Later the Same Evening: an opera inspired by five paintings of Edward Hopper November 15, 2007

John Musto, composer
Mark Campbell, librettist
Glen Cortese, conductor
Leon Major, director
Maryland Opera Studio
National Gallery Orchestra

WORLD PREMIERE! A new opera from award-winning composer John Musto and librettist Mark Campbell (Volpone) inspired by the works of iconic artist Edward Hopper, one of the foremost American realists of the 20th century.

Hopper’s paintings are often praised for capturing moments of profound loneliness and a sense of estrangement — a perception that the artist himself often refuted. The five Hopper paintings that inspire the opera Later the Same Evening all occur in New York and certainly project that sense of SOLITUDE, welcome and unwelcome, one feels in the city. But the opera goes further and connects the five paintings — sometimes obliquely, sometimes directly — to create a story that celebrates coincidental and serendipitous events occurring on a single night in New York in 1932.

A joint project of the National Gallery of Art, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and the University of Maryland School of Music, Later the Same Evening: an opera inspired by five paintings of Edward Hopper makes its world premiere in conjunction with the first comprehensive Hopper survey to appear in American museums outside New York in more than 25 years. The exhibition of oil paintings, watercolors and prints visits three U.S. cities — Boston, Washington D.C. and Chicago. The Edward Hopper art exhibition can be seen at D.C.'s National Gallery of Art from September 16, 2007 to January 21, 2008.

Tickets $30 ? $7 Student

Official Website: http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/2007/c/performances/performance?rowid=5482