Friday, November 8 at 7:30 PM and Saturday, November 9 at 2:00 PM

From the New School:

Mannes Opera presents an Opera in Concert double bill featuring the works of Mannes faculty members and prolific composers David T. Little and Kamala Sankaram, directed by New School Drama alum Alison Pogolrec, offering an operatic lens into the strange world of human experience.

Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera (2010/2018), composed by David T. Little on a libretto by Royce Vavrek, receives its New York premiere with Mannes Opera. Vinkensport is a bitter-sweet comedy in one act, which explores obsession, desire, and the need to prevail, through the frame of an obscure Flemish folk sport, “finch-sitting.” Trained finches race to sing the most “susk-e-wiets” over the course of an hour. As they compete, the joys, sorrows, delusions and all-too-stark realities of their trainers are revealed. 

The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace (2019), composed by Kamala Sankaram with a libretto by Rob Handel, follows Ada, Countess of Lovelace and Lord Byron’s daughter, who has been asked to help Charles Babbage with his work on the Difference Engine. She struggles between her work in mathematics and upholding her reputation as a wife, mother, and public figure. The revolutionary concepts that she put forth in her notes about the potential ability of the Engine to carry out an algorithm led Ada to be considered the world’s first computer programmer.