Good luck getting a ticket, but it’s worth noting that The Greater Middletown Chorus’ world premiere of the “dramatic oratorio” Letter from Italy, 1944 is this weekend at Middletown High School’s Performing Arts Center (220 Larosa Lane, Middletown).
The show’s sole regular performance, April 28 at 4 p.m., has been sold out for weeks. A “preview performance” was added for tonight (Friday, April 26) at 7:30 p.m., but you can imagine that demand for that is high as well.
The show—performed by the 18-person chorale, five featured soloists and several dozen musicians—is based on the writings of Dr. John K. Meneely Jr., specifically the letters he wrote to his family when he was stationed in Italy as an army medic during World War II.
The correspondence has been turned into an oratorio by Meneely’s daughters Nancy Fitz-Hugh Meneely (a poet, living in Guilford, whose libretto version of Letter from Italy has been published and is available here) and Sarah Meneely-Kyder (a composer, based in Old Lyme, whose works have been performed by the New Haven Symphony, City Singers of Hartford, American Music/Theater Group and others). The stage direction for the premiere is by the Greater Middletown Chorale’s resident director Sheila Hickey Garvey, a longtime Professor of Theater at Southern Connecticut State University who’s contributed to books on Jason Robards and Eugene O’Neill.
A review of an earlier version of Letters from Italy, 1944, performed in 2003, calls the text “Walt Whitman-ish” and deems the musical setting “trenchantly dramatic, eerie, frightening and warmly lyrical as the text requires.”
The GMC has set up a special website to promote this premiere production, replete with bios, info on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which Dr. Meneely appeared to have suffered from, though the disorder wasn’t known by that name in his day), blogs by director Garvey and others; an Honor Roll of military veterans “honored by family and friends as part of Letter from Italy, 1944”; and a three minute video preview of the show
The oratorio has received a number of grants to assist in its development, including on the state level from the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development and the Connecticut Humanities Council.
Given the excitement over this one, and the fact that many will be shut out from seeing it, here’s hoping for further renditions of Letter from Italy, 1944.
Thanks for the notice, Chris! A couple of notes: Tickets for the preview performance (tonight, April 26) are still available online, though as you say demand is strong. We’re opening a special “student rush” line at 6:30 ($15, current student ID required), but we don’t know how long those tickets will hold out. We are also offering “standby” tickets on Sunday afternoon, but really the best hope to get in is tonight.
I’m with you on the hope for further performances.
Thanks, Chris, for the on-line publicity–Friday night’s performance was terrific and Sunday’s should be even better!!
One correction–there are 80 singers in the Chorale, not the 18 you mentioned. As one of those singers, I want to be sure every participant gets proper credit.
Chris –
Your comments are appreciated greatly. One note of interest: The “Letter from Italy review you mention was of the single, Grammy-nominated song, also called “Letter from Italy, 1944″ around which the other 28 choruses and arias revolve in this new, greatly enlarged work.
Your readers may be happy to know that “Letter from Italy, 1944″ will live on – surely there will be future performances – but the exciting afterlife will be in the forthcoming documentary film on the subject by Emmy-award-winning North Haven documentary filmmaker, Karyl Evans.
“‘Letter from Italy, 1944′ – An American Oratorio” is now in progress and should be released early in 2014. In her documentary, Karyl will cover the Chorale’s commissioning of the work by Sarah Meneely-Kyder and Nancy Meneely; the rehearsals; the Connecticut Community Conversation events that led up to the April 28th world premiere, and responses by the audience, the medical world and 10th Mountain Division soldiers from WWII who attended the concert. The documentary is partially funded by an Arts Catalyzes Placemaking grant of the state’s DECD/Office of the Arts.
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Awesome video, genuinely a good WW2 Letters to be Sung in Middletown This Weekend | New Haven Theater Jerk quality, this YouTube video touched me a lot in terms of features.
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“Letter from Italy, 1944: A New American Oratorio” – the documentary created about the context and evolution of Sarah Meneely-Kyder’s musical drama for soloists, chorus and orchestra – was the vehicle for Karyl Evans’ 6th Emmy, awarded June 4, 2016 by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Boston! The GMChorale is proud to have commissioned this documentary and the oratorio that it examines so brilliantly. Kudos to all involved!
Letter from Italy, 1944: A New American Oratorio – the documentary created about the context and evolution of Sarah Meneely-Kyder’s musical drama for soloists, chorus and orchestra – was the vehicle for Karyl Evans’ 6th Emmy, awarded June 4, 2016 by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Boston! The GMChorale is proud to have commissioned both this documentary and the oratorio that it examines so brilliantly. Kudos to all involved!