Song of the Earth
(Das Lied von der Erde)
Music by Gustav Mahler
Chamber arrangement by Arnold Schoenberg
Text from Hans Bethge’s Die chinesische Flöte
Conducted by David Angus | Directed by Anne Bogart
BLO’s Opera + Community Studios
Friday, March 20 | 7:30pm
Saturday, March 21 | 3:00pm
Sunday, March 22 | 3:00pm
Friday, March 27 | 7:30pm
Saturday, March 28 | 3:00pm
Sunday, March 29 | 3:00pm
An exploration of nature and the cycles of life at BLO’s Opera + Community Studios.
In Schoenberg’s arrangement of Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Earth, we encounter a meditation on mortality and rebirth, composed in the shadow of profound personal tragedy. Drawing from ancient poetry, Mahler weaves aching beauty with existential yearning fusing his career-long themes of nature and the cycles of life.
Brandon Jovanovich’s appearance is supported by Katie and Paul Buttenwieser.
Raehann Bryce-Davis’ appearance is supported by Winfield and Linda Perry.
Raehann Bryce-Davis | Mezzo-Soprano
In the 2025/26 season, mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis returns to Washington National Opera as Amneris in Aida, in a new production by Francesca Zambello, conducted by Kwamé Ryan. She makes her role debut as Carmen at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and her house debut at Boston Lyric Opera in Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde). She also appears in concert for a night of opera arias at St. Matthew’s Music Guild and for Verdi’s Requiem with the Oakland Symphony.
In the 2024/25 season, Ms. Bryce-Davis made her Houston Grand Opera debut as Azucena in Il trovatore and her house and role debut at the Grand Théâtre de Genève as Marfa in Khovanshchina, in a new Calixto Bieito production under Alejo Pérez. She returned to Dutch National Opera as Marina in Boris Godunov. Career highlights include debuts at The Metropolitan Opera as Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress and at Santa Fe Opera as Ježibaba in Rusalka. She has made return appearances with The Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Dutch National Opera, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, and La Monnaie de Munt. Ms. Bryce-Davis holds a Master of Music and Professional Studies Certificate from the Manhattan School of Music and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Texas at Arlington.
Brandon Jovanovich | Tenor
Brandon Jovanovich appears regularly at the world’s leading opera companies in French, Italian, German, and Slavic opera. He began the 2025/26 season in the title role of Parsifal in a new production at San Francisco Opera, and later returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago as Herod in Salome. He also joins Boston Lyric Opera for a new, staged version of Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde) alongside Raehann Bryce-Davis. Other recent performances include Ulysses, Penelope, Bayerische Staatsoper; Captain Ahab, Moby Dick, The Metropolitan Opera; a program of Wagner scenes with Washington National Opera; the titular role in Peter Grimes conducted by Simone Young at Teatro alla Scala; Gherman, The Queen of Spades, Bayerische Staatsoper opposite Asmik Grigorian and later Lise Davidsen; Dick Johnson, La Fanciulla del West, Staatsoper Berlin; Siegmund in a concert performance the first act of Die Walküre with Fort Worth Symphony conducted by Robert Spano and directed by James Robinson; Sergei in Graham Vick’s production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk conducted by Kerri-Lynn Wilson at The Metropolitan Opera; Luigi, Il tabarro, Gran Teatre del Liceu; Laca, Jenůfa, Opera of Palau de les Arts in Valencia; and Florestan, Fidelio, Wiener Staatsoper. He also appeared as a soloist in San Francisco Opera’s Centennial Gala.
Ellen Lauren | Actor
Ellen Lauren has been SITI Company’s co-artistic director with Anne Bogart for over 30 years. Collaborators include Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance, Ann Hamilton, Martha Graham Dance, New York City Opera Company, and Streb SLAM. Since 1989, Lauren has been an associate artist with the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT). As an actor (with SCOT), she has toured internationally as Agave, Dionysus; Jocasta, Oedipus; Juliet, Waiting for Romeo; Goneril, King Lear; and Clytemnestra, Electra. Since 1995, she has been a faculty member at The Juilliard School of Drama (John Erskine Faculty Prize). Most recently, she performed in SpaceBridge at ArtsEmerson. Lauren has served as guest faculty at National Academy Helsinki, National Academy San Juan, École Jacques Lecoq Paris, Moscow Art Theatre, Sfumato Theatre Bulgaria, Iceland National Academy, Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Casa Teatro de Bogotá, Beijing Academy, Theatre Activo Milan, UCLA, USD Old Globe Theatre, and Columbia University, among others. She was the first recipient of the TCG’s Fox Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement. She is published in American Theatre Magazine (“In Search of Stillness”). She is a regional theatre company member of Alley Theatre, StageWest, and the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. She is working on her book, The Invisible Body.
David Angus | Conductor
Now in his sixteenth year as Boston Lyric Opera’s music director, Anglo-Danish conductor David Angus recently served as music director and conductor for BLO’s Ride of the Valkyries! gala production. Other highlights of his BLO career include last season’s 80th anniversary production of Carousel directed by Anne Bogart, a new production of Mitridate, the critically acclaimed online productions of desert in and The Fall of the House of Usher, and a “backwards” La bohème. In addition to his work with BLO, he conducted a new Sweeney Todd at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, The Marriage of Figaro in Prague, and several recordings of new American works with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Prior to BLO, Angus was music director of The Glimmerglass Festival and Chief Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Flanders. He has led orchestras and choirs throughout Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, including the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and several Danish orchestras. He has conducted most of the major orchestras in Great Britain, including the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, most of the BBC orchestras, the London Mozart Players, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has also conducted the Toscanini Orchestra in Parma, the Porto Symphony Orchestra in Portugal, Wexford Festival Opera, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the LPO, and the Huddersfield Choral Society, as well as his former orchestra in Belgium. Angus was a boy chorister at King’s College under Sir David Willcocks and read music at Surrey University. He was a conducting fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he won several prizes for opera conducting.
