Porchlight Music Theatre is proud to partner with Hershey Felder Presents - Live from Florence on its next live streaming production: Hershey Felder as famed composer Giacomo Puccini. The world premiere of Hershey Felder, PUCCINI will be live streamed on Sunday, March 14 at 7 p.m. CDT. The production also features opera stars Nathan Gunn, Gianna Corbisiero and Charles Castronov.
Tickets for PUCCINI are $55 per household and are available for purchase at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org. This production will benefit national US theatres and arts organizations including Porchlight Music Theatre. Tickets are now on sale at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org and include the live broadcast and a week of extended “on-demand” viewing access to the recording (available one-hour after the live broadcast ends). The broadcast will also be available for latecomers to purchase through the week of “on demand” access. Viewing access for all ends Sunday, March. 21 at 11:59 p.m. CDT.
Hershey Felder, PUCCINI is the story of a young musician in love with the world of opera, and in particular Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. When, through a series of unusual circumstances, the young musician meets the musical master himself, secrets are revealed that send the young musician soaring.
With special guests, baritone Nathan Gunn, soprano Gianna Corbisiero and tenor Charles Castronovo, this new Hershey Felder creation, will spur the imagination and move the musical soul.
Filmed and performed on location in Lucca Italy, in the very home where Giacomo Puccini was born, this new work featuring Hershey Felder and three world renowned Opera stars promises to be a very special event.
This Live from Florence production of Hershey Felder, PUCCINI is directed by Felder and Stefano de Carli, with associate direction by Trevor Hay. The production team includes: Hershey Felder (production design); DeCarli Live film company (film production and live editing); Erik Carstensen (live broadcast and sound design production); Annette Nixon (line producer); Meghan Maiya (director of development and research); Camilla Saccardi (Costumes and Hair).Company management is by Samantha F. Voxakis.
Ticket holders will receive their live stream link Friday, March 12, via the email used to register for the event. The performance may be streamed from a smart TV, computer, smartphone or tablet.
ABOUT GIACOMO PUCCINI
Giacomo Puccini was an Italian opera composer who has been called "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi." Puccini's early work was rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera and later was rooted in operatic realism.
ABOUT HERSHEY FELDER, (writer and performer)
Named to Time Magazine’s 2016 “Top 10 Plays and Musicals,” Hershey Felder has played more than 6,000 performances of his self-created solo productions at some of the world’s most prestigious theatres and has broken box office records consistently. American Theatre Magazine has said, “Hershey Felder is in a category all his own.” His shows include: George Gershwin Alone (Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre, West End’s Duchess Theatre); Monsieur Chopin; Beethoven; Maestro (Leonard Bernstein); Franz Liszt in Musik, Lincoln: An American Story, Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, Our Great Tchaikovsky, and A Paris Love Story. His compositions and recordings include Aliyah, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Fairytale, a musical; Les Anges de Paris, Suite for Violin and Piano; Song Settings; Saltimbanques for Piano and Orchestra; Etudes Thematiques for Piano and An American Story for Actor and Orchestra. Felder is the adaptor, director and designer for the internationally performed play-with-music The Pianist of Willesden Lane with Steinway artist Mona Golabek; producer and designer for the musical Louis and Keely: ‘Live’ at the Sahara, directed by Taylor Hackford; and writer and director for Flying Solo, featuring opera legend Nathan Gunn. Felder has operated a full-service production company since 2001, and in 2020 created a new brand LIVE FROM FLORENCE, that operates a “theatre at home broadcast company,” based in Florence, Italy. Early broadcasts included; Hershey Felder as IRVING BERLIN; Hershey Felder, BEETHOVEN; Hershey Felder as GEORGE GERSHWIN ALONE; Hershey Felder, BACKSTORY – The Story Behind the Creation of Berlin, Gershwin & Bernstein; Cooking French in Florence with Jeff Thickman & Hershey Felder.
The Hershey Felder Presents - Live from Florence 2020-21 Season of broadcasts include: Hershey Felder as Claude Debussy in A PARIS LOVE STORY; Hershey Felder, TCHAIKOVSKY; Hershey Felder as Sholem Aleichem in BEFORE FIDDLER; Hershey Felder, PUCCINI; and Hershey Felder as Sergei Rachmaninoff in ANNA & SERGEI. Felder has been a scholar-in-residence at Harvard University’s Department of Music and is married to Kim Campbell, the first female Prime Minister of Canada.
ABOUT NATHAN GUNN, (baritone)
Nathan Gunn has performed many of opera and musical theatre’s greatest roles on the world’s most prestigious stages, including the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Royal Opera in London, Paris Opéra, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Theater an der Wien Vienna, Teatro Real Madrid and Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie Brussels. He has been seen and heard on television, radio, video, and live simulcast performances, including the first ever Met in HD broadcast (The Magic Flute), in which he sang “Papageno,” one of his signature roles. GUNN has reinterpreted other classic roles such as “Billy Budd,” “Figaro” and “Don Giovanni” garnering awards including the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording (Billy Budd) and the Metropolitan Opera’s first ever Beverly Sills Award. Gunn has also been widely acclaimed for his ability to cross over into musical theatre, including performances with the New York Philharmonic in Carousel and Camelot, the televised celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s 80th birthday and collaborations with musical theatre stars including Mandy Patinkin, Kelli O’Hara, Audra McDonald and Kristin Chenoweth. Gunn’s one-man autobiographical show Flying Solo, produced and written by Hershey Felder, has been lauded as a “riveting autobiographical musical [that] is a stunner both with its touching, relatable, family-centric narrative and Gunn’s entertaining, charismatic performing style.” by Broadway World.
