Sunday Evening, February 4, 2018, 6:00
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN, Chairman
DEBORAH F. RUTTER, President
Presents
Peabody Opera Outreach
Presents Errollyn Wallen’s
ANON
Errolyn Wallen, Composer
Courtney Kalbacker, Director
Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University’s
Opera Outreach Program has been bringing enjoyable,
family-friendly opera into the Mid-Atlantic community for
nearly 20 years. The artistic and music directors are
primarily faculty from the Peabody Conservatory Opera
Department. The performers are cast from graduate and
upper-level undergraduate voice and opera students at
the Peabody Institute. Participating in the outreach
program allows the performers to gain real-world
experience while increasing the interest of new
generations of music lovers in the community.
The U.S. premiere of ANON, presented by Peabody
Opera Theatre in February 2017 at Theatre Project in
Baltimore was hailed as “ingenious and effective” by the
Maryland Theatre Guide and was featured by The
Baltimore Sun. The positive feedback received from
audience talk back sessions and the performers in the
piece about the social and emotional impact of ANON
inspired the Peabody Institute to expand its audience
through Peabody Opera Outreach, spreading awareness
of women’s issues and continuing to give a voice to
those who remain unheard. In the 2017–2018 season,
Peabody Opera Outreach will have reached large
theaters, community centers, and inner-city schools.
Any Peabody Opera Outreach inquiries can be submitted
to operaoutreach@jhu.edu.
Please be advised:
Patrons seated in this area may be filmed for the
broadcast of this event on the Kennedy Center’s
website.
SEATING IS ON A FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED
BASIS.
We regret that as the theater reaches capacity,
seats cannot be saved for patrons who have
not arrived or are not next in line.
Thank you for understanding.
Please refrain from using audio or video recording
equipment during the performance.
Due to safety and security considerations, please refrain
from standing in the aisles during the performance. If
you have any questions, the uniformed ushers are
available to assist you.
Please silence all cell phones and electronic devices
during the performance.
Artist Liaison and Multimedia Broadcaster volunteers,
part of the Friends of the Kennedy Center volunteer
program,
assist staff at the Millennium Stage every night of the
year.

Tonight at the Kennedy Center
7:00 PM Shear Madness Theater Lab
Please visit the Box Office for information on ticket
availability.
About the Artists
Errollyn Wallen is lauded for her genuine, free-spirited
approach to contemporary composition and wide-
ranging musicianship. Born in Belize, Wallen read music
at Goldsmith’s; King’s College, London; and King’s
College, Cambridge. On becoming a full-time composer,
she formed her own group Ensemble X with the motto
“we do not break down barriers in music—we do not see
any.” Wallen’s award-winning music includes many
works for orchestra, ballet, opera, theater, chamber
music, and film. Her music has been performed
throughout the world, played in outer space, and
recorded on many compilations.
Two specially commissioned works for the opening
ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic
Games, PRINCIPIA and Spirit in Motion, were broadcast
to a billion people around the world. Previous albums
dedicated solely to her works are Meet Me at Harold
Moores (Wallen Music and Production), The Girl in My
Alphabet, and ERROLLYN (both on Avie
Records). PHOTOGRAPHY (NMC) is the first album
dedicated to her orchestral works, of which she has
composed 14 to date. Errollyn’s orchestral work MIGHTY
RIVER has been selected for PRSF’s New Music Biennial
2017.
In 2015, Wallen was elected Honorary Fellow of
Mansfield College, Oxford in recognition of her
distinguished contribution to scholarship in the field of
British contemporary music and her exceptional
achievements as a composer.
Courtney Kalbacker is a freelance opera soprano,
director, and producer based in the
Baltimore/Washington, D.C.-area. A dynamic coloratura
soprano, Kalbacker was a Midwest district winner of the
Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She is a
member of the Washington National Opera chorus.
Principal operatic roles include Zerbinetta, Ariadne auf
Naxos (HUB Opera Ensemble); Mrs. Ford, Die Lustigen
Weiber von Windsor and Baby Doe, The Ballad of Baby
Doe (Oklahoma Opera & Music Theatre Company);
Adele, Die Fledermaus; Mabel, The Pirates of
Penzance, and Angelina, Trial by Jury (The Victorian
Lyric Opera Company); and Sarah Garrett, She Never
Lost a Passenger (Lyric Opera Baltimore/Artscape).
Kalbacker’s performances as the originator of the one-
woman monodrama The Young Wife (by Katarzyna
Brochocka) were highly acclaimed internationally at the
Warsaw Chamber Opera and Kingshead Theatre,
London, as well as locally at the 2013 Capital Fringe
Festival. As the Director of Production at UrbanArias,
she works to facilitate her passion in another way:
bringing impactful operatic theater to life from
backstage. Kalbacker has appeared as Guest Stage
Director with UrbanArias, Peabody Opera (Peabody
Institute), Live Arts Maryland, and many others. As an
advocate for developing young singer-actors, Kalbacker
has directed several productions with the Academy of
Youth Music Theatre Company at Oklahoma City
University and originated and taught curriculum for
Boston University, Tanglewood Institute, and Lyric Opera
Baltimore’s Opera Kids Camp. As a director, her
productions of “arresting new opera” have been called
“a perfect balance between storytelling and sonic
expression” (DC Metro Theater Arts). She has also been
recognized for her “wonderful stage pictures” and her
creation of “complex, passionate, poetic prism[s]” (DC
Theatre Scene, DCMTA). Kalbacker makes her home in
Baltimore, Maryland with her husband baritone Jeffrey
Grayson Gates. She currently holds positions as the fluidity and anonymity of the characters and keeps the
Managing Director of Baltimore Concert Opera and the focus of the production on the stories and experiences
Director of Production and Marketing at UrbanArias. of the unheard women in our society and the emotional
and intellectual effects of what young women face
today.
ANON was conceived by renown British female
composer Errollyn Wallen as an adaptation of Abbé
Prevost's 1731 novel Manon Lescaut under a
commission by Welsh National Opera in 2013. Wallen’s
interpretation of Manon Lescaut takes a far different
path from the familiar operatic portrayals by Puccini and
Massenet. Instead of following the narrative plot like her
predecessors, Wallen’s ANON extracts the themes of
exploitation, abuse, vulnerability, and dangers imposed
upon women and young girls present in Manon Lescaut
to provide a glimpse into another world.

Utilizing her own personal experiences, interviews, and

workshops with young girls and women, as well as key
points in the original narrative, Wallen created a piece
that focuses on giving a voice to the unheard stories of
women from all cultures and walks of life through a
collections of themes. ANON presents these themes
through a collection of 18 scenes and vignettes that are
not necessarily linear, but present the development of
topics throughout the course of the piece. The libretto
contains direction quotations from the women and girls
present in the initial interviews and workshops as well as
Wallen’s own text. The music present in ANON is
contemporary classical and contains elements shared
with popular music.

ANON is categorized as a chamber opera and utilizes an

all-female cast of five anonymous characters, including
two actors and three singers. Originally arranged for
piano, cello, percussion, and electronic music, Peabody
Opera Outreach has reduced the instrumentation to
keyboard alone. Creative direction by Courtney
Kalbacker has stripped Peabody Opera Outreach’s
production of ANON of the elaborate costumes and sets
we come to expect from fully staged opera to five girls
in all black with minimal props. This both showcases the