Night Angel is a poignant and witty one-woman musical about a cabaret singer's efforts to resurrect her life and career in the aftermath of a painful divorce. During her comeback attempt in a nightclub in downtown Newark, New Jersey, she tries to pull together her singing career, her emotions, and her life.
Night Angel, with concept, libretto, and backdrop paintings by the late Melinda Camber Porter, features the exhilarating music composed by Keith Bright and presented in seventeen songs.
Night Angel created for one singing actress, backed by piano, guitar, drums, and improvising saxophone. Melinda Camber Porter's sassy libretto features an actress who is a hip and pungent monologist unafraid of exposing her feelings onstage.
Night Angel was originally performed at the Lincoln Center Clark Theater in New York City in 1995 under the direction of Martha Banta and music direction by Tim Weill.
Night Angel published here for the first time by Blake Press with the complete book, libretto, backdrop paintings and sheet music.
Author Biography:
Melinda Camber Porter (1953 - 2008) was born in London and graduated from Oxford University with a First Class Honors degree in Modern Languages. She began her writing career in Paris as a cultural correspondent for The Times of London. French culture is the subject of her book Through Parisian Eyes (published by Oxford University Press), which the Boston Globe describes as "a particularly readable and brilliantly and uniquely compiled collection." She interviewed many leading cultural figures including four Nobel Prize winners such as Saul Bellow and Gunter Grass, and others; Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Diddion, Frances Sagan, Michael Apted, Martin Scorsese, and Wim Wenders. Camber Porter's left over 50 audio recordings of these interviews. Her novel Badlands, a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, was set on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Publishers Weekly stated "a novel of startling, dreamlike lyricism." A film documenting the creation of the paintings featured in this solo exhibition, entitled The Art of Love, showed regularly on Public Television stations nationally and a collection of her poetry and paintings, also entitled The Art of Love, served as companion to the show. Camber Porter's paintings have also served as the primary inspiration and as backdrops for several of her theatrical works. She created the backdrops, book, and lyrics for the musical Night Angel, with music by Carmen Moore and was originally performed at Lincoln Center in New York City. She created the book, lyrics, and backdrops for the rock-opera-in-progress, Journey to Benares, with music, direction and choreography by Elizabeth Swados, and was performed at the Asia Society and Museum in New York City in November 2003. Melinda Camber Porter leaves a prolific and creative legacy with thousands of paintings; over two hundred hours of audio and film interviews with global creative figures in the arts, film and literature; and her tens of thousands of pages of writings: novels, plays, essays, journalism and volumes of poetry. Her creative and spiritual works will be enjoyed for generations. Sir Keith Bright is a graduate of the University of London where he gained a Bachelor of Science degree and a Doctor of Philosophy. Among his many courses, he studied music and music composition. Upon his graduation he followed a distinguished career in commerce and semi-government authorities with music always a component of his life's enjoyments. Mr. Bright held positions as Group Chief Executive of Sime Darby Holdings and of Huntly and Palmer Foods. Other notable appointments were Chairman and Chief Executive of Electrocomponents plc, Chairman and Chief Executive of London Regional Transport and Chairman of the UK Nationalised Industries Council. From 1993 to 1995 Sir Keith was appointed by a consortium of banks as Chairman of The Brent Walker Group plc, and to supervise one of the UK's largest debt restructuring exercises, which was successfully completed. His earlier activities have given him an intimate knowledge of undertaking business in the Far East, especially in Hong Kong. Previous non-executive directorships include: British Airports Authority, Hill Samuel, Formica International, Extel Group, London and Continental Holdings and Fairey Engineering plc. In addition to his role within Calderwood Han, he was until recently Chairman of Chelsea and Westminster NHS Healthcare Trust and Chairman of GiroVend plc. Sir Keith Bright was knighted in the 1987 New Year's honours list.
