COVID-19 may have put the kibosh on in-person events, but the Princeton Festival, like life, finds a way.
The June 2020 public performance season has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. In its place, the Festival has announced “Virtually Yours,” a free online series of live and recorded performances of instrumental and vocal music, musical theater, opera, and poetry, plus educational presentations, to be streamed every day, from June 1 to June 28.
“This online program maintains the high artistic quality Princeton Festival audiences have come to expect in a variety of genres, both classical and popular,” says Richard Tang Yuk, PF Executive and Artistic Director. “It includes totally new material prepared especially for us by leading artists, plus performances from our recorded archives. We’re confident audiences will find it to be an exciting and engaging series of events.”
Highlights of the “Virtually Yours” online festival will include the following (all times are EDT):
• Videos of four Festival opera productions, each streamed just once on Sundays at 1 pm. The operas are Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (June 7), Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (June 14), the acclaimed 2019 production of John Adams’s Nixon in China June 21), and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (June 28).
• A “Live Musical Theater Review” (Saturday, June 20, 8 pm).
• Broadcasts of 2019 Festival concerts by Concordia Chamber Players, Van Cliburn competition pianist Rachel Cheung, and the Princeton Festival Baroque Orchestra and Chorus, airing Fridays at 8 pm on WWFM radio, 89.1 FM in the Trenton area and worldwide over The Classical Network at http://www.wwfm.org.
• Videos of musical artists performing from their homes (various days).
• Latin band Fleur Seule on Saturday, June 13.
• A series of podcasts launched each Wednesday on such topics as “Women in Music” and “Costuming Operas and Musicals,” along with interviews with Shai Zohar, pianist, and Sylvia McNair, soprano.
• Twelve renowned poets from the U.S., Japan, and China, reading poems on the theme of women, in a compilation of videos made especially for the Festival. To be released on Monday, June 22.
• An Opera Workshop for people who want to learn more about the art form, starting Tuesday, June 9; and a Musical Workshop for aspiring singers beginning Monday June 15.
• Lectures by prominent experts: Professor Timothy Urban on “Why We Love Opera” (Thursday, June 4) and Professor Stacy Wolf on “Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure and Promise of Musical Theater across America” (Thursday, June 18).
A full roster of “Virtually Yours” events, plus periodic updates to the schedule, may be viewed online at https://princetonfestival.org/virtually-yours/.
