The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.
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Spanish tenor/conductor Plácido Domingo has been general director since 2003; his contract runs through 2013. American conductor James Conlon has been music director since 2006.
The Los Angeles Opera company, which was inaugurated in 1986 with a production of Verdi's Otello starring Plácido Domingo, traces its roots back to the Los Angeles Civic Grand Opera, which was formed in 1948. It presented staged productions through the 1950s. Shortly after its third production at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the company abandoned its own production projects and recreated itself as the Music Center Opera Association by bringing opera from other cities to the Music Center, notably the New York City Opera. The NYCO brought productions to Los Angeles every fall from 1966 to 1982.
In 1984, the Music Center Opera Association hired Peter Hemmings and gave him the task of creating a local opera company which would once again present its own productions. This led to the forming of the Los Angeles Opera. Hemmings stepped down as General Director in 2000, with Plácido Domingo assuming leadership of the company following season. (In fact, Domingo had been involved in the creation of the company, having served as its artistic consultant since 1984.) In November 2001 Edgar Baitzel was made director of artistic operations. Baitzel was appointed the LAO's artistic director in May 2003 and then the company's chief operating officer in February 2006. Baitzel died in March 2007.[1]
The Los Angeles Opera offers productions in the standard operatic repertory as well as new and rarely-staged operas. During the 2003-2004 season, the company performed the world premiere of Nicholas and Alexandra, with music composed by Deborah Drattell and text by Nicholas von Hoffman. The company has also turned to theater and cinema world for directors of its productions. During the 2001-2002 season, it mounted a production of Wagner's Lohengrin, directed by Austrian actor Maximilian Schell and a double bill of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, directed by filmmaker William Friedkin.
Highlights of recent seasