AMERICAN LYRIC THEATER
ANNOUNCES A SEASON OF NEW OPERAS FOR
NEW AUDIENCES
Featuring Seven New Operas by Resident
Artists; Lectures and Master Classes by Operatic Luminaries Including Mark
Adamo, Anthony Davis, Stephen Karam, Ricky Ian Gordon, Michael Korie, Nico
Muhly and Stewart Wallace.
American Lyric Theater (ALT), home
to the nationally acclaimed Composer Librettist Development Program, has
announced the 2011-2012 public performance season, featuring workshop performances
of seven new operas by Resident Artists; as well as lectures and master
classes with some of the country's leading operatic writers. While the
majority of ALT’s programs are dedicated to mentorship of gifted emerging
composers and librettists, six public events will take place over the course
of the season to introduce these writers, their work, and other exciting
trends in American opera to New York City audiences.
This season, ALT’s Freshly Brewed series returns to OPERA America.
These informal concerts feature performances of works-in-progress by Resident
Artists, master classes with guest artist mentors, and provocative discussions
with some of the most exciting writers working in American opera today.
Freshly Brewed events take place on Sundays at 1:00 PM, and include
a light brunch with the featured artists on each program. Tickets for
each event are $20, and are available online at www.smarttix.com
or by calling (212) 868-4444. Due to limited seating capacity at OPERA
America, tickets are strictly limited and advance purchase is required.
OPERA America is located at 330 Seventh Avenue (between 28th and 29th).
WHY OPERA?: On Sunday, October 30th, 2011, as part of
National Opera Week, world renowned dramaturg and ALT principal faculty
member Cori Ellison will lead a round table discussion exploring
what is inspiring operatic writers in America today. New operas are being
written by a wide variety of artists with radically different musical and
theatrical styles. Tradition is sometimes revered, sometimes respected,
and sometimes intentionally ignored. Classics are adapted and often reinvented,
while other times new operas focus on political and social issues. During
our first event in the Freshly Brewed series, we will discuss what
inspires some of the country’s most gifted writers. Why are they interested
in writing operas? What subject material is “right” for operatic adaptation
and why? Does subject matter have to be contemporary to speak to contemporary
audiences? How does musical and linguistic style change from subject to
subject, opera to opera? Guest artists will include composer Nico Muhly
(Dark Sisters for Gotham Chamber Opera/Opera Company of Philadelphia/Music
Theatre Group; and Two Boys for The Metropolitan Opera/English National
Opera); librettist Stephen Karam (Dark Sisters with composer
Nico Muhly); composer Ricky Ian Gordon (The Grapes of Wrath
for The Minnesota Opera/Utah Opera/Pittsburgh Opera; Rappahannock County
for Virginia Opera/Virginia Arts Festival; and currently writing The
Garden of the Finzi Continis for The Minnesota Opera); composer Stewart
Wallace (Harvey Milk for Houston Grand Opera/New York City Opera/San
Francisco Opera; The Bone Setter’s Daughter for San Francisco Opera;
Where’s Dick? for Houston Grand Opera, and Kaballah for
Dance Theatre Workshop); and librettist Michael Korie (The Grapes
of Wrath and The Garden of the Finzi Continis with Ricky Ian
Gordon; Harvey Milk, The Bone Setter’s Daughter (with Amy
Tan), Where’s Dick?, and Kaballah - all with Stewart Wallace).
THE ART OF THE ARIA WITH MARK ADAMO: On Sunday, December 18th,
2011, we invite the public to take a look inside the Composer Librettist
Development Program (CLDP) studio during this master class with ALT’s
Director of Professional Development, composer/librettist Mark Adamo.
Best known for Little Women, one of the most produced American operas
of all-time, Adamo’s operatic work also includes Lysistrata for
Houston Grand Opera, and he is currently writing The Gospel of Mary
Magdalene for San Francisco Opera. During this event, four composer/librettist
teams, all Resident Artists in the CLDP, will present new arias. Guest
singers from the country’s leading opera houses will perform the arias,
and artists and audiences alike will be invited to discuss the works they
have heard. What is an aria? What is its purpose dramatically and musically
within the context of a larger work? Have these arias been successful in
accomplishing their goals? Did they engage you? Did they move you? Why
or why not? Is the text set well for the voice? This unique look inside
the writers’ studio will give audiences an opportunity to explore the
process of developing new opera, and the opportunity to meet the next generation
of operatic writers – the composers and librettists who will be writing
the works you will want to hear in the future!
DRAMATIZING HISTORY WITH ANTHONY DAVIS: On Sunday, February,
26th, 2012, internationally acclaimed composer Anthony Davis
hosts a concert and exploration of dramatizing history on the opera stage.
Davis is known around the globe for his exciting works that draw from the
lives of historical figures, including X, The Life and Times of Malcolm
X, Tania, Amistad, and Wakonda’s Dream. This
Freshly Brewed event will be the culmination of Davis' annual winter
residency at ALT, during which composers and librettists in the CLDP explore
the challenges of dramatizing historic figures in opera. Guest singers
from the country’s leading opera houses join us for a program of newly
written scenes based on real-life figures past and present.
THE LIVING LIBRETTO: On Sunday,
April 29th, 2012, join us for a libretto reading of four new one-act
operas being written by ALT Resident Artists. All four operas will be performed
in concert as part of Opera in Eden on June 25th, 2012 at Symphony
Space, but during this Freshly Brewed event, we will explore behind
the scenes in the writing process as we discuss issues of dramatic structure,
characterization, and how the composers are approaching the musical side
of their collaboration with librettists. Under the direction of Producing
Artistic Director and stage director Lawrence Edelson (Hydrogen
Jukebox for Fort Worth Opera; La Traviata for The Minnesota
Opera; the Israeli premiere of Little Women in Tel Aviv; and the
American premiere of Telemann’s Orpheus for Wolf Trap Opera), the
four libretti will be performed by guest actors from Broadway and off-Broadway,
followed by a discussion of the challenges of setting text to music in
an operatic context, timing of action in opera versus spoken drama, and
the role the orchestra can play in opera beyond mere accompaniment. Guest
actors to be announced.
In addition to the Freshly Brewed Series, seven new operas will
be featured in concert performances during the course of the 2011-2012
season:
THE POE PROJECT: On Thursday, November 10th, 2011 at
7:30 PM, ALT presents a concert reading of The Poe Project - three
one-act operas inspired by the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive
by Jeff Myers and Quincy Long; ...of the Flesh by
Jay Anthony Gach and Royce Vavrek; and Embedded by
Patrick Soluri and Deborah Brevoort. The operas in this exciting
new trilogy are not simply adaptations of Poe stories. ALT asked these
writers, "What might Poe write if he were alive today?" The chilling
results will be performed in concert with full orchestra in Cary Hall at
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music (350 West 37th Street between 9th
and 10th Avenues) with a cast including soprano Caroline Worra,
soprano Camille Zamora, mezzo-soprano Audrey Babcock, tenor
Chad A. Johnson, baritone Christopher Burchett, and bass
Matt Boehler. Tickets are $40 in advance, with a limited number
of VIP seats available for $100. Tickets are available online at www.smarttix.com
or by calling (212) 868-4444. The Poe Project was commissioned by
ALT with support from The New York State Council on the Arts. This concert
of The Poe Project is made possible with support from OPERA America
and The Dorothy Loudon Foundation.
