The Transformation of Jane Doe

Chicago Opera Theater

Chicago, IL

“Until Tuesday evening, Chicago Opera Theater never had staged a digital opera. But extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, so the company presented a virtual concert reading of composer Stacy Garrop and librettist Jerre Dye’s new opera “The Transformation of Jane Doe.” Rather than prerecord the performance, then edit it, COT opted to stream the production live from the Studebaker Theater, on South Michigan Avenue. This was a risk, considering that it involved multiple voices, a small instrumental ensemble, and rolling subtitles that tracked the opera’s progress.

It all proceeded quite smoothly… Yet there’s something about a live event that raises the intensity level of everyone’s work, and that fervor was unmistakable in this 90-minute presentation.

COT music director Lidiya Yankovskaya gathered a fine cast… Yankovskaya drew a wide range of color from a chamber ensemble and kept the music pressing ever forward, surely the best way to present an opera when the score alone must carry the story.”
–Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune

“Yankovskaya conducted the opera with skill, drawing out the drama, the mystery, and the power of the music. She ensured it was well paced, and she was always sensitive to the singers, never allowing her muscular chamber ensemble to overpower them.

“The Transformation of Jane Doe” is the first fruit of COT’s Vanguard Initiative, a program that mentors composers in opera writing. COT must surely be delighted with this first result, beautiful and forceful, and ready for its world premiere, which I hope happens soon.”
–M.L. Rantala, Hyde Park Herald