. . . "New offerings run the gamut from the creatively homemade - to the crisply professional, like "Patience & Sarah" by Paula Kimper, a production by American Opera Projects that had a big success at the Lincoln Center Festival in 1998" --Anne Midgette, The New York Times

In celebration of Gay Pride Month, Musicopia presents two concert performances of Paula M. Kimper and Wende Persons' moving opera "Patience and Sarah."  Based on Isabel Miller's 1969 novel, which in  turn was inspired by the true story of two 19th-century women, "Patience and Sarah" tells the powerful story of two young women who meet, fall in love, and resolve to devote their lives to each other.  Like star-crossed lovers everywhere, Patience and Sarah overcome opposition from their families and their culture, uniting in the end to begin a new life together.

After its 1998 premiere at the Lincoln Center Festival, "Patience and Sarah" was hailed by the New York Times as "a soaring  affirmation...of the transcendent beauty of life and love."  The New  York Post praised Kimper's "rapturous and soaring arias," and Opera  News observed that "the opera bubbles with glorious vocal writing."  For the reviewer in the New York Blade News, "the emotions the two lead characters express are so genuine that it's difficult to imagine anyone not being touched by this tender tale."

"Patience and Sarah" will be presented in concert by a superb cast of Bay Area singers at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland on Friday, June 15 and Saturday, June 16.  For details about the location, or to order tickets, see information below.

Directed by Kim Rankin, with Andrea Fullington, Tara Generalovich, Victoria Jensen, Robert Mittman, Andrew Morgan,, Kate Rowland and Jonathan Spencer.

This episode features the return of guest host, comedian Kate Clinton, who was In the Life's very first host in June 1992. ITL focuses on the significance of preserving our community's heritage and those who are making cultural contributions in the gay and lesbian community. Segments include Making Herstory, a visit to the Lesbian Herstory Archives; Comic Strip Heroes, focuses on the growth of gay cartooning with Howard Cruse and Jennifer Camper; Same Sex Shakespeare, explores two theatrical productions - an all-male R & J, the other an all-female Hamlet; Dancing For Life, profile of dancer/choreographers, Chris D.C. Ramos and David Roussève, whose works have been influenced by the AIDS epidemic; Maverick Musician, the life of transgendered jazz bandleader Billy Tipton; and Patience and Sarah, a true lesbian love story turned American opera.

• Patience and Sarah, Contemporary Opera, Paula Kimper (Composer)
• The House that Marian Built: The MacDowell Colony of Peterborough, New Hampshire, Robin Rausch (Library of Congress)
• Women Without Virtue, Titilayo Ngwenya (Jazz Vocalist)

• Faciltated by Everatte McCorvey, with panelists George Shirley, Rhoda Levine, Ben Matthews, and Paula Kimper.

Patience & Sarah
WORLD PREMIERE

"A warm welcome to Patience & Sarah...Lincoln Center Festival's Patience & Sarah is a rare--and moving--opera about women in love." --New York Magazine

"At the end of the third act, there was a soaring affirmation in this music of the transcendent beauty of life and love, regardless of sexuality or gender. Members of the audience--men and women--jumped to their feet and screamed. That's not impressive merely because a woman composed it; that's just good opera." --The New York Times

"If we can root for Tristan and Isolde and Romeo and Juliet, then why not Patience and Sarah?" --Newsday

"Kimper's music recalls Gian Carlo Menotti in its conservatism and Richard Strauss in its soaring vocal lines." --USA Today

"Reminiscent of Copland and Barber...the lyrical score bristles with impressionistic touches as well as unabashedly romantic flourishes." --Opera News

"What composer Paula M. Kimper and librettist Wende Persons have created is a charming folk opera that companies around the country would be wise to add to their repertoire. Although the subject matter--a love affair between two women in the early 1800s--might initially put off some traditional opera-goers, the emotions the two lead characters express are so genuine that it's difficult to imagine anyone not being touched by this tender tale." --New York Blade News

"The frankness and joy that the two leading ladies brought to the [final] duet lent it the elemental heart-grabbing power of a Broadway ballad." --LGNY

"Wende Persons' libretto is an affectionate portrait of the conflicted, yearning Patience and the direct, passionate Sarah. Their mutual declaration of love is a masterpiece of economy." --The Wall Street Journal

"The fact that we never lose interest in them is a tribute to librettist Persons and her ability to create two real people who, putting the same-sex issue aside for a moment, are dealing with problems that most everyone must face at one time or another." --New York Magazine

"And the music flows. Kimper, unashamedly conservative, has written rapturous and soaring arias, a ballad or two, and several airborne duets, all beautifully 'vocal,' all supported by a lucid, clean-lined chamber orchestra." --New York Post

"Kimper's music is modeled, like much of [Virgil] Thomson's, on hymns and folkish songs, but she bring her own touch, particularly when old-fashioned curlicues are called for in a trumpet solo or an elegant vocal line." --The Village Voice

"Patience and Sarah is good theater and good music. Kimper's score draws on the best of operatic tradition, which means she writes well for the voice and sets the words according to their natural flow. And Persons has provided her with excellent words to set." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"It proved not only musically engaging but also reached beyond its immediate focus to touch on the broad issues of artistic fulfillment and personal freedom. It is an opera that probes serious subjects--and, most important, it is an opera that sings." --New York Post

"The premiere of Patience and Sarah is very good news indeed. As heard at the Lincoln Center Festival, this opera is a success in just about every way, with a movingly simple love story and tuneful and accessible music...Patience and Sarah has already found an audience among gay women who ordinarily do not attend the opera, but regular operagoers, gay and straight, will discover this gem soon enough." --LGNY

"Ms. Persons' logically shaped libretto which Ms. Kimper has set to an accessible, attractively lyrical score suggests the early 19th century setting by drawing occasionally on hymn tunes and a gloss of the parlor song style. Generally, though, her language is full of almost impressionistic harmonic touches; indeed, Sarah has a gorgeous, Ravelian aria at the start of the second act." -- The New York Times