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FULL WHAT LIES BENEATH New York 2021 Matthew Anchel, Lindell Carter, Edwin Jhamal Davis, Nicholas Davis
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: What lies beneath
- Composer: various
- Libretto: various
- Venue & Opera Company: Wavertree, South Street Seaport, New York City.
- Recorded: September 2021
- Type: Concert Semi-staged
- Singers: Matthew Anchel, Lindell Carter, Edwin Jhamal Davis, Nicholas Davis, Chantal Freeman, Carami Hilaire, Bernard Holcomb, Zachary James, Tesia Kwarteng, Elliott Paige, Karmesha K. Peake
- Conductor: James Davis Jr
- Orchestra: Instrumental Ensemble
- Stage Director: Winston A. Benons Jr. , Eric Einhorn
- Costume Designer: Azalea Fairley
Information about the Recording
- Published by: ON SITE OPERA
- Date Published: 2025
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs, gensubs
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Combining song, story, history and movement as we returned to live performance, What Lies Beneath was a site-specific and immersive experience aboard the historical Wavertree, built in 1885, and used as a cargo ship before being acquired by the South Street Seaport Museum in 1968. This immersive musical experience invited small groups to travel around the ship’s main deck to hear and see vignettes intended to connect audiences to the complex and tragic stories surrounding American maritime history, both through the enslavement of African people and through novelist Herman Melville’s tragic heroes. From the enticements used to lure Africans into enslavement to Captain Ahab’s final moments of moral reckoning aboard the whaling ship Pequod in Moby Dick, What Lies Beneath was a series of six unique vignettes:
TRICKSTER’S ARIA
from Amistad composed by Anthony Davis to a libretto by Thulani Davis
AHAB
(Staged Premiere)
composed by Juliana Hall to a libretto by Caitlin Vincent
1619: A SONG CYCLE
(East Coast Premiere)
by Damien Geter
CLAGGART’S ARIA
from Billy Budd composed by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier
SEA FEVER
composed by John Ireland to a poem by John Masefield
World Premiere arrangement by James Davis Jr.
MAURYA’S LAMENT
from Riders to the Sea composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams
based on the play of the same name by John Millington Synge