No party dedicated to contemporary opera would be complete without a grand gesture. On Friday night, interior designer and Charlap Hyman & Herrero co-founder Adam Charlap Hyman, alongside chef and hospitality impresario Arley Marks, hosted an inspiring party to celebrate the American Modern Opera Company’s (AMOC*) upcoming festival at Lincoln Center.
And there is genuinely a lot to celebrate. AMOC* began only seven years ago in a Vermont barn, where a group of young singers, dancers, musicians, composers, and artists decided to formalize a structure around themselves, enabling them to support each other’s most ambitious ideas. Now, they are taking over the Lincoln Center Campus with 12 original pieces, 10 of which are having their New York premieres. It is nearly unprecedented to have such an expansive offering from one group of people.
The evening unfolded at 102 Franklin, a new space co-founded by Marks and artist Sarah Meyohas. Much of the night’s production came from the convergence of Marks’s artistic and culinary practices, including the dramatic tablescape, the white negronis served in glassware of his own design, and the warm oysters he shucked and served on trays padded with fresh seaweed.
Midway through the evening, longtime AMOC* board member and collaborator Charlap Hyman introduced a series of intimate performances. “This consortium of the most brilliantly talented musicians, dancers, and artists have produced original work, and revived amazing pieces,” Charlap Hyman told the crowd. “These creative projects have deeply inspired me and moved so many people. It’s an absolutely extraordinary gift that they will be putting on a pay what you wish festival this summer at Lincoln Center.”
Violinist Keir GoGwilt then performed excerpts from “Edinburgh Rollick,” a teaser of a performance happening in July as part of the festival. Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and cellist Coleman Itzkoff then stunned the crowd with George Frideric Handel’s “Tacerò, purchè Fedele” and Henry Purcell’s ethereal “Dido’s Lament”.
Those in attendance included photographer Hunter Abrams, writers Adam Eli and Coco Mellors, curator Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, cabaret legend Justin Vivian Bond, creative directors Alyse Archer-Coité and Xavier Donnelly, artists Chloe Wise and Katie Stout, set designer Noemi Bonazzi, Pin-Up‘s Felix Burrichter, documentarian Michael Bullock, entrepreneur James Hirschfeld, comedians Dan Rosen and Brian Park, and Savvy’s Rafael Prieto.
Energized by the spirit of community and artistry present in the room, guests left eager for the beauty that AMOC* surely has in store for New Yorkers this summer at Lincoln Center.
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