Dear Friends of Opera Lafayette,
I hope this finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy. As I think about what it means to face threats like the one we are experiencing, I wonder how we might give each other comfort even as we sequester ourselves in our homes.
Opera Lafayette was extremely lucky to have been able to complete and film the centerpiece of our 25th season, Beethoven's Leonore, and the memories of being with musicians and audience are still fresh and exciting. Now however, lives are being disrupted, and of course, like our fellow arts organizations, we are trying to assess how and when we may be able to present our next production. In the coming weeks, Opera Lafayette will update you on how we will proceed with our season and programming.
Ironically, our next production, The Blacksmith, is based on a story from Boccaccio's Decameron, which was originally written in the 14th century as a series of stories shared by friends to pass the time away as they sequestered themselves in the countryside to escape the plague in Florence. Though Opera Lafayette always tries to connect us to our cultural history, it was not our intent to make this particular connection!
Like all of us, Opera Lafayette will try to make the best of this extraordinary situation, planning for the future, and sharing our music, theater, and dance with you as we can. In that spirit we invite you to listen to this beautiful excerpt, "O Gott, ...du prufest, du verlasst uns nicht" (Oh God,....you try us but you do not forsake us), from our recent performance of Beethoven's Leonore.
With warmest wishes, and fervent hopes for a return to life as we would all like to imagine it,
Ryan Brown
Artistic Director & Founder
Opera Lafayette