Arts & Entertainment
American visionary
Opera’s new artistic director focuses on homegrown repertoire
Francesca Zambello, Washington National Opera’s new artistic director, is seen here in a photo from 2007 when she directed the company’s Americanized version of Wagner’s ‘Die Walküre. (Photo courtesy Washington National Opera)
Opera in the Outfield
Saturday
Gates open at 5 p.m., opera begins at 7 p.m.
Nationals Park
1500 South Capitol St., SE
Free
kennedy-center.org/wno
Washington opera audiences have always known that former artistic director Placido Domingo’s tenure with the company provided an incredible boost to the capital’s cultural scene. The tenor’s long performance career speaks for itself, never mind his respectable dabbling in conducting and even stabs at baritone roles at an advanced age; add to that his steerage of Washington National Opera onto an increasingly international platform and it was easy to wonder who could possibly fill the role after his departure.
Longtime opera and theater director Francesca Zambello, a lesbian, assumed the artistic directorship on the first of this year and she comes with a strong pedigree of her own. From the Metropolitan Opera to Milan’s famed La Scala and Russia’s Bolshoi, Zambello has made a serious stamp in the opera world over decades of work that has garnered her high accolades, including the French government’s Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and the Russian Federation’s medal for service to culture.
Now, traveling back and forth between the New York City home she shares with her wife and their 4-year-old son, and her new residence in Georgetown, she says she’s ready to take Washington National Opera in a direction befitting its name and status in the American cultural landscape.
“We’re taking ‘national’ seriously,” Zambello says. “Focusing more on American artists, more new works and contemporary operas. That’s a big change for the company.”
The past few years have seen simultaneously exciting and predictable seasons at Washington National Opera. Big name artists — Renee Fleming, Patricia Racette, the up-and-coming Vittorio Grigolo — were often saddled with productions that hewed closely to creaky, early 20th-century performance idioms.
“We’re responding to the time and the place,” Zambello says of the company now. “Why shouldn’t we be unique and speak to D.C.? We should relate to who we are and where we are.”
Although Zambello’s directing history with Washington National Opera encompasses repertoire classics like Wagner’s famed Ring operas, her first offering as artistic director is this spring’s “Show Boat,” the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein operatic musical now playing the Kennedy Center and being simulcast live at Nationals stadium Saturday.
“There are a lot of great issues to explore with ‘Show Boat’ — racism, misogyny, civil rights,” she says, explaining that bringing this production to the D.C. audience is a way to honor the locale, something she plans to continue during her first full season, which begins next September with “Tristan und Isolde.”
YET, IT’S THE FOCUS on newer works and the development of an American repertoire that stands out in Zambello’s vision for the company. Old-school audience members can look forward to the season opener as well as Zambello’s own version of Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” and a “L’Elisir D’Amore” later in the year. But those curious about opera’s evolution with an American voice will be frothing at the mouth over the Washington-premiere of Jake Heggie’s well-acclaimed “Moby Dick.”
“I’ve decided that every new work that we do must relate to something that is American — story, subject matter, composer, librettist. I think [“Moby Dick”] is a good way to lead us to the more serious issues. In the future, we’re going to see operas that touch on themes like capital punishment, the civil war, terrorism, themes in our lives that we can relate to.”
As part of Washington National Opera’s new direction, next year will also be a sea change for the boys’ club feeling that historically pervades the opera world. While women are objects of adulation when they’re on stage swooning with consumption or jumping to their deaths, it’s rare to see women leading the players and companies. The 2013-14 season in Washington features women conductors, plus the premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s family opera “The Lion, the Unicorn and Me.”
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Zambello says, adding that she did suffer at the hands of misogynist colleagues. “People don’t want to hire you. They say you’re this or you’re that — if a guy did that, they wouldn’t say that. There’s still not a lot of women running any big company; this would be about the biggest right now.”
“She has a very clear view of what she wants,” says Michael Todd Simpson, who plays the male lead Gaylord Ravenal in “Show Boat.” He first started working with Zambello as a last-minute replacement for the baritone role Escamillo in her production of “Carmen” in Sydney, Australia — a role he played again under her watchful eye three more times from China to upstate New York.
