“IBSEN” a new opera

Soaring with a haunting score

Out of a dream comes an opera like no other
“There is no better way to promote global peace than the theme of women's
empowerment and telling the world we live in a universal one.” Conductor,
Dr. Ashley William Joseph of the National Indian Symphony Orchestra

WORLD PREMIERE
Indian National Symphony Orchestra
First Opera in Bangalore, India in 30 years November 7th, 2020
ASIAN TOUR
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia November 14th, 2020
Manila, Philippines November 21st, 2020
Bangkok, Thailand November 28th, 2020
2 DAY FORUM
November 2nd & 3rd, 2020, Bangalore
“Women’s and Girl’s Empowerment” “Ibsen in India”
Special Guests International Ibsen experts
Workshops on Women’s Empowerment
Art Exhibition of paintings inspired by Ibsen's plays

THE CREATIVE TEAM

Hartmut von Lieres Composer
Ronald Rand Librettist, Co-Executive Producer
Dr. Ashley William Joseph
Conductor, General Manager, Co-Executive Producer
Indian National Symphony Orchestra
Nancy Rhodes Director

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 “IBSEN” a new opera
HONORARY COMMITTEE (as of October, 2019)

F. Murray Abraham Actor Laurence Luckinbill Actor

Karen Allen Actress Sylvia McNair Opera Singer
Selma Alisaphic Actress Emily Mann Director
Nicole Ansari Actress Zana Marjanovic Actress
Alec Baldwin Actor Henry Muttoo Set Designer
Anne Bogart Director Marilyn Neilson Actress
Martha Carpenter Portrait Artist Carolyn Palmer Sculptor
Tina Chen Actress Linda-Bond Perry Opera Singer
Brian Cox Actor Christopher Plummer Actor
Graciela Daniele Choreographer Michael Pressman Director
Joyce Didonato Opera Singer Harold Prince Director (1923-2019)
Eve Ensler Playwright Ronald Rand Actor
Jack Garfein Director Laila Robins Actress
Lee Grant Actress/Director Patricia Rozario Opera Singer
John Guare Playwright Rita Salzman Producer
Sheldon Harnick Lyricist Andrei Serban Director
Stephen Henderson Actor Wendy Smith Author
Jennifer Horne Poet Dolly Thakore Actress
Angelica Huston Actress Tommy Tune Choreographer
Eleni Triada Ioannidou Opera Singer Jean-Claude Van Itallie Playwright
Sabra Jones Director Robert Wilson Director
Alonzo King Choreographer Prof. Xiaomei Chen Univ. of Calif.
Stephen Lang Actor Prof. Ananda Lal Jadavpar University
Carol Lawrence Actress
Tony Lo Bianco Actor
Prof. Olivia Noble Gunn President Ibsen Society of America
Prof. Dean Krouk Vice-President Ibsen Society of America

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 A NOTE FROM THE LIBRETTIST

• The words of this opera sprang from my dreams as

Ibsen’s voice dictated them clearly, urging me to listen.
• Wrestling with his conscience, he wonders: “Have I done
enough for people to see who they really are, how we
treat each other? Did I create the vision I had set out to
accomplish when I began writing? Could I have done
more?” Many great artists at their end of their life face
these same questions.
• In IBSEN, we see the forces at work inside a great artist,
and we meet several women who played an important
role in his life. Powerful women, like his wife who kept
forcing him to write. If wasn’t for her, many of his plays
may not have been written.
• Part of Ibsen’s quest was to give women a canvas to
acknowledge their own power, to take their own destiny
into their hands, in a time when women had very limited
opportunities.
• “IBSEN” a new opera reminds us that these issues today
are still very much a part of our daily lives. When we hold
a mirror up to ourselves, we can see there is more we
can do to make life better for others.

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 A PERSONAL INVITATION

• By supporting this new opera’s world premiere and

performances across four Asian nations, at the same
time, you’ll be supporting world peace, women’s
empowerment, and create a life-changing cultural
event for audiences who have never experienced an
opera.
• Performances, press and social media, potential reach
will be a combined audience of 20 million people.
• Gender equality is an investment in our future and the
only way forward. IBSEN will give an important canvas
for women to acknowledge their own power, young
girls to know they’re safe to grab hold of their destiny.
• “There is no better way to promote global peace than
the theme of women's empowerment and telling the
world we live in a universal one.” Conductor, Dr.
Ashley William Joseph of the National Indian
Symphony Orchestra.
• Ibsen’s ideas are even more relevant today providing
a bridge towards a moral compass in the universe.

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 Hartmut von Lieres
Composer

has composed music for films and theater. Currently, Composer

of the Auroville Theatre Group, India, Mr. von Lieres created music
compositions for Shakespeare’s The Tempest, King Lear, Romeo
and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Sandcastle. Composer
of the symphony, Schloss Hueffe, performed by Sinfonie Orchester
Lübbecke, conducted by Herrman Grube, he also composed HS, a
composition for Dance Theatre Osiris in Helsinki, Finland about the
painter, Helene Schjerfbeck. Mr. von Lieres has given a piano
concert tour across Ecuador, and currently divides his time creating
music and performing concerts in Germany and in Auroville,
India.

