Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
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Beethoven | Egmont featuring Liev Schreiber & Karen Slack

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SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

Concert Duration: 1 hour

  • Beethoven (arr. Tarkmann)

    Incidental Music from Egmont, Op. 84

    Liev Schreiber, Narrator
    Karen Slack, Soprano

    Translated and Adapted by Philip Boehm

    Original narrative text by Franz Grillparzer to accompany Beethoven’s incidental music to Goethe’s Egmont.

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Orpheus stands up for justice and freedom in this homage to courageous voices. Beethoven, an unyielding critic of despots, channeled his ardor and rage into music for Goethe’s historical drama about a local hero defying foreign occupiers. Liev Schreiber narrates an incisive new translation by Philip Boehm, while the clarion voice of Karen Slack and Orpheus illuminate the eternal truths of Egmont.

This concert was made possible through the generous support of Berjé and the German Consulate General New York.

About the artists

Liev Schreiber

Heralded as “the finest American theater actor of his generation” by the New York Times, Liev Schreiber’s repertoire of resonant, humanistic and oftentimes gritty portrayals have garnered him praise in film, theatre and television.

Schreiber starred in the title role in Showtime’s critically-acclaimed hit series Ray Donovan. This powerful family drama centers on Ray as L.A.’s best professional fixer – the go-to guy in Hollywood who deftly solves the complicated, controversial and confidential problems of the city’s elite. Schreiber’s performance has garnered him five Golden Globe® Award nominations in the category of Best Actor in a Television Series Drama and three Primetime Emmy nominations as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He also directed the first episode of season four.

Schreiber will next be seen in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch opposite Owen Wilson, Benicio Del Toro, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody and Timothée Chalamet, as well as Lea Seydoux, Tilda Swinton, Mathieu Amalric, Lyna Khoudri, Stephen Park, and Bill Murray.

Schreiber was last seen in Marc Meyers’ Human Capital alongside Alex Wolff. Based on Stephen Amidon’s novel of the same name, the film follows two families, one middle-class and one privileged, as their lives intertwine across the social divide. The dramatic thriller is produced through Schreiber and his production company Illuminated Content, with a screenplay by Oren Moverman.

Schreiber narrated Inside The Manson Cult: The Lost Tapes, a two-hour true crime special on Fox about Charles Manson and his loyal followers. He also voiced the character ‘Spots’, in Wes Anderson’s stop-motion-animated film Isle of Dogs. Last year, he was seen in IFC’s Chuck which he also co-produced and co-wrote. The bio-pic tells the story of Chuck Wepner, the liquor store salesman and heavyweight boxer who was given the opportunity to fight Muhammad Ali as an underdog and was the inspiration for the film, Rocky. The film also stars Naomi Watts, Ron Perlman, and Elisabeth Moss.

In 2015, Schreiber was seen in Spotlight, an award-winning film about the true story of when The Boston Globe uncovered the scandal of child molestation within the Catholic Church. Schreiber played Marty Baron, the editor-in-chief of The Boston Globe who assigned the journalists to the task. The film won several awards including an Oscar for Best Picture, a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama, and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Picture. It was also listed on the American Film Institute’s Top Ten Films of 2015.

Schreiber's many feature credits include Sony’s The 5th Wave; Ed Zwicks’ Pawn Sacrifice; The Good Lord Bird Lee Daniels’ The Butler; Larry David’s Clear History; Fading Gigolo; The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Salt with Angelina Jolie; X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Defiance with Daniel Craig; Repo Men; The Painted Veil; The Manchurian Candidate, opposite Meryl Streep and Denzel Washington; The Sum of All Fears; Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock; Kate & Leopold; Goon; Every Day; Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet; Spring Forward; The Hurricane; A Walk on the Moon with Diane Lane; The Daytrippers; Nora Ephron's Mixed Nuts; and Wes Craven's Scream trilogy.

His portrayal of Orson Welles in Benjamin Ross' RKO 281 brought Schreiber Emmy® and Golden Globe® Award nominations. His other telefilm credits include George C. Wolfe's Lackawanna Blues and John Erman's The Sunshine Boys, opposite Woody Allen and Peter Falk. As one of the documentary medium's foremost narrators, he has lent his voice to such works as Mantle, :03 from Gold; A City on Fire: The Story of the ‘68 Detroit Tigers; Nova; and Nature.

In 2010, Schreiber received his third Tony® nomination for his role in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge alongside Scarlett Johansson. His performance as Ricky Roma in the 2005 Broadway revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, directed by Joe Mantello, earned him his first Tony Award. He was again a Tony nominee for his portrayal of Barry Champlain in the 2007 Broadway revival of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio, directed by Robert Falls. Other stage work includes in Les Liaisons Dangereuses in the lead role opposite Janet McTeer, the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of Macbeth, in the lead role opposite Jennifer Ehle, directed by Moisés Kaufman; Othello; Hamlet; Henry V; and Cymbeline.

