Vivaldi’s best known work collides with a modern, urgent libretto addressing creativity in a time of climate crisis.
Five artists escape the city to a remote farm, seeking a creative retreat and the inspiration of nature. They paint, write, farm, and some even fall in love, but extreme weather upends their plans, altering their lives forever. The Seasons is set in a near future in which the seasons seem to be out of order. Co-conceived by celebrated playwright Sarah Ruhl and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, this innovative work creates a new narrative from Vivaldi arias, ensembles, and excerpts from The Four Seasons, all woven together with dance by choreographer Pam Tanowitz. Directed by Zack Winokur, the piece uses old music to find new ways we can draw connections between our emotions and the weather.
Info
Venue
Robert J. Orchard Stage, Paramount
559 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111
Dates
Mar 12, 2025 - Mar 16, 2025
Access
Audio Described Performance
Sat, Mar 15 3:00 pm
Tickets
Artists
Company
Boston Lyric Opera
Boston Lyric Opera creates musically and theatrically compelling productions, events, and educational resources for the Boston community and beyond.
Directed by
Zack Winokur
Music by
Antonio Vivaldi
Libretto by
Sarah Ruhl
Co-conceived with
Anthony Roth Costanzo
In collaboration with
Pam Tanowitz and Zack Winokur
Co-production with
Boston Lyric Opera, AMOC*, and SCENE
Based on "The Four Seasons" with additional arias and ensembles by
Vivaldi
Co-presented by
ArtsEmerson
Anthony Roth Costanzo - Performing Artist
Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at age 11 and has since appeared in opera, concert, recital, film, and on Broadway. He was recently awarded a Grammy, an honorary doctorate from Manhattan School of Music, a visiting fellowship from Oxford University, the History Makers Award from the New York Historical Society, and was a distinguished visiting scholar at Harvard. This season, he returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Orfeo, Orfeo ed Euridice; to the Santa Fe Opera for a world premiere; and to the Teatro Real. He debuts with Paris Opera, gives recitals at the Kennedy Center and Boston’s Jordan Hall, debuts at London’s Wigmore Hall, and appears at Carnegie Hall. As a producer, he has created projects for Opera Philadelphia, New York Philharmonic, BBC Proms, WQXR, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and more. His debut album ARC was nominated for a Grammy, and his live show and second album Only an Octave Apart with Justin Vivian Bond received numerous “Best of 2021” accolades. Costanzo was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his performance in a Merchant Ivory film. He graduated with honors from Princeton University, where he has returned to teach, and Manhattan School of Music, where he is on the board of trustees. He also serves on the board of National Black Theatre.
Sarah Ruhl - Librettist
Sarah Ruhl is an award-winning American playwright, author, essayist, and professor. Her plays include The Oldest Boy; Dear Elizabeth; Stage Kiss; In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2010); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2005; Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004); Passion Play (Pen American Award, Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center); Dead Man’s Cell Phone (Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play); Melancholy Play; Demeter in the City (nine NAACP Image Award nominations); Scenes From Court Life; How to Transcend a Happy Marriage; For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday; Eurydice; Orlando; and Late: a cowboy song. Her plays have been produced on Broadway, across the country, and internationally, and translated into fourteen languages. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her MFA from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She is the recipient of a Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a PEN Center Award, a Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, and a Lilly Award. She is a member of 13P and New Dramatists and won the MacArthur Fellowship in 2006. She teaches at Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family.
Zack Winokur - Director
Director and producer Zack Winokur is co-founder and Artistic Director of AMOC* as well as Producing Artistic Director of Little Island. Recent directing highlights include Mammoth, featuring Yo-Yo Ma 400 feet underground inside Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky; Tristan and Isolde, Santa Fe Opera; Messiaen’s Harawi at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, De Singel, and Elbphilharmonie; Only an Octave Apart starring Justin Vivian Bond and Anthony Roth Costanzo at St. Ann’s Warehouse, the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Opera, Wilton’s Music Hall in London, and the Spoleto Festival USA; The Black Clown at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and the American Repertory Theater; Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine by Tyshawn Sorey and Claudia Rankine, starring Julia Bullock on the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and other productions at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Dutch National Opera, and Stanford Live. Winokur served as Artistic Director of NY PopsUp, an initiative to reopen the performing arts across New York State with over 300 free and public performances featuring hundreds of artists from February to July 2021. He co-teaches a transdisciplinary storytelling class at Harvard with Davóne Tines.
Pam Tanowitz - Choreographer
Pam Tanowitz is a celebrated New York-based choreographer and collaborator who has steadily delineated her own dance language through decades of research and creation. The 2024 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Awardee redefines tradition through careful examination, subtly questioning those who came before her yet never yielding to perceptions stuck in the past. And now, the world’s most respected companies — Martha Graham Dance Company, Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, and others — are proudly integrating Tanowitz’s poetic universe into their repertories. Tanowitz holds degrees from Ohio State University and Sarah Lawrence College, where she clarified her creative voice under former Cunningham dancer and choreographer Viola Farber. In 2000, she founded Pam Tanowitz Dance to explore dance-making with a consistent community of dancers. She has since been commissioned by Fisher Center at Bard, The Joyce Theater, The Kennedy Center, and many other leading arts institutions, and has received numerous honors and fellowships from organizations including the Bessie Awards, Guggenheim Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Herb Alpert Award, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Tanowitz is an assistant professor of professional practice at Mason Gross School of the Arts/Rutgers University and is the first-ever choreographer in residence at the Fisher Center at Bard.
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