Arts & Events

This Sunday at 3:30 is your last chance to see John Brown’s Truth, a production with a new art form, the improvisational opera. 

From its website: 

“John Brown’s Truth, an opera which integrates classical and jazz elements—with libretto and musical conception by William Crossman—is a radical departure from traditional opera format and, as such, is truly an opera for the 21st Century. Its most radical feature is that, while its libretto is written, its music is not. All music—including that performed by the principals, the chorus, and the orchestra—is entirely improvised on the spot. This means that each performance of the opera is musically unique, newly recreated “in the moment.” The opera is also multi-modal using projected images and other technologies, and interactive involving some opportunities for the audience to briefly participate musically. The opera covers selected events, all within the year 1859, in the life of anti-slavery abolitionist John Brown as he prepares and carries out his raid on the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia and, afterwards, as he is put on trial for the raid. Though the timeline of events depicted is historically accurate, the libretto is a mostly fictionalized rendering of conversations John Brown might have had—and in some cases actually did have, according to historical reports—expressing his actual beliefs, intentions, and plans. The opera received its first performances on the 150th anniversary of the very events it is depicting.” 

Sunday, Dec 5 3:30 p.m. at Live Oak Theatre, 301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. 

Tickets: brownpapertickets.com 

1-800-838-3006, and at door. 

For more information: http://www.johnbrownstruthopera.com/