Chicago Opera Theater
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The Chicago Opera Theater (COT) is an opera company that was founded as the Chicago Opera Studio in 1974 by Alan Stone[1] to give vocal students performance experience, although it has grown into a professional opera company.[2] The stated mission of the COT is to provide first class productions of operatic repertoire that include the greatest works of the 17th through 20th centuries,[3] and in the past it has had an emphasis on American composers and performers who sing in English.[4] Currently, the COT extends the Chicago opera season by scheduling its performances after the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s season ends in spring.[5]
The company's home is the 1,525-seat Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago's Millennium Park, built in 2003 as a mostly underground-located state-of-the-art downtown performance facility.[6] Prior to the 2004 season, the COT was most recently at the Athenaeum Theatre on the city’s north side.[7]
Brian Dickie is the current General Director of the COT, a position he has held since September 1999.[8] Alexander Platt is the COT's resident conductor and music advisor. His work with COT has included leading the Chicago premiere of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice, and directing the Maurice Sendak/Tony Kushner version of Hans Krása's Brundibar and an adaptation of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta. Additionally, in 2006, he led the Chicago premiere of John Adams' Nixon in China,[9] and is scheduled in May 2007 to conduct the dual Chicago premieres of Béla Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle and Arnold Schoenberg's Erwartung (in English, Expectation).
COT's 2008 Season has been announced: Mozart's "Don Giovanni" April 30, May 3,6,9,11 2008 John Adams' "A Flowering Tree" May 14,17,20,23,25 2008 Handel's "Orlando" May 28,31, June 3,6,8 2008
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Marsh, Robert C. [2006-07-10]. "The Fox Years", in Pellegrini, Norman (ed.): 150 Years of Opera in Chicago. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 167. ISBN 0-87580-353-9. “In April 1974 Alan Stone, who had learned from missteps with the offerings of this Pilot Knob company the previous year, was back on the operatic scene, this time in the five-hundred-seat auditorium of Jones Commercial High School (which remained his company's mainstage location through 1976) with a workshop group he called Chicago Opera Studio and a production of Così fan tutte that had excellent young singers and genuine charm. Six performances cost $8,000 to produce.”
- ^ Marsh, Robert C. [2006-07-10]. "Author's Preface", in Pellegrini, Norman (ed.): 150 Years of Opera in Chicago. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, xii. ISBN 0-87580-353-9. “It should be said that Chicago has always had a number of smaller opera groups, some ethnically oriented, some essentially opera workshops to give vocal students performance experience. The Chicago Opera Theater began in 1974 as an organization of this type but was transformed into an important professional production group.”
- ^ Chicago Opera Theater - History (About Us page). Chicago Opera Theater. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.
- ^ Blackwell, Elizabeth Canning (2005-12-05). Chicago Opera Theater - Bar/Club Review - Chicago - Frommers.com. Frommer's Chicago 2006. Wiley Publishing. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.
- ^ Chicago Nightlife & the Arts - Fodor's Online Travel Guide. Fodor's Travel, a division of Random House. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.
- ^ Harris Theatre History. Harris Theater for Music and Dance. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.
- ^ Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago - metromix.com. Metromix.com. Tribune Interactive. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.
- ^ Bloggers - Chicago Classical Music. Backstage (Chicago Classical Music blog). Arts & Business Council of Chicago. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.
- ^ Delacoma, Wynne. "Nixon before the fall", Chicago Sun-Times, Digital Chicago, 2006-05-14. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.
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