In a landmark collaboration, The Mount and Grace Church (New York City) will celebrate the life and legacy of Edith Wharton in the very place of her baptism on Easter Day in 1862. The special evening features selections from an exhilarating new operatic adaptation of Wharton’s iconic short story, Roman Fever, composed by Louis Karchin with a libretto by Joan Ross Sorkin. Transforming Wharton’s razor-sharp drama of friendship, jealousy, and betrayal into powerful operatic theater, the work brings the story’s simmering tensions and dark secrets vividly to life. The event offers audiences a rare behind-the-scenes experience, blending performance highlights with an intimate conversation moderated by Natalie Johnsonius Neubert, President and CEO of Berkshire Opera Festival, about the creative process of adapting literature for the stage. Soprano Kerrigan Bigelow will perform the role of Grace Ansley, alongside soprano Sofia Scattarreggia as Alida Slade, with pianist Luke Poeppel providing musical direction. The evening invites audiences to encounter Wharton’s enduring voice anew—through music, song, and conversation—in the city where her story began. LOCATION: Grace Church 802 Broadway New York, NY 10003 TICKETS: This event is FREE and open to the public! Please REGISTER using this link. The music of Louis Karchin (b. 1951, Philadelphia) has been heard throughout the world and has garnered praise for its “fearless eloquence” (The New Yorker), “bare-nerve intensity” (NY Times), and “coruscating beauty” (San Francisco Chronicle). Among his more than one hundred compositions are three operas and numerous works for chamber and solo combinations. Eleven portrait CDs are on Naxos, Bridge, New World, and New Focus labels, and recognition has come from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (three awards) and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. In 2000, he was one of 53 composers chosen by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to represent New York City at the turn of the Millennium, and in 2022, the Eastman School of Music, his undergraduate alma mater, awarded him a Centennial Medal for lifetime achievement in music. Mr. Karchin was twice a Leonard Bernstein Fellow in Composition at Tanglewood, where he was invited to return in 2011 to conduct his Chamber Symphony in Ozawa Hall. He is Professor of Music at New York University. Joan Ross Sorkin is an opera librettist, musical bookwriter/lyricist, and playwright. In addition to Roman Fever with Louis Karchin, her opera libretti include: The Reef with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis; Guest Speaker, The Mount (“Wharton Revisited” Summer Lecture Series) and Edith Wharton Book Club (2024); Finalist, 2018 Pellicciotti Opera Prize; Act I presented in concert in Merkin Hall, NYC by Berkshire Opera Festival (2024); Libretto presented in Center for Contemporary Opera’s Prima Le Parole and Libretto Slam! Strange Fruit with Chandler Carter, developed at New York City Opera’s VOX 200...
