OPERA
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 9 - 12, 2019
7:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY

Britten: Owen Wingrave
Little Opera Theater of NY
Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center
29 Jay Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn

$20-$45
http://www.lotny.org/

Benjamin Britten's anti-war television opera Owen Wingrave is very far from Britten's best -- which must be why it's so rarely performed.  But you don't lightly pass up a chance to hear even a lesser work by the greatest operatic composer of the 20th Century.  What makes Britten's music -- and his operas in particular -- so great is that he always comes up with these unexpected touches that turn out to be the perfect things to do what Britten wants.  So while there's nothing particularly "strange" about his music (he was an avowed anti-avant-gardeist), it's always surprising -- and, in the operas, extremely effective dramatically without being the tiniest bit overblown.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT:  The Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center is even closer to Mediterranean-accented Celestine -- whose river views get more enticing as Spring rolls on -- than is St. Ann's Warehouse.