United States Prototype Festival 2026 [1] – BMP: SONGBOOK: Soloists, Jeffrey Zeigler (cello), Shayna Dunkelman (percussion), Contemporaneous / Kazem Abdullah (conductor). National Sawdust, Brooklyn, 8.1.2025. (RP)
It is impossible to imagine January in New York without the Prototype Festival. Co-founded in 2013 by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE, the annual festival is the launch pad for cutting-edge opera-theater and music-theater works. The only constraints are resources and space, for every year the festival plays to sold-out houses. Lack of imagination, commitment or resourcefulness is not the issue.
Prototype is produced by Beth Morrison Projects, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary in conjunction with this year’s festival. Since 2006, BMP has commissioned, developed, produced and toured over sixty works in fourteen countries around the world, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning chamber operas Angel’s Bone by Du Yun and librettist Royce Vavrek and p r i s m by Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins.
Morrison founded BMP because she wasn’t seeing the type of opera that she wanted to see. Opera was a predominantly male-oriented environment and did not reflect the contemporary stories she wanted to tell. With training as a singer and a degree in arts management, Morrison initially ran BMP as a one-woman operation. Her resolve never wavered, nor did her commitment to present three new operas a year, a goal that was met and exceeded. Collaborations with opera companies worldwide have been pivotal to BMP’s success.
Contemporary works demand modern sounds. That was always the case, or how would we have progressed from Ockeghem to Cage? Morrison has faced down critics who object to the amplification of the singers’ voices. Composers today lean into percussion and electronics, making amplification of the singers a necessity, especially in the small black-box theaters where many of BMP’s works are staged. For twenty-first-century performers, mike technique comes naturally and is part of their artistic toolbox. Cross-over controversies are a thing of the past, and so is amplification of the human voice in contemporary works.
The 2026 Prototype Festival opened with two performances of BMP: SONGBOOK, a multi-faceted celebration of BMP’s legacy featuring arias from some of its most acclaimed and provocative productions. For a company noted for breaking the rules, the celebration was surprisingly conventional, with the expected high production values and straightforward messaging. BMP: SONGBOOK was, however, wonderful in all regards.
There were congratulatory video clips from opera luminaries, including the Metropolitan Opera’s General Manager Peter Gelb, soprano Renée Fleming and countertenor Anthony Roth Constanzo, who is also General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia, a company equally committed to contemporary opera. Far more heartfelt and appreciative comments came from the composers, librettists, directors and other collaborators whose creative impulses and careers have been nourished by Morrison.
The program was a succession of arias from what amounted to BMP’s greatest hits. Each one required a different configuration of instruments, which in the confines of National Sawdust’s black-box theater had to take place in full view of the audience. Video clips of the featured works projected in the darkened space obscured the stagehands’ movements. The film clips were mesmerizing, as much for the performances as for glimpses into the stagings. Video can be a narcotic in a live performance but not here. The live performances, mostly by the artists who created the roles, eclipsed them with their visceral impact in thirteen scenes that were as remarkable for the music as for their diversity of subject matter and style.
Broadway performer Marc Kudisch was chilling in ‘Good Morrow and Welcome’ from Anatomy Theater, in which he welcomed the audience to the eighteenth-century phenomenon of a ‘moral spectacle, where the public paid to view the dissection of an executed criminal. In ‘Older Man Aria’ from Trade, he bottled angst and confusion over a closeted, older gay man obsessing over the young rent boy who has sent his world spinning.
‘My Father’ from Adoration was yet another example of BMP’s embrace of controversial and penetrating subject matter. Omar Najmi gave voice to the unimaginable complexities of a man coming to grips with his father sending his mother on a suicide mission (based on actual events). Equally on point was Jennifer Zetlan singing ‘I Love Sweets’ from Ellen West, in which a woman expresses her struggles with body, food and identity.
Huang Ruo, who is currently basking in praise after the recent premiere of his opera, The Monkey King, at San Francisco Opera, performed ‘The Legend of Ten Suns’ from his Book of Mountains and Seas. A broad array of percussion effects underscored the urgency in his voice as he told of the impending disasters resulting from global warming. Other performances are indelibly etched in the mind, including Timur Ricky exploring a man’s darkest memories of his greatest regret in ‘Hungry Ghost’ from Black Lodge, and Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, whose storytelling bridges Zimbabwe’s past and present, singing ‘Zarurayi Nzira’ from Marimuka, in which she related a young girl’s coming of age to the accompaniment of her own drumming.
Abigail Fischer Earthshine’s performance of ‘Smiles’ from Angel’s Bone, however, delivered the greatest emotional impact of the performance. Angel’s Bone is the story of two fallen angels who have been rescued by a desperate couple seeking a better life. This allegorical work confronts the horrors of modern-day slavery and trafficking. Earthshine’s voice evolves from desperation to exultation as she frets that the angels will be apprehended and returned yet is elated at the magic they have brought to her life. Singing of feathers which glistened like diamonds, Earthshine’s voice sparkled when the feathers she wore were revealed.
The performances also marked the release of the BMP: SONGBOOK Anthology, a collection of arias from many of BMP’s commissioned works. It is available both on CD and in a special Signature Collection Vinyl edition. The latter comes complete with a commemorative visual history book with interviews and stories from BMP’s visionary collaborators. It is a fascinating listen and irrefutable proof of BMP’s position as the chief disruptor, innovator and leader in the opera of today.
Rick Perdian
Featured Image: Kazem Abdullah (conductor), Marc Kudisch (performer) with Contemporaneous © Jill Steinberg
Production:
Curator and Director – Beth Morrison
Lighting – Ari Kim
Sound – Garth MacAleavey
Program:
David Lang / Mark Dion – ‘Good Morrow and Welcome’ (Anatomy Theater). Performer: Marc Kudisch
Missy Mazzoli / Royce Vavrek – ‘This World Within Me Is Too Small’ (Song From The Uproar). Performer: Abigail Fischer Earthshine
David T. Little / Anne Waldman – ‘Hungry Ghost’ (Black Lodge). Performer: Timur
Ricky Ian Gordan / Frank Bidart – ‘I Love Sweets’ (Ellen West). Performer: Jennifer Zetlan
Huang Ruo – ‘The Legend of Ten Suns’ (Book of Mountains and Seas). Performer: Huang Ruo
Mary Kouyoumdjian / Royce Vavrek – ‘My Father’ (Adoration). Performer: Omar Najmi
Paola Prestini / Royce Vavrek – ‘Fishing’ (The Old Man and the Sea). Performer: Armando Contreras
Du Yun / Royce Vavrek – ‘Smiles’ (Angel’s Bone). Performer: Abigail Fischer Earthshine
Kamala Sankaram / Susan Yankowitz – ‘Thumbprint’ (Thumbprint). Performer: Zarurayi Nzira
Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa – ‘Zarurayi Nzira’ (Marimuka). Performer: Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa
Ellen Reid / Roxie Perkins – ‘Lumee’s Dream’ (p r i s m). Performer: Rebecca Jo Loeb
Emma O’Halloran / Mark O’Halloran – ‘Older Man Aria’ (Trade). Performer: Mark Kudisch
David T Little / Royce Vavrek – ‘Mirror Mirror’ (Dog Days). Performer: Kaileigh Riess
A great read that transported us into the festival — as it can feel impossible to get to nearly all one wants to see!