Voice Afire Opera-Cabaret

Voice Afire Pocket Opera-Cabaret was born in the summer of 2007 at the Niagara International Music Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, home of the Shaw Festival. Working in collaboration with Tom Diamond, leading Opera Director and Dramaturg, and with Guillermo Verdecchia, one of Canada’s foremost playwrights, Artistic Director-Composer Ray Luedeke produced his first version of Butterfly's Trouble as well as his Tango Cabaret, Close Embrace, and a workshop production of My Life with Pablo Neruda. These shows, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and by the Ontario Arts Council. were warmly received and subsequently toured in Canada. In 2010 Voice Afire Pocket Opera-Cabaret moved to New York City, where in 2012 a new version of Butterfly’s Trouble, vetted by Broadway Director, Choreographer, Dramaturg Jonathan Cerullo, ran for a week on off-off Broadway, to critical acclaim. Since 2012 Voice Afire has produced shows in New York City each year, the most recent being A Doll's House for 6 singers, piano, and synthesizer, and In Kharms Way, for string quartet and 2 actors.