against deception, and honesty against disguise. Alcina is sung in Italian with supertitles.

The heroic Bradamante will create a new profile as “Ricciardo” to infiltrate the landscapes of Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok and to enter a world of influencers, beauty gurus, and content creators determined to keep their cheekbones high and their subscribers higher. But who can be trusted once the selfie-stick comes out?

The spring 2023 production, Florencia en el Amazonas, will take place in Kodak Hall (March 30-31 and April 1-2) directed by Octavio Cardenas and conducted by Wilson Southerland.  The opera will be sung in Spanish with English supertitles.

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