“Spoken and Sung with What If Works!” as part of Florida Grand Opera’s The Passenger Community Conversation Series

Florida Grand Opera, in partnership with What If Works Inc. is pleased to announce “Spoken and Sung,” the second event in FGO’s 2015–16 “The Passenger Community Conversations” series.

Written in 1962 Mieczysław Weinberg’s opera is an adaptation based on an adaptation. In response to her experiences as a young Polish woman in a concentration camp at Auschwitz, Zofia Posmysz wrote a short radio play “Pasażerka z kabiny numer 45” or “Passenger in Cabin 45.” Following its success in 1959, Posmysz set about to write the novel. The opera was adapted from the radio play in 1962 but suppressed by the Russian government for thirty years before finally saw a fully realized production in the West in 2010.

While the story remains the same the telling of it presents very dissimilar approaches. The opera features eighteen sung characters and a chorus while the radio play calls for just three actors. In the radio play the opera’s central character, Marta, is spoken about but never heard. FGO’s “Community Conversations” offers its audience an intense series of contrasting scenes through which the audience will experience divergent approaches to communicating the same story.

This unique presentation is sure to offer numerous discussion points upon which lively and meaningful conversations can take place. The program will feature actors from What If Works, a community engaged, post-graduate company, dedicated to the development of young artists in theatre, film and music and members of FGO’s fabled Young Artist Program.

We look forward to having you be a part of the “Conversation!”
This program will be performed multiple times, in both Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.