\u201cA Dill Pickle\u201d premieres this Sunday in person and online<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nTwo former lovers cross paths in a chance encounter at an Edwardian café. During the ensuing conversation, they share an intimate reunion and come to a new understanding about what took place between them.<\/p>\n
That’s the premise of Clark University Professor Matt Malsky’s<\/a> new opera, “A Dill Pickle,” which premieres this Sunday at the Jean McDonough Arts Center’s BrickBox Theater in downtown Worcester and online through a livestream. Based on a short story by Katherine Mansfield, the opera explores themes of lost love and regret, self-centeredness and missed connections, new experiences — and, improbably, a dill pickle.<\/p>\n Malsky, the Tina Sweeney, M.A. ’49, Endowed Chair in Music, has created a diverse body of musical works that have been performed and acclaimed both locally and internationally. “A Dill Pickle” is his first opera and a project that Malsky has contemplated for years.<\/p>\n “I’ve been collecting stories that might become operas for a very long time. When I was in graduate school, I had a file of stories that I thought might be good adaptations, but it wasn’t until recently that I felt like I had the experience and the background and the scope of imagination to really take on evening-length works,” he explains.<\/p>\n The performance stars Caitlin Felsman, mezzo-soprano, as Vera, and Clark music<\/a> Professor Cailin Marcel Manson<\/a>, baritone, as the unnamed male protagonist. The story explores alienation and power relationships between men and women, giving the audience access to Vera’s reactions through her memories and interior musings and monologues.<\/p>\n “It’s a very intimate opera, so small gestures like picking up a glove or offering a cigarette or looking off into the distance carry a lot of psychological weight,” says Director Kirk Jackson, a theater professor at Bennington College who became involved in the opera through a connection with Manson.<\/p>\n Story continues after video<\/em><\/p>\n