He describes what the initial audition process was like. “Francesca said, ‘Well, the first thing you need to do is lose some weight,’” he says, laughing. “She is bold like that. She has a clear vision for every aspect of the show. She’s one of those directors that knows what works and what doesn’t.”
Simpson says that for “Show Boat” Zambello auditioned everyone, right down to the chorus roles to make sure they had what it takes to bring her vision to life.
“When you have that level of detail across the board, when you walk on stage, you feel like you’re actually in the scene,” he says.
Zambello promises that Washington audiences, both hardcore opera aficionados and newbies to the art, can expect to see a range of offerings, yet all will spotlight a “contemporary approach.” Her “Show Boat,” with a large cast, vivid staging and strong dance numbers, is a primary example of what she means and perhaps envisions for the effect opera can have on audiences.
“[Show Boat] spoke to people about political and social issues,” she says of the work’s groundbreaking history in American theater. “It provided entertainment, it was something for everyone. Being here in Washington gives us a raison d’etre to really respond to the best of America.”
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are expected to compete in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics that open on Friday.
Outsports.com notes eight Americans — including speedskater Conor McDermott-Mostowy and figure skater Amber Glenn — are among the 44 openly LGBTQ athletes who will compete in the games. The LGBTQ sports website also reports Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, is the first openly transgender athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics.
“I’ve always been physically capable. That was never a question,” Glenn told Outsports.com. “It was always a mental and competence problem. It was internal battles for so long: when to lean into my strengths and when to work on my weaknesses, when to finally let myself portray the way I am off the ice on the ice. That really started when I came out publicly.”
McDermott-Mostowy is among the six athletes who have benefitted from the Out Athlete Fund, a group that has paid for their Olympics-related training and travel. The other beneficiaries are freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, speed skater Brittany Bowe, snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick, alpine skier Breezy Johnson, and Paralympic Nordic skier Jake Adicoff.
Out Athlete Fund and Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood on Friday will host a free watch party for the opening ceremony.
“When athletes feel seen and accepted, they’re free to focus on their performance, not on hiding who they are,” Haley Caruso, vice president of the Out Athlete Fund’s board of directors, told the Los Angeles Blade.
Four Italian LGBTQ advocacy groups — Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano — have organized the games’ Pride House that will be located at the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan.
Pride House on its website notes it will “host a diverse calendar of events and activities curated by associations, activists, and cultural organizations that share the values of Pride” during the games. These include an opening ceremony party at which Checcoro, Milan’s first LGBTQ chorus, will perform.
ILGA World, which is partnering with Pride House, is the co-sponsor of a Feb. 21 event that will focus on LGBTQ-inclusion in sports. Valentina Petrillo, a trans Paralympian, is among those will participate in a discussion that Simone Alliva, a journalist who writes for the Italian newspaper Domani, will moderate.
“The event explores inclusivity in sport — including amateur levels — with a focus on transgender people, highlighting the role of civil society, lived experiences, and the voices of athletes,” says Milano Pride on its website.
The games will take place against the backdrop of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s decision to ban trans women from competing in women’s sporting events.
President Donald Trump last February issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S. A group of Republican lawmakers in response to the directive demanded the International Olympics Committee ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.
The IOC in 2021 adopted its “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations” that includes the following provisions:
• 3.1 Eligibility criteria should be established and implemented fairly and in a manner that does not systematically exclude athletes from competition based upon their gender identity, physical appearance and/or sex variations.
• 3.2 Provided they meet eligibility criteria that are consistent with principle 4 (“Fairness”, athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity.
• 3.3 Criteria to determine disproportionate competitive advantage may, at times, require testing of an athlete’s performance and physical capacity. However, no athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.
The 2034 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City. The 2028 Summer Olympics will occur in Los Angeles.
Theater
Out dancer on Alvin Ailey’s stint at Warner Theatre
10-day production marks kickoff of national tour
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Through Feb. 8
Warner Theatre
513 12th St., N.W.
