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Arts and Entertainment


Comic book curmudgeon Harvey Pekar makes his opera debut
He wants ordinary people to support avant garde art


 
Oberlin College students sang and played in the jazz orchestra. One singer said she loved the music, even though she'd never heard of Harvey Pekar
Courtesy of Karen Schaefer
Harvey Pekar is best known for the autobiographical comics he began self-publishing in the 1970's, then illustrated by his friend Robert Crumb. Over the years, Pekar's caustic self-portraits have highlighted his struggles with everything from cell phones to Cleveland winters to cancer. His comic book success earned him guest appearances on the David Letterman Show and NPR. In 2003 the Oscar-nominated film American Splendor - closely based on Pekar's comics -- gave many who had never read his books a first look at the man for whom ordinary life can be a pretty complex thing. Now the former hospital file clerk has made his opera debut.
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Dan Plonsey on his music

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Harvey Pekar on jazz

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SONG Comic Book Depression

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SONG I Can't Get to Sleep

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SONG Avant Garde Artists

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Joyce Brabner on art and real life

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Mantra Ben-ya'akova Plonsey on being an artist's wife

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(Click image for larger view.)

Harvey Pekar and his wife and frequent co-author Joyce Brabner on the set of Leave Me Alone
Saxaphoninst Dan Plonsey wrote the score for the opera.  Here he works on the music while his real-life wife Mantra tries to get his attention
The opera is about the two couples' efforts to write the opera while dealing with day-to-day life.  The set depicts Pekar's cluttered Cleveland living room and Plonsey's equally busy California studio
What many comic books fans don't know about Pekar is that he's a jazz expert.  Pekar has been writing record reviews and album liner notes since the late 1950's

Related Links & Resources
Leave Me Alone opera website

Pekar Opera debut on NPR

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