Opera Memphis' Rap Version of La Boheme: Not as Weird Should Be

Opera Memphis' Rap Version of La Boheme: Not as Weird Should Be

If you were going to combine two unlikely art forms, such as, say, opera and hip hop, you could do worse than to hire the guy responsible for the rap tribute to the BBC's period costume drama "Downton Abbey".

This is why I like Opera Memphis director Ned Canty - he's always looking for ways to make opera more approachable. In the last month, he's brought Opera Memphis out of the concert hall and into the city through daily guerrilla opera performances and hired unlikely collaborators like Memphis-based rapper Adam WarRock (aka Eugene Ahn) to make new, opera-inspired works.

Adam Warrock Boheme

On Sunday night, WarRock will debut his "La Boheme EP", a four-track record set to beats made from arias from , "La Boheme" (Puccini's ode to doomed love, creation and poverty) by producer Mikal kHill. Opera Memphis singers will perform, and WarRock will close the night out with a solo set of pop-culture-inspired hip hop.

If all of that's still sounding a little strange, take a listen to this preview track, "To Love is to Die":

Following the show, the EP will be available for free download.

Go there:

La Boheme EP Release Party with Opera Memphis and Adam WarRock
Sunday, Oct. 7
7 p.m.
Free, but $5 donations to Opera Memphis are encouraged

Brass Door Tavern
152 Madison Ave.
Memphis, Tenn. 38103

 

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Len Pipkin
I haven't been as excited RE a mash-up, since the band, Dynamite Hack, reworked Boyz-in-the-Hood - along with a plethora of Death Row classics :: into acoustic driven, soothing lullabies. In an industry rife with staid, mind-numbed automatons, the question why this talent is taking so novel a risk isn't profound; it's why a higher number of genre benders, here, do not... routinely. Nothing worse than an atrophied sensibility. lp
October 5, 2012 8:00am
http://www.161…
Thanks for finally talking about >Opera Memphis
September 20, 2014 11:23pm