Tickets start at $75
ailey.org
The legendary Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is coming to Washington’s Warner Theatre, and one of its principal veterans couldn’t be more pleased. Out dancer Renaldo Maurice is eager to be a part of the company’s 10-day stint, the kickoff of a national tour that extends through early May.
“I love the respectful D.C. crowd and they love us,” says Maurice, a member of esteemed modern dance company for 15 years. The traveling tour is made of two programs and different casting with Ailey’s masterwork “Revelations” in both programs.
Recently, we caught up with Maurice via phone. He called from one of the quiet rooms in his New York City gym where he’s getting his body ready for the long Ailey tour.
Based in North Newark, N.J., where he recently bought a house, Maurice looks forward to being on the road: “I enjoy the rigorous performance schedule, classes, shows, gym, and travel. It’s all part of carving out a lane for myself and my future and what that looks like.”
Raised by a single mother of three in Gary, Ind., Maurice, 33, first saw Alvin Ailey as a young kid in the Auditorium Theatre in downtown Chicago, the same venue where he’s performed with the company as a professional dancer.
He credits his mother with his success: “She’s a real dance mom. I would not be the man or artist I am today if it weren’t for the grooming and discipline of my mom. Support and encouragement. It’s impacted my artistry and my adulthood.”
Maurice is also part of the New York Ballroom scene, an African-American and Latin underground LGBTQ+ subculture where ball attendees “walk” in a variety of categories (like “realness,” “fashion,” and “sex siren”) for big prizes. He’s known as the Legendary Overall Father of the Haus of Alpha Omega.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Like many gay men of his era, Ailey lived a largely closeted public life before his death from AIDS-related complications in 1989.
RENALDO MAURICE Not unusual for a Black gay man born during the Depression in Rogers, Texas, who’s striving to break out in the industry to be a creative. You want to be respected and heard. Black man, and Black man who dances, and you may be same-sex gender loving too. It was a lot, especially at that time.
BLADE: Ailey has been described as intellectual, humble, and graceful. He possessed strength. He knew who he was and what stories he wanted to tell.
MAURICE: Definitely, he wanted to concentrate on sharing and telling stories. What kept him going was his art. Ailey wanted dancers to live their lives and express that experience on stage. That way people in the audience could connect with them. It’s incredibly powerful that you can touch people by moving your body.
That’s partly what’s so special about “Revelations,” his longest running ballet and a fan favorite that’s part of the upcoming tour. Choreographed by Alvin Ailey in 1960, it’s a modern dance work that honors African-American cultural heritage through themes of grief, joy, and faith.
BLADE: Is “Revelation” a meaningful piece for you?
MAURICE: It’s my favorite piece. I saw it as a kid and now perform it as a professional dance artist. I’ve grown into the role since I was 20 years old.
BLADE: How can a dancer in a prestigious company also be a ballroom house father?
MAURICE: I’ve made it work. I learned how to navigate and separate. I’m a principal dancer with Ailey. And I take that seriously. But I’m also a house father and I take that seriously as well.
I’m about positivity, unity, and hard work. In ballroom you compete and if you’re not good, you can get chopped. You got to work on your craft and come back harder. It’s the same with dance.
BLADE: Any message for queer audiences?
MAURICE: I know my queer brothers and sisters love to leave with something good. If you come to any Ailey performance you’ll be touched, your spirit will be uplifted. There’s laughter, thoughtful and tender moments. And it’s all delivered by artists who are passionate about what they do.
BLADE: Alvin Ailey has been a huge part of your life. Thoughts on that?
MAURICE: I’m a believer in it takes a village. Hard work and discipline. I take it seriously and I love what I do. Ailey has provided me with a lot: world travel, a livelihood, and working with talented people here and internationally. Alvin Ailey has been a huge part of my life from boyhood to now. It’s been great.
Catfish Comedy will host “2026 Queer Kickoff Show” on Thursday, Feb. 5 at A League of Her Own (2319 18th Street, N.W.). This show features D.C.’s funniest LGBTQ and femme comedians. The lineup features performers who regularly take the stage at top clubs like DC Improv and Comedy Loft, with comics who tour nationally.
Tickets are $17.85 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
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