Anne Bogart | Stage Director
Anne Bogart is Boston Lyric Opera’s Artistic Associate and most recently worked as stage director for the company’s production of Carousel. Previous notable productions with BLO include Bluebeard’s Castle | Four Songs and The Handmaid’s Tale. A professor at Columbia University, where she runs the graduate directing program, Bogart is the author of six books: A Director Prepares; The Viewpoints Book; And Then, You Act; Conversations with Anne; What’s the Story; and The Art of Resonance. Recent theater works with SITI Company include Falling and Loving; The Bacchae; the theater is a blank page; Persians; Steel Hammer; A Rite; Café Variations; Trojan Women; American Document; Antigone; Freshwater Under Construction; Who Do You Think You Are; Radio Macbeth; Hotel Cassiopeia; Death and the Ploughman; La Dispute; Score; bobrauschenbergamerica; Room; War of the Worlds; Cabin Pressure; Alice’s Adventures; Culture of Desire; Bob; Going, Going, Gone; Small Lives/Big Dreams; The Medium; Hay Fever; Private Lives; Miss Julie; and Orestes. Opera credits include Tristan and Isolde, Croatian National Theatre; Macbeth, Glimmerglass Festival; Norma, Washington National Opera; I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Carmen, Glimmerglass Festival, Seven Deadly Sins, New York City Opera; and three operas by Deborah Drattell: Nicholas and Alexandra, Los Angeles Opera; Marina: A Captive Spirit, American Opera Projects; and Lilith, New York City Opera.
Sara Brown | Scenic Designer
Sara Brown (she/her) is a set designer for theatre, opera, and dance. Designs for Boston Lyric opera include Carousel, Fellow Travelers, Champion, and Bluebeard | Four Songs. Other designs include Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and Pride and Prejudice at the Hartford Stage Company; The Lehman Trilogy and Common Ground: Revisited at the Huntington Theatre Company; The Day at Jacob’s Pillow; Hagoromo at The Brooklyn Academy of Music; Fellow Travelers and La rondine at Minnesota Opera; World of Wires at The Kitchen in NYC and Festival d’Automne in Paris; Prince of Providence at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI; Der Freischütz with Heartbeat Opera in NYC; and The Mother of Us All at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her virtual and online designs include set design for The Other Shore, a virtual reality dance performance developed with the dance and visual art company zoe/juniper and the production design for an online film version of the play Fat Ham produced by the Wilma in Philadelphia. She is an Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Music and Theater Arts.
Brian H Scott | Lighting Designer
Brian H Scott, a lighting designer based in New York City, recently designed Carousel, Bluebeard’s Castle | Four Songs, and The Handmaid’s Tale with Anne Bogart and Boston Lyric Opera; Tristan and Isolde with Anne Bogart and the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka; the theatre is a blank page with Ann Hamilton and SITI Company; Lost In the Stars for LA Chamber Orchestra; Falling and Loving with Elizabeth Streb and SITI Company; as well as a number of projects with Kronos Quartet. He created lighting for Tears become…Streams become, Bound to Hurt, and Neck of the Woods with artist Douglas Gordon; and habitus and The Event Of A Thread with Ann Hamilton. He designed lighting for Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet’s Landfall. As a SITI Company member, he designed lighting for Chess Match No.5 and Steel Hammer with Bang on a Can All Stars; American Document with Martha Graham Dancers; as well as bobrauschenbergamerica, The Bacchae, Trojan Women, and many others.
Haydee Zelideth | Costume Designer
Haydee Zelideth is a Chicana artist and costume designer. Clothes carry on public conversations with others and share stories about who we are, who we are not, and who we wish to be. They are a means of exploring how image can open up perceptions of race, class, socioeconomic status, and more – all of which is what most interests her. She grew up on both sides of the Mexican border and these experiences inform her point of view and how she approaches her work, giving depth, dimension, and color to the specificities of someone’s life.
Angie Jepson | Intimacy Director/Fight Choreographer
Angie Jepson is an intimacy director, fight choreographer, and professor based in the Boston area. She is thrilled to return to the BLO after serving as the fight choreographer and intimacy director for Macbeth, Mitridate, and Carousel, as well as the intimacy director on The Anonymous Lover, La Cenerentola, and Bluebeard’s Castle | Four Songs. Her fight and intimacy work has been seen onstage at theaters including the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Huntington Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Gloucester Stage, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Greater Boston Stage Company, Central Square Theater, and at several universities in the Boston area. She is currently on the faculty at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she teaches in the theatre and opera departments. She is a certified intimacy director with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, and a certified teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors. She holds an MFA in acting from Brandeis University.
MASARY | Projection and Pre-Show Design
MASARY is a transdisciplinary media arts collective based in Fort Point, Boston. Since 2015, they have explored the interplay of space and light through a practice integrating media, materials, perception and architecture. The group specializes in creating works for unconventional spaces, with an emphasis on site specificity. Their work has been shown extensively in New England and toured throughout North America. MASARY’s works are in the permanent collections of The City Of Boston, The State of MA, the Museum of Science, and Boston Children’s Hospital. Notable local works include “Waking the Monster” at Fenway Park (October 2015), and “SOLSTICE: Reflections on Winter Light” at the Mount Auburn Cemetery (annual since 2021).
Opera + Community Studios
15 Channel Center St | Boston, MA 02210
