ALTERNATIVE OPERA THEATRE.
Alter Ego Chamber Opera (AECO) is an emerging, Philadelphia-based chamber opera company which performs new and reimagined works, endeavoring to serve as a catalyst for change and bringing intimate, experimental opera theatre to the region.
SOULS UNSCREENED, 2024
At Brooklyn Art Haus, NYC, and Harmonie Hall, PHL
Souls Unscreened and Crystal's Channel, with Experiments in Opera, NYC
Two works-in-progress, performing in two cities,
in one double-bill production!
Brooklyn Art Haus , May 30th, 2024, 7:30 pm
24 Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11211
Tickets and Info Here
An opera featuring a solo singer with a ventriloquist doll and guitar. She portrays a songwriter who uploads a new, original song everyday to Youtube. The singer and dummy, together, tell the funny and painful story of how she mastered ventriloquism in her adolescence—and how that obsession ended when her mother took her and the doll to an exorcist.
Libretto and Composition: Jason Cady
Soprano, and Electric Guitar: Sarah Daniels
Direction: Shannon Sindelar
Harmonie Hall , June 2nd, 2024, 6 pm
4372 Fleming St, Philadelphia, PA 19128
Tickets and Info Here:
Act I of an installation opera about a computer scientist deepfaking herself during the Covid-19 pandemic and developing groundbreaking technology in AI and uploading her consciousness to the cloud.
Composition and Electronics: Roger A. Martinez
Libretto and Erica: Alize Francheska Rozsnyai
Nathan: Tom Sitzler
Claudia: Kaitlyn Tierney
Conductor: Sepehr Pirasteh
Flute: Chelsea Meynig
Violin: Rachel Segal
Viola: Veronica Jurkiewicz
Cello: Leigh Brown
Piano: Hannah Han
Support the realization of Souls Unscreened into a fully-staged WORLD PREMIERE
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ALCINA REVAMPED, 2021
Of Fiercer Origins: An Operatic Double-Bill features the Philadelphia Premiere of A PREGNANT PAUSE, the opera & further reflection through song: Two World Premiere songs set to poems by Adrienne Rich, and a set of songs from Libby Larsen's The Birth Project. Music for A PREGNANT PAUSE is by Garth Baxter, with Libretto by Alize Francheska Rozsnyai. Music for "What Is Possible” is written by NYC-based, Mexico-born Jorge Sosa, and “Heroines” is by LA-based composer Tori Lavan. Both works are from Adrienne Rich's "A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far."
A PREGNANT PAUSE takes us inside the mind of Serena, as she waits for the results of a pregnancy test. She is met by two doppelgängers: one who extols the wonders of motherhood; the other who advocates for remaining child-free. A short opera about the decisions women face when their bodies cease to be their own, for three sopranos, sung by Alize Francheska Rozsnyai, Marcelle McGuirk, and Katherine Boyce, with Hannah Han on piano. The evening is paired with songs which speak to challenges and depth of the female psyche, with poetry by Adrienne Rich, 20th-century feminist poet credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse". Electronics created by Jorge Sosa. Stage direction by Vanessa Ogbuehi.
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Angel Sponsor Pre-Sale Tickets are now available, and there are 22 sold for each show time, priced at $50 each (with an option to make an additional donation). Regular tickets will be priced at $30, and will be sold through the Fringe Arts website, where Fringe takes a 10% cut of each ticket sold.
Your pre-sale ticket purchase goes a long way toward directly supporting our artists!
PERKS: Angel Sponsor Ticket Holders will be invited to enter the theatre 10 minutes earlier than regular ticket holders for each performance, and thus can choose the seats that they want ahead of our General Admission Entry. Otherwise, each performance has open seating.
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A soprano "displaying profound imagination and control" (Philadelphia Inquirer), and librettist, Alize Francheska Rozsnyai is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, excelling in baroque and contemporary repertoire. She has performed with companies including Opera Philadelphia, The Center for Contemporary Opera, Experiments in Opera NYC, Opera Fayetteville (Zina, Dark Sisters), The International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in England (Phyllis, Iolanthe), Rossini Opera Festival, Cape Cod Symphony, Chautauqua Opera, and the Princeton Symphony.
Ms. Rozsnyai has received honors from many prestigious organizations such as the Career Bridges Grant, Astral Artist National Auditions, Palm Beach Opera Competition, Lotte Lenya Competition, American Traditions Competition, Early Music America, Bel Canto Vocal Scholarship, Musical Merit Foundation of Greater San Diego, Lois Alba Aria Competition, and is the recipient of the generous Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship. She took time off to dedicate herself to the service of others full time from 2015-2017, working in ArtistYear (Americorps).
