The Bodice Ripper Project is a one-woman show by Maren Montalbano, exploring sexuality through the lens of humor, storytelling, and original music. At the intersection of romantic tropes and operatic gender power dynamics, Maren weaves in her own story of childhood sexual abuse and how reading romantica helped her heal.
It is also a podcast! In the podcast, Maren tells stories she wrote backstage at the opera – silly, sexy romance scenes that were originally meant to entertain her fellow choristers as they waited to go on stage. Those stories have become a tool with which Maren examines the world around her, sharing lessons in self-confidence and vulnerability.
Replays
This work was premiered in October 2020 as a part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
Missed the show? You can purchase replays here:
All Access
All three performances as well as the songs that you can watch individually.
$15
Who:
Maren Montalbano
librettist & performer
A graduate of both New England Conservatory of Music and Tufts University, Maren Montalbano can be heard on three GRAMMY® Award-winning albums: John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls (2005), Gavin Bryars’ The Fifth Century (2018), and Lansing McLoskey’s Zealot Canticles (2019), on which she is a featured soloist. She is also featured on three 2020 GRAMMY®-nominated albums: Voyages (Benjamin C.S. Boyle), Arc in the Sky (Kile Smith), and Fire in My Mouth (Julia Wolfe). Other commercial recordings include Douglas Cuomo’s opera Arjuna’s Dilemma, Kile Smith’s Vespers, Lewis Spratlan’s Hesperus is Phosphorus, Edie Hill’s Clay Jug, The Crossing’s Seven Responses, Ted Hearne’s Sound from the Bench, and her debut solo album, Sea Tangle: Songs from the North. Her performances have been praised as “wonderful” and “suave and sensuous” by the Philadelphia Inquirer. Ms. Montalbano has been a guest artist with the Lancaster Symphony, Lyric Fest, Choral Arts Philadelphia, Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, Network for New Music, Tempesta di Mare, and Piffaro, the Renaissance Band. The 2019-20 season features Ms. Montalbano in Schütz’s Christmas Historia (Choral Arts Philadelphia), a recital of works by Philip Maneval and Florence Price (Network for New Music), and the world premiere of Gavin Bryars’ A Native Hill (The Crossing). Ms. Montalbano lives in New Jersey and sings professionally throughout a wide geographic area with Opera Philadelphia, Trio Eos, and The Crossing.
Melissa Dunphy
composer
Composer Melissa Dunphy specializes in political, vocal, and theatrical music. She first came to national attention when her large‐scale work the Gonzales Cantata was featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, National Review, Fox News, and on The Rachel Maddow Show, and was staged by American Opera Theater in a sold‐out run. Other notable works include the song cycle “Tesla’s Pigeon,” which won first place in the NATS Art Song Composition Award, and choral work “What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?” which won the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers Competition and has been performed by ensembles including Chanticleer and Cantus. Dunphy has been composer‐in‐residence for the Immaculata Symphony Orchestra, Volti, and the St. Louis Chamber Chorus. In addition to her concert and choral music, she is a Barrymore Award‐nominated theater composer and sound designer and is Director of Music Composition for the O’Neill National Puppetry Conference. Dunphy has a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.M. from West Chester University.
Vanessa Ogbuehi
director
Vanessa Ogbuehi is a Philadelphia-based artist making original, devised theatre since 2015. Through crooning melodies, tulle gowns, and the intimacy of small spaces, Vanessa’s work invites audiences to celebrate the stories of extraordinary women whose lessons of defiance and resourcefulness have been forgotten. She recently received her Graduate Certificate in Devised Performance from the Pig Iron School, and is eager to continue working on challenging projects.