J'Nai Bridges
Past event
- Price
- $20
- Genre
- Music
- Season
- Fall 2022
- DATE
- NOV 22
- TIME
- TUE, 7 PM
- RUNTIME
- Approx. 120 minutes
Join the conversation in the REDCAT LOUNGE
About
Set to the music of Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen with updated lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Carmen Jones began its life on stage and was famously translated to film in 1954 with an all-Black cast led by the iconic Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. Despite being a singer, Dandridge’s vocals were dubbed by a white performer. Join us for a rare screening of Carmen Jones preceded by a live musical performance by GRAMMY Award-winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, paying tribute to Dandridge’s towering performance.
Presented in collaboration with the LA Phil’s Rock My Soul Humanities Programs.
Curated by Mercedes Cooper, Senior VP of Programming for Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY.
about the artist
J’Nai Bridges
Two-time Grammy® Award-winning American mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, known for her “plush-voiced mezzo-soprano” (The New York Times) and “calmly commanding stage presence” (The New Yorker) has been heralded as “a rising star” (Los Angeles Times), gracing the world’s top opera and concert stages.
Bridges is a leading figure in classical music’s shift toward conversations of inclusion and racial justice. The 2021/22 season alone has seen Bridges’ ascent into the sphere of new music, taking on several world-premieres but continuing to explore the traditional roles. She is one of Kennedy Center’s NEXT 50 leaders of cultural diversity.
Bridges’ career highlights include receiving the Richard Tucker Career Grant and Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and she is a Marian Anderson award winner. Bridges was invited to perform at the National Library of Congress to honor legendary fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg as a recipient of the 2022 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award. She made her highly anticipated Metropolitan Opera debut in Phillip Glass’ Akhnaten, the CD of which went on to win a 2022 Grammy® for Best Opera Recording. Bridges has also performed all over Europe and North America.
