MUSEUM

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gloria: A Pig Tale

Tonight was another unexpected treat.  The performance was a musical and theatrical farce in a small venue at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I'd place the attendance at 600 people.  Lots of fun and silliness, but at the highest and a quite difficult level.  The musicians were from Juilliard and the singers were young.  But, the conductor of the performance was the Musical Director of the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert.  The composer was present.  Gilbert's mother and dad were two rows in front of us.  While silly, it was a relatively small room filled with musical stars.



"A rollicking tale of social satire, this humorous opera explores life in excess, told through the aspirations of the beautiful pig, Gloria. See a glimpse of rehearsal in the video below. Tickets include all-day admission to the Met Museum the day of the concert.

 

A Co-Presentation of the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Juilliard School.

 

Gloria is a beautiful pig, but she's lonely. Foolishly, she falls in love with a butcher and is just about to go for the chop – when Rodney the wild boar comes to her rescue.
           

Amid yodelling frogs, blues-singing cows, Hollywood hotdogs and a fascist rally in a pigsty, Gruber constructs a delirious ludicrous world while taking a zany sideswipe at right-wing politics.
 

With a cast of five human sausages and a big band, this ‘cabaret opera’ mixes a variety of musical styles – jazz, blues, Bavarian oompah, Mahler and Wagner. Frederic Wake-Walker’s production sets this darkly comic piece in a burlesque butcher’s shop with echoes of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret."