Opera Lafayette
at The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
and the Kaye Playhouse, NYC
Director and Choreographer: Sean Curran
Maestro: Ryan Brown
Scenic Design: Diana Balmori
Costume Design: Amanda Shafran
Lighting Design: Rob Siler
Stage Management: Diane Lin
February 2019
photo credit: Louis Forget
"Curran also directed the simple but effective staging, with large rolling screens, decorated with vines, and red benches placed in different configurations. Vibrant colored lighting by Rob Siler accented Amanda Shafran’s equally exotic costuming, with the dancing soldiers given modern touches like sunglasses and ammo belts."
- Washington Classical Review
"The streamlined production as a whole, without other added arias from the later version, created a world unto itself that clearly helped avoid the kind of “willful suspension of disbelief” baroque opera invites. With their sinuous intertwining black lines, the three large transparent screens rolled into place by Mr. Curran’s dancers eclipsed potential applause points to keep the drama moving, and their various configurations, aided by the subtle and varied lighting of Rob Siler, gave a kind of theatrical punctuation to the myriad scenes: from royal tent or royal gardens, to Tiridate’s camp, to the city wall, to “the river Araxes and a subterranean cave.”
- Opera con Brio