In 2005, Schreiber made his feature directorial debut with Everything is Illuminated, which he also adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling novel of the same name. The film, starring Elijah Wood and Eugene Hutz, was named one of the year's 10 Best by the National Board of Review.

Schreiber currently serves on the Board of Advisors at the Yale School of Drama.

Arrangements for the appearance of Liev Schrieber made through Greater Talent Network, LLC., New York, NY

Karen Slack

Hailed for possessing a voice of extraordinary beauty, a seamless legato, and great dramatic depth, American soprano Karen Slack has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, and San Francisco Opera. Most recently seen as Serena in Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera, and as Billie in the world premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up In My Bones with Opera Theater of St. Louis, Slack has also appeared as Alice Ford in Falstaff, Leonora in Il Trovatore and Tosca with Arizona Opera, as Aïda at Austin Opera, Emelda Griffith in Champion with New Orleans Opera, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Nashville Opera, and made her Scottish Opera debut as Anna in Puccini’s Le Villi.The 2018-2019 season saw her as Tosca with Opera Birmingham, Addie Parker in Charlie Parker’s Yardbird with Arizona Opera, Sister Rose in Dead Man Walking with Atlanta Opera, and Serena in Porgy and Bess with Fort Worth Opera. In concert she was a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in the world premiere of Hannibal Lokumbe’s Healing Tones with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Union Symphony Orchestra for Wagner’s Wesendonk Lieder.

The 2019-2020 season also included a series of recitals throughout the US including the Vilar Center for the Performing Arts in Vail, Colorado with pianist Maestro Joe Illick. Equally at home on the concert stage, Ms. Slack has performed Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony and the Verdi’s Requiem with various orchestras throughout the US. Abroad she has appeared with the Melbourne Symphony, Sydney Symphony, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and most recently with the St. Petersburg’s Philharmonic in celebration of the 80th birthday of Maestro Yuri Temirkanov. She made her Carnegie Hall debut as Agnes Sorel in Tchaikovsky’s Maid of Orleans with Orchestra St. Luke’s. Additional upcoming engagements for the 2020-2021 season include her debut with the Houston Grand Opera for the world premiere of Joel Thompson’s A Snowy Day, Poulenc’s La Voix Humane with Madison and Austin Opera, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall recital with Alan Morrison in the world premiere of a work by American composer Adolphus Halistork, Verdi’s Requiem with Highlander Concert Series at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Susan Kander's Driving While Black for UrbanArias and a Wagner and Strauss concert with Omaha Opera and Symphony.

A graduate of the Adler Fellowship and Merola Program at the San Francisco Opera, the native Philadelphian is also a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music. She is a winner of numerous competitions and awards: most notably the Montserrat Caballé International Competition, Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, George London Foundation Award, Marian Anderson ICON Award, Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, Rosa Ponselle International Vocal Competition, Portland Opera Lieber Award, Liederkranz Foundation Award and the Jose Iturbi International Competition for Voice. Ms. Slack is creator and host of the highly successful Facebook live show called Kiki Konversations where she interviews singers, creatives and industry leaders, serves as Artistic Advisor for the Portland Opera and Co-Director of Opera for the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada for the 20/21 season.

Learn more at www.sopranokarenslack.com

Philip Boehm

Philip Boehm’s career zigzags across languages and borders, artistic disciplines and cultural divides. He is the author of more than thirty translations of prose works and plays by German and Polish writers, including Herta Müller, Franz Kafka, and Hanna Krall. For his work as a translator he has received numerous awards as well as fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation. As a director fluent in several languages he has staged plays in Poland, Slovakia, and the US. His most frequent venue is Upstream Theater in St. Louis, which he founded in 2004. Since then the company has produced dozens of works—mostly US premieres—from nearly twenty different countries.

Mr. Boehm’s plays have been seen in Atlanta, Houston, Sacramento, St. Louis and Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, and include Mixtitlan, Soul of a Clone, The Death of Atahualpaand Return of the Bedbug—a modern fantasia on Mayakovsky’s 1928 satire—as well as adaptations of Büchner’s Woyzeckand Kazimierz Moczarski’s Conversations with an Executioner. For his dramatic work Mr. Boehm has received support from the Mexican-American Fund for Culture as well as the NEA.
“I am continually struck by new overlaps between staging drama and translating prose. In both cases I first listen to the original voice or voices before attempting any re-creation, and my experience working with actors has taught me the importance of keeping a text alive, and of preserving its energy as it travels from one culture to another, whether on the page or in the theater."

Location

This concert was recorded in Beechwood Park in Hillsdale, NJ.

Special thanks to Mayor John Ruocco, Denise Kohen and Eileen McLaughlin.

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