"1 DAY LESS" on the Big Screen

For those of you in the Los Angeles-Santa Monica area, a screening of the 1 DAY LESS video will be featured at the Academy of Entertainment & Technology, 1660 Stewart St., in Santa Monica on Friday, December 10, 8:00pm - Hope to see you there ....

DVD of "1 DAY LESS"

The DVD of the May 29, 2010 performance of 1 DAY LESS is now complete and ready for the Sol Huroks of today to promote - It has been beautifully edited by filmmaker Marc Saltarelli, is fully titled, and contains our information email address: 1DAYLESSopera@gmail.com.

The video is not for sale, but composer David Javelosa has put up an excerpt on YouTube - click here.

Thanks again to everyone for your comments and encouragement.

Performance of 1 DAY LESS

The performance of ONE DAY LESS at a pretty full house in the Broad 2nd Space in Santa Monica CA went very well - especially considering less than 8 hours of rehearsal time at the space itself, having to fly in our baritone lead from an Opera Festival in the midwest the day before the performance, not getting our director until a week before, etc., etc.
But we did it - my congratulations and thanks to our singers Luvi Avendano, Jocelyn Lee, Sabine Esmaili, Claudio Saez; our instrumentalists Evelyn Mann, Jill Flomenhoft, and Michael Intriere; and of course to the other half of "we" - composer David Javelosa.

The performance was also beautifully filmed by director Marc Saltarelli.

Please contact me via email (above) for future performances and further information.

1st Full Performance of 1 DAY LESS

Composer David Javelosa and I are thrilled to announce that the first full performance of our opera, 1 DAY LESS will take place Saturday, May 29th at the Edye Second Space of the Santa Monica Performing Arts Center. This is a semi-staged production featuring exciting young singers and instrumentalists - and is just the beginning!
Here's a bit from of the press release from Santa Monica College:

CONTACT: Bruce Smith FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Public Information Officer DATE: May 11, 2010
(310) 434-4209 www.smc.edu

A DREAM OPERA AT SMC

What do you get when you put a dream, Maria Callas, a poet and a Santa Monica College professor together? The answer is an experimental opera titled “One Day Less,” which will debut at a free concert in the Edye Second Space at the SMC Performing Arts Center on Saturday, May 29 at 8 p.m.

It began when widely published poet and Pushcart Prize nominee Angela Mankiewicz had a powerful but now vague dream. Then, she heard a story about opera legend Maria Callas in her last years. Shortly before she died in Paris, a near recluse at 53, an unnamed colleague ran into her and asked Callas how she was. She replied: “Caro, every day, thank God, is one day less.”

The mysterious dream and the story gave birth to Mankiewicz’s first opera, “One Day Less.” The underlying theme is alienation. The setting is in the not-too-distant future where people are marginalized by physical deformities. The lead characters meet by chance to find that they have mirrored disfigurements and are compelled to fall in love with each other. Faced with bureaucratic regulations and social stigma, they ponder conceiving a child, but are separated by the powers that be, bringing the story to a tragic ending.

What began with a dream turned into a play, which then evolved into the libretto. “Where the dream ends and the libretto takes over, I no longer have much idea,” Mankiewicz says.

To read the entire release, click here (If necessary, click on "Search Issue Archives" for Vol.11/Issue 49)

1st Opera Preview at Electric Lodge

The very first taste of ONE DAY LESS was performed by Emily Hayes, soprano and David Javelosa, composer stepping in as the male lead, June 1. We got a 10minute shot in Venice CA at MAX10 - a performance lab - with a few props, a couple of masks, David's electronics and Peter Ludwig's improv cello. It went well, good feedback, more auditions coming and lots of work this summer, hoping for a full concert performance this Fall.