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 Ronald Rand
Librettist, Co-Executive Producer

Best-selling author of “CREATE!” and “Acting Teachers of

America,” Mr. Rand’s plays have been performed around the world,
across India and America. In his 20th year, he tours the globe as a
Goodwill Cultural Ambassador bringing to life Harold Clurman, the
“elder statesman of the American Theater” in his solo play, LET IT
BE ART! and has received standing ovations in 25 countries
and 20 U.S. states, three critically acclaimed Off-Broadway
productions, at the 8th World Theatre Olympics, five tours across
India, twice in Bangalore, and at over 75 universities and colleges.
An award-winning International Director, his current production of
LUV in Bosnian, plays to sold-out audiences in its fifth year at
Sarajevo’s Chamber Theatre 55. Mr. Rand is the screenwriter of an
upcoming film, Group Paradise about The Group Theatre. An actor,
Mr. Rand has appeared in over four hundred plays, films, and TV
shows. In New Delhi, he performed in Hindi in Great Mind at Work
by Sachin Gupta. As a U.S. State Department Fulbright Specialist,
he taught across Bosnia & Herzegovina, Malaysia and Uruguay. A
published poet and painter, he is the Founder and Publisher of “The
Soul of the American Actor” Newspaper, now in its twenty-first year.

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 Dr. Ashley William Joseph
Conductor, General Manager, Co-Executive Producer

Founder & Director of the Indian National Symphony Orchestra,

100-year-old Bangalore Musical Association. Founder, Director,
and Chairman of the William Joseph Music Foundation, and the
William Joseph International Academy for Performing
Art. The William Joseph Music Foundation, established in 2005, a
registered non-government organization focusing on empowering
through the Arts the economically and socially weak, selected by the
International Olympic Committee to record the theme song for the
2008 Beijing Olympics with a 300-piece children’s choir. Their
outreach programs reach into slums and orphanages across
Bangalore. Dr. Williams has performed with the Philippine
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philippine Madrigal Singers and the
Asian Chorale, receiving a Doctorate in Music from the Trinity Open
University. Dr. Williams was the only Indian to perform with the
Asian Chorale across Sweden, performing for the King and Queen.
Honored by The YMCA and Singapore’s International Y's Men's
Club, in aid of Thailand flood victims, as Guest Conductor with the
Thailand Sanctuary Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Williams received the
Messenger of Peace Award (International Cultural Development &
Exchange group, ICYE Germany). An inspiring teacher, Indian
opera star, Deepika Padukone, and 2011 Miss Earth Nicole
Faria were both trained by Dr. Williams. Dr. Williams has directed
and produced many musicals in India, including Man of La
Mancha, Oliver Twist, Sound of Music, Jungle Book, Annie, Fiddler
on the Roof, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and My Fair Lady.
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 Nancy Rhodes
Stage Director

Artistic Director of Encompass New Opera Theatre in New York

City. Dedicated to the creation, development and production of
adventurous new music theatre and contemporary opera, and
revivals of important musical works by American and international
composers. Founded in 1975, Nancy Rhodes & Encompass New
Opera Theatre has produced sixty full-scale productions and over a
hundred and fifty staged readings of new works. Ms. Rhodes is a
champion of new American opera, staging the world premieres of
Kirke Mechem’s Tartuffe at the San Francisco Opera, Virgil
Thomson’s Lord Byron at the Alice Tully Hall, and new operas for the
Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, Pittsburgh Opera Theatre.
A renowned international Director, Ms. Rhodes’ productions
include Death in Venice in Stockholm, Carmen in Oslo, Happy End in
Finland, Kiss Me Kate in Ankara, West Side Story in Istanbul, and
Eccentrics, Outcasts and Visionaries: A Century of American Opera
for the Holland Festival. The numerous operas Ms. Rhodes has
staged include Blitzstein’s Regina, Britten’s Phaedra, Antheil’s
Transatlantic, and Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All. Ms. Rhodes
co-conceived and directed Only Heaven with composer Ricky Ian
Gordon, directed Grigori Frid’s opera, The Diary of Anne Frank at the
Cleveland Opera. She was the Director of the first American musical
performed at Albania’s National Opera House. Ms. Rhodes is the
commissioned librettist of a new opera, The Theory of Everything.

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 The Effect of Ibsen on India in the 21ST Century
from “The Asian Age” Newspaper

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, one of the modern

dramatists to have influenced Indian theatre, made inroads with the
amazing Ibsen Delhi Festival during 2008 to 2012, presented jointly
by the Royal Norwegian Embassy and the Dramatic Art and Design
Academy, as five premier colleges staged interpretations of Ibsen`s
masterpieces.
Henrik Ibsen may have written plays over 150 years ago, but
adaptations from his plays were staged as socially relevant
productions by Ila Arun and her Mumbai-based theatre group
Surnai Theatre and Folk Arts Foundation.
As India fights for the rights of its women, trying to emerge
from its redundant traditions, the Ibsen Delhi Festival came at a
much-needed juncture.
Renowned theatre and movie personality K.K. Raina, who
directed several of the plays, added that “Ibsen is perhaps one of
the most relevant playwrights of all time. Ibsen questioned
aspects of society, which we are grappling with today in India.”
“When his “A Doll’s House” was first produced, there was a
furor in Europe. Ibsen’s women are in a search of their own
voice, just as women in India are trying to assert their own voice
today.”

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A few of the many Books about HENRIK IBSEN

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 “IBSEN” a new opera
Soaring with a haunting score
Out of a dream comes an opera like no other

You’ll help create a life-changing cultural

event for audiences who have never experienced
an opera, bringing forward an important canvas
for women and girls to acknowledge their own
power and live their dreams.

World Premiere and Asian Tour

November, 2020
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CONTACTS:
Ronald Rand (USA) mrronaldrand@gmail.com
Dr. Ashley William Joseph (INDIA) wmjmusicfoundation@gmail.com

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