TIMES SQUARE — The visuals used in an opera about a battle between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs are heading to the Crossroads of the World.
“A Marvelous Order” recalls the 1950s fight between famed city planner Moses and Jacobs, a community activist, over his plans to build an expressway through Washington Square Park.
A MARVELOUS ORDER from New Amsterdam on Vimeo.
The animation that serves as its backdrop, known as “I LIVE HERE,” will air on Times Square’s billboards between 11:57 p.m. and midnight each night in May as part of Times Square Arts and the Times Square Advertising Coalition’s “Midnight Moment” series.
The opera, by animator and director Joshua Frankel, librettist Tracy K. Smith and composer Judd Greenstein, builds the narrative by combining photographs and film footage, computer-generated imagery and blueprints for Moses’ proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway.
“The result examines preservation, ‘progress’ and the very human conflict that grew out of themes that are right at home in Times Square."
An excerpt of the opera will be performed at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s River to River Festival in June.
The Council and the Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) partnered with Times Square Arts and TSAC to present Frankel’s animation.
“In Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, Joshua Frankel found a rivalry truly worthy of opera,” MAS president Elizabeth Goldstein said in a statement.
“We can think of no better stage for this grand drama than the Midnight Moment in Times Square.”
