Red Hook Containerport to Host Opera Performances on Waterfront
Opera Singers, Stevedores To Share ‘Stage' Aboard Tanker

published online 07-03-2007

RED HOOK — Vertical Player Repertory Opera and PortSide NewYork will join forces this fall to bring Il Tabarro—Giacomo Puccini's steamy opera about adultery and murder on a barge in Paris — to a tanker on the Brooklyn waterfront. Their host will be American Stevedoring Inc., operator of the Red Hook container port.

Brooklyn-based cultural arts group Vertical Player Repertory (VPR) offers fully staged opera in alternative settings, using unconventional staging to attract sold-out crowds to performances such as Il Tabarro. PortSide NewYork, a waterfront-oriented non-profit in Red Hook, has teamed up with VPR by offering the Mary A. Whalen for their performances — a retired oil tanker docked at American Stevedoring's containerport.

Fittingly for the waterfront backdrop and actual surrounding working port, Il Tabarro is a searing portrait of the troubled marriage of a ship's captain and his restless wife. The psychologically acute libretto dramatizes the lives of the rough, hardworking people of the waterfront.

Actual stevedores and professional opera singers will share the stage aboard the oil tanker, surrounded by views of gantry cranes, containers, the lumber port, passing vessel traffic and a spectacular view of Governor's Island and the lower Manhattan skyline. The audience will watch from adjacent Pier 9.

Carolina Salguero, director of PortSide NewYork said, “Hosting Il Tabarro fulfills one of our core missions—bringing together the marine industry and its inland neighbors. We seek creative ways to make the marine industry an attraction, so we were thrilled when VPR called, and even more thrilled that their plan to update this presentation would include 21st century maritime relevance.”

Based aboard the Mary A. Whalen, PortSide NewYork runs a diverse array of programs related to the waterfront. PortSide's plans include the conversion of the Whalen's cargo tanks to exhibition and function space, a larger maritime museum ashore and NYC's first maritime heritage trail.

“American Stevedoring is proud to help the Vertical Player Repertory Opera and PortSide NewYork bring these performances to the Brooklyn Waterfront,” said Evan Thies, spokesperson for American Stevedoring, Inc. “Ensuring public use of the waterfront and using it as a way to bring community together are priorities of ASI. The use of our dock and this tanker to create a cultural space are an excellent example of how industry and community can co-exist in Brooklyn — and how we can use the waterfront to its full potential.”