{"id":46121,"date":"2017-06-22T12:14:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T16:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=46121"},"modified":"2017-06-22T12:52:46","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T16:52:46","slug":"the-scoop-mts-arthur-kaptainis-serves-on-north-american-opera-award-jury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2017\/06\/22\/the-scoop-mts-arthur-kaptainis-serves-on-north-american-opera-award-jury\/","title":{"rendered":"THE SCOOP |\u00a0 Music Critics Association Chooses The Year&#8217;s Best New Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_46123\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-46123\" style=\"width: 1050px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-46123\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/06\/missy-mazzoli-photo-1-1050x700.jpg\" alt=\"Missy Mazzoli, composer of MCANA Opera Award winner &quot;Breaking the Waves&quot; (Photo: Marylene Mey)\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/06\/missy-mazzoli-photo-1-1050x700.jpg 1050w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/06\/missy-mazzoli-photo-1-1050x700-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/06\/missy-mazzoli-photo-1-1050x700-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/06\/missy-mazzoli-photo-1-1050x700-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-46123\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Missy Mazzoli, composer of MCANA Opera Award winner &#8220;Breaking the Waves&#8221; (Photo: Marylene Mey)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA) has announced the winner of their inaugural MCANA Opera Award, for which Musical Toronto\u2019s Arthur Kaptainis was a jury member.<\/p>\n<p>According to its guidelines, the award honours \u201cmusical and theatrical excellence by the composer and librettist of an opera that received its world premiere in North America during the preceding calendar year.\u201d This year\u2019s inaugural award was discerned to <em>Breaking the Waves<\/em> (composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek), premiered by Opera Philadelphia on September 22, 2016.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QFSMsdf0voM?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>The opera is based on the 1996 Cannes Grand Prix-winning film of the same name by Lars von Trier. Both film and opera revolve around the same female lead who fulfills sexual favours, but the latter shines a contemporary light on women\u2019s role in society: in the original film, a na\u00efve woman operates under decisions made by the males in her life and by God, while Mazzoli and Vavrek have cast a more empowered female in the opera. This dictates an entirely different tone for an otherwise unchanged story.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Vavrek and Mazzoli] completely turned it on its head, and made it into a story of a woman who makes a choice, and pursues it to the death,\u201d summarized jury member Heidi Waleson (opera critic, The Wall Street Journal). \u201cI was really fascinated by the uplifting and spiritual quality that was completely the opposite of what I felt about the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The MCANA joins a growing number of classical music organizations that are embracing classical music in modernized presentations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that there is a real explosion in interest in contemporary work, and it has spread beyond the couple of opera companies that we\u2019re always devoted to,\u201d Waleson further commented.<\/p>\n<p>Fellow jury member Alex Ross (music critic, The New Yorker) reflected on contemporary art as an indicator of society today: \u201cWe\u2019re finally seeing better representation of women as composers, and especially as composers of opera. This is exciting to see the roster of composers creating music looking more like the real world we live in\u2026 [<em>Breaking the Waves<\/em>] is the [nomination] that stuck with me the longest, and I just kept thinking back to it and sorting through my impressions of it. That\u2019s the sign of a work that should have some staying power.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>For more CLASSICAL MUSIC NEWS, visit\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.musicaltoronto.org\/category\/scoop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><u>HERE<\/u><\/a><\/span>.<\/h3>\n<h3><b><i>#LUDWIGVAN<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The inaugural MCANA Opera Award is given to Breaking the Waves, for which MT&#8217;s Arthur Kaptainis served on the contemporary competition jury. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":46123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6439,5,18,39,43],"tags":[6152,9638,4788,9639,9640,4789],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/06\/missy-mazzoli-photo-1-1050x700.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-bZT","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46121"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46132,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46121\/revisions\/46132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46121"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=46121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}