AMOC* celebrates Latin American poets and the voices of women with its production of John Adams’s El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered with a tour across the United States. The piece, with a libretto by Peter Sellars and concept by AMOC* member Julia Bullock, will appear from December 11 to 21, 2023 at Opera Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska, Stanford Live in Stanford, California, and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut before returning to The Cathedral of St. John the Divine for a second year.
El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered features AMOC* members soprano Julia Bullock, guest soloist contralto Jasmin White, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, violinists Keir GoGwilt and Miranda Cuckson, cellist Coleman Itzkoff, bassist Doug Balliett, pianist Conor Hanick, and percussionist Jonny Allen.
El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered will be conducted by Christian Reif, who created the new arrangement and premiered the initial, distilled arrangement as part of Julia Bullock’s residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where The New York Times called it “intimate, affecting and quietly rich with activism.” A rarely performed work, El Niño “explores the central themes of the nativity – miracles, the unique relationship between birthparent and child, and gift giving,” said Bullock, who curated the selections being performed.and whose ”voice and vision are forces to be reckoned with” (Opera News).