She is currently on the roster of Matthew Laifer Artist Management.
As a librettist, Alize performed her original adaptation of Pierrot Lunaire (Kennedy Center), as well as two of her own works, The Coffee Cantata (new adaptation) and Phony (music by David Brown), with Alter Ego Chamber Opera. She and composer collaborator Roger A. Martinez are MassOpera NOW Finalists for their work My Friend, Freddy. www.AlizeSoprano.com
Tom Sitzler, lyric baritone, has been capturing audiences with his warm, generous voice and convincing stage presence. Growing up in Arizona, Tom was buying CD’s of pianist Glenn Gould and composer Rachmaninoff, while his older brothers and friends were buying the newest albums of the latest bands. This began his lasting love of classical music.
In 2009, Mr. Sitzler stepped into the professional arena of performing as the Old Gypsy in “Il Trovatore” with Union Avenue Opera. That was followed by premiering the role of Bob in “Family Dynamics” by composer Bill Lenihan with St. Louis City Opera. Among many other programs and performances, Tom participated in the Victoria J. Mastrobuono Emerging Artist Program, in New Jersey, covering Figaro in “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”. In 2012, Mr. Sitzler was heard singing Silvano from “Un ballo in Maschera” with UAO, where Sarah Bryan Miller from the St. Louis Post Dispatch said, “Tom Sitzler … made the most of a small role” and Mark Bretz from Ladue News said, “Tom Sitzler is entertaining as the sailor.” Later that same year, Mr. Sitzler stepped down from a two-year apprenticeship with the Bach Society of St. Louis, where he performed the bass solos in Mozart’s Requiem, and covered the solos in J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. In 2015, Mr. Sitzler returned to St. Louis to perform the title role in “The Boor” with Gateway Opera, where Mark Bretz from Ladue News said, “As the boor, Tom Sitzler proved his own skills both with his strong singing style and a good way with comedy.” Most recently, he was engaged as Germont from “la Traviata” and Scarpia from “Tosca” with Painted Sky Opera. www.TomSitzler.com
Roger A. Martinez is a composer who is interested in music that breaks down stylistic and formal barriers, while remaining accessible to a wide audience. He has written for a variety of settings, including opera, art song, electronic works, media music, and online interactive music installations. Roger is a graduate of San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Technology and Applied Composition program, and has a background in computer science, as well as traditional Western harmony and counterpoint. Roger is second generation Mexican-American, and considers his Mexican heritage to be a point of inspiration for many of his compositions.
Among Roger’s more recent works are Invocación al Laurel (2021), for string trio and voice, based on the poem by Federico García Lorca, and Climate Works (2020) an interactive web app that translates climate data from around the world into music. In 2019, Roger’s opera Potentialite, written in collaboration with librettist Alize Rozsnyai, premiered as part of the 2019 Philadelphia Fringe fest. Roger's film score credits include A Night Like This (2018), by director Frank Battaglia, and Equity (2015), directed by Andrew Donato. He is currently working on music for an upcoming video game project.
Roger is excited about the musical and narrative possibilities inherent in contemporary opera, and looks forward to writing new works for the opera stage. www.RogerAMartinez.com
Soprano Kelly Rubinsohn is equally at home in comedic and dramatic repertoire. She has enjoyed performing roles such as the title role in Alcina, Governess (The Turn of the Screw), Ginevra (Ariodante), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Angelica (Orlando), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), and Lucy Brown (The Threepenny Opera). In the Bay Area, Kelly appeared with Opera Parallèle, Pocket Opera, and Black Box Baroque. She is also one of the co-founders of Opera Theater Unlimited, an independent opera company based in San Francisco.
She received the Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (San Diego District) and First Place in the East Bay Opera League Scholarship competition. She was previously a Young Artists at the Lyrique en Mer Festival in Belle Ile, France, where she was the soprano soloist for the Rossini Petite messe solennelle.Other programs include the Advanced Artist program at OperaWorks, the Lieder Studio at AIMS in Graz, Austria, and the University of Miami Frost School of Music at Salzburg.
Kelly earned her MM in Vocal Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, where she additionally minored in creative writing. www.kellyrubinsohn.com
We're interested in hearing from artists of all kinds, as well as fans and fellow producers!
If you're interested in working or collaborating with Alter Ego Chamber Opera, please contact us using our form below, or at AlterEgoChamberOpera@gmail.com.