ABOUT GIANNA CORBISIERO, (soprano)
Declared “luminous” by Opera News, Gianna Corbisiero has performed the title roles in Tosca, La bohème, La traviata, Pagliacci, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, Carmen, Il barbiere di Siviglia and Falstaff at major opera houses throughout North America, Europe and Asia, under the baton of conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano and Charles Dutoit. She has performed with Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming and Marcelo Alvarez. For Bravo Canada she recorded episodes of television’s “Opera Easy,” performing excerpts from La bohème, La traviata, Tosca and Norma, and made her cinema debut singing “O mio babbino caro” in the film Elephant Song, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Corbisiero’s many honors and awards include a special prize from the Luciano Pavarotti International Vocal Competition, Top Prize in the Canadian Music Competition and First Prize from the Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation.
ABOUT CHARLES CASTRONOVO, (tenor)
Charles Castronovo has been acclaimed internationally as one of the finest lyric tenors of his generation. Castronovo has sung at most of the world’s leading opera houses, including San Francisco Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera. Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, Berlin State Opera, Paris Opera, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Theatre Royale de la Monnaie Brussels and many others. He starred in the title role of Daniel Catan’s Il Postino opposite Placido Domingo in the work’s world premiere in Los Angeles, as well as in Paris and Santiago. His repertoire spans from the great Mozart tenor roles in Don Giovanni, Cosí fan tutte and Die Zauberflöte, to Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore and Alfredo in La traviata. In recent seasons, Castronovo won wide acclaim for his performances as the title role in Faust, Romeo in Roméo et Juliette, the Duke in Rigoletto, Rodolfo in La bohème and Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress.
ABOUT PORCHLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE
Porchlight Music Theatre is the award-winning center for music theatre in Chicago. Through live performance, youth education and community outreach we impact thousands of lives each season, bringing the magic of musicals to our theatre home at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts in the city’s Gold Coast and to neighborhoods across the city. Porchlight has built a national reputation for boldly reimaging classic musicals, supporting new works and young performers, and showcasing Chicago’s most notable music theatre artists, all through the intimate and powerful theatrical lens of the “Chicago Style.”
Now in our 26th season, our quarter-century production history includes more than 70 mainstage works with 15 Chicago premieres and five world premieres. Porchlight’s commitment to the past, present and future of music theatre led the company to develop the Porchlight Revisits and New Faces Sing Broadway program series, both quickly becoming audience favorites.
Porchlight's education and outreach programs serve schools, youth of all ages and skill levels, and community organizations, and we love our ongoing collaboration with Chicago Youth Centers. We annually award dozens of full scholarships and hundreds of free tickets to ensure accessibility and real engagement with this uniquely American art form.
The company’s many honors include 178 Joseph Jefferson Award (Jeff) nominations and 45 Jeff awards, as well as 33 Black Theatre Alliance (BTA) nominations and 12 BTA awards. This past season, Porchlight Music Theatre “graduated” to the Large Theatre tier of the Joseph Jefferson Equity Awards, stiffening our competition for the Jeff committee’s recognition. Porchlight celebrated its eight nominations in both technical and artistic categories and awards for Jermaine Hill, music direction and Lorenzo Rush Jr, solo performance, most notably Best Musical/Revue and Best Ensemble for Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies.
Through the global pandemic, Porchlight has emerged as one of Chicago’s leaders in virtual programming, quickly launching a host of free offerings like Sondheim@90 Roundtables, Movie Musical Mondays, Porchlight by Request: Command Performances, and WPMT: Classic Musicals from the Golden Age of Radio. For the 2020-2021 season, Porchlight has announced a full Fall schedule of all-new ticketed virtual programs including Broadway by the Decade, New Faces Sing Broadway 1987, as well as collaborations with LA Theater Works, and much more coming in the new year.
Porchlight Music Theatre is proud to partner with Hershey Felder Presents - Live from Florence on its next live streaming production: Hershey Felder as famed composer Giacomo Puccini. The world premiere of PUCCINI will be live streamed on Sunday, March 14 at 7 p.m. CDT. The production also features opera stars Nathan Gunn, Gianna Corbisiero and Charles Castronov. Tickets for PUCCINI are $55 per household and are available for purchase at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org. This production will benefit national US theatres and arts organizations including Porchlight Music Theatre. Tickets are now on sale at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org and include the live broadcast and a week of extended “on-demand” viewing access to the recording (available one-hour after the live broadcast ends). The broadcast will also be available for latecomers to purchase through the week of “on demand” access. Viewing access for all ends Sunday, March. 21 at 11:59 p.m. CDT.
Porchlight Music Theatre is partially supported by generous contributions from Actors’ Equity Foundation; Allstate; Bayless Family Foundation; Michael Best & Friedrich LLP; Chapman | Spingola, Attorneys at Law; Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation; Gen Ops Plus; EFP Optical; Elegant Event Lighting; James P. and Brenda S. Grusecki Family Foundation; Hearty Boys; A.L. and Jennie L. Luria Foundation; The MacArthur Fund for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at Prince; the Pritzker Traubert Foundation; Ryan and Spaeth, Inc.; Daniel and Genevieve Ratner Foundation; The Saints and Dr. Scholl Foundation.
The season program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, a state agency, and by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.
Porchlight Music Theatre wishes to thank members of the Matching Gift Corporate Program including abbvie; Allstate; Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; Peoples Gas; Pepsico; Polk Bros Foundation and The Saints.