Florida Grand Opera
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Florida Grand Opera (FGO), is the seventh oldest opera company in the United States, currently in its 66th season. Its General Director is Robert Heuer, and its Artistic Director and Principal Conductor is Stewart Robertson, and the Chorus is under the direction of Douglas Kinney-Frost. Florida Grand Opera was founded as the Opera Guild of Greater Miami in 1941 by Dr. Arturo di Filippi and has grown under the successive leadership of General Directors Robert Herman and (currently) Robert M. Heuer. The Opera has a long history of presenting internationally-renowned singers, set designers, directors and conductors. Its extensive repertoire embraces 400 years of opera, and includes standard works; lesser known works; modern works; and works by living composers.
Florida Grand Opera was created in 1994 through a merger between the Greater Miami Opera and the Opera Guild, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, bringing together two important South Florida communities in support of one of the region’s most important cultural institutions. In Miami, its administration and operations have been housed at the Arturo di Filippi Educational Center; the Josephine S. Leiser Opera Center is the location for the Opera’s activities in Fort Lauderdale.
With an $18-million operating budget, the Opera employs 42 full-time and 250 part-time and seasonal personnel to produce its current season of 52 plus main stage performances, attended by over 100,000 people at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in Miami and the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale. Its education and outreach programs serve 40,000 people annually, and each year talented young singers come to Miami from throughout the country for training in its highly regarded Ensemble Program. In the past, the Company has played host to many of the world's leading opera singers, such as Luciano Pavarotti, who made his American debut with the then-Greater Miami Opera in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor alongside Dame Joan Sutherland in February 1965, as well as Placido Domingo, Birgit Nilsson, Sherril Milnes, and James Morris.
Florida Grand Opera, until recently, made its performing home at the Dade County Auditorium in Miami, with performances also at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Ft. Lauderdale. This season, however, the company made its new home in the brand-new Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House in the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, Miami's new premier arts theatre. This season will see productions of Verdi's Aïda, with renowned dramatic soprano Angela Brown, as well as the Opera's largest chorus ever assembled on stage; Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio; Puccini's Manon Lescaut with French soprano Sylvie Valayre; Bellini's La sonnambula; Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila; starring Denyce Graves and Jon Villars; and the world premiere of David Carlson's Anna Karenina.