OPERA IN EDEN: ALT’s annual Opera in Eden concert returns to
the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space for one night only on Monday,
June 25th, 2012 at 7:00 PM. This evening of work written by Resident
Artists from ALT’s Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP) will
feature four new one-act operas by librettists Magda Bogin, Stephanie
Fleischmann, David Johnston, and Kate Light; and composers
Jeremy Howard Beck, Alla Borzova, Theo Popov and Jeffrey
Dennis Smith. All of the operas featured as part of Opera in Eden
are borne out of an assignment designed by Mark Adamo, in which
composers and librettists are provided with an outline that is very loosely
based on the story of Adam and Eve, but with many missing pieces – a sort
of operatic ‘MadLibs’ project. The artists are asked to fill in the blanks,
make distinct choices about their takes on the story, and then to realize
their visions in an operatic context. Throughout this one-act project,
composers and librettists are challenged to rethink assumptions, justify
their choices, and to find their own voices as they create a piece that
is both dramatically riveting and musically engaging. Previous operas developed
as part of this project have gone on to fully staged productions in Philadelphia
and San Francisco.
Tickets for all 2011 events are on sale now. Tickets for all 2012 events
will go on sale January 6th, 2012. Additional details on all events are
available at www.altnyc.org.
ABOUT AMERICAN LYRIC THEATER
American Lyric Theater (ALT) was founded by Lawrence Edelson in 2005 to
build a new body of operatic repertoire for new audiences by nurturing
composers and librettists, developing sustainable artistic collaborations,
and contributing new works to the national canon. ALT is not an opera company
by any traditional definition. Many opera companies commission and perform
new works; but ALT is the only company in the United States that offers
extensive, full time mentorship for emerging operatic writers. While the
traditional company model focuses on producing a season, ALT’s programs
focus on serving the needs of composers and librettists, developing new
works, and collaborating with larger producing companies to help usher
those works into the repertoire.
In 2006, ALT commissioned its first main stage work from American Composer
Peter Ash: The Golden Ticket, a new opera based on Roald Dahl’s
classic book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. After Ash and his
librettist partner, Donald Sturrock, began independent development of this
opera, ALT commissioned its completion with Felicity Dahl, and provided
a supportive mentorship environment for three years. Under a new collaborative
producing model, ALT developed a partnership with Opera Theatre of Saint
Louis to present the world premiere of The Golden Ticket, which
took place in June 2010 to tremendous critical and audience acclaim. The
European Premiere of The Golden Ticket took place in October 2010
at Ireland’s Wexford Festival Opera, and The Atlanta Opera will present
the opera in March 2012. In 2009, ALT initiated a second main stage commission,
The Poe Project: a trilogy of one-act operas inspired by the fiction
of Edgar Allan Poe being written by six Resident Artists from ALT’s Composer
Librettist Development Program (CLDP). Since launching the CLDP in 2007,
ALT has provided intensive personalized mentorship to 25 gifted emerging
artists. Currently, ALT is developing two additional full-length operas,
and welcomes eight new Resident Artists to the CLDP in the 2011-12 season.
The Composer Librettist Development Program is made possible by generous
support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for
the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York
State Council on the Arts, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and The ASCAP
Foundation – Joseph and Rosalie Meyer Fund. Additional Program Support
for the 2011-2012 season has been provided by OPERA America and The Dorothy
Loudon Foundation.
PERFORMANCE DATES
Sunday, October 30th, 2011 at 1:00 PM -
Freshly Brewed: Why Opera? Venue - OPERA America, 330 7th Avenue, New York,
New York.
Thursday, November 10th, 2011 at 7:30 PM
- The Poe Project. Venue - Cary Hall at The DiMenna Center for Classical
Music, 450 W.37th Street, New York, New York.
Sunday, December 18th, 2011 at 1:00 PM -
Freshly Brewed: The Art of the Aria with Mark Adamo. Venue - OPERA America,
330 7th Avenue, New York, New York.
Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 1:00 PM - Freshly
Brewed: Dramatizing History with Anthony Davis. Venue - OPERA America,
330 7th Avenue, New York, New York.
Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 1:00 PM: Freshly
Brewed: The Living Libretto. Venue - OPERA America, 330 7th Avenue, New
York, New York.
Monday, June 25, 2012 at 7:00 PM - Opera
in Eden. Venue - Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway,
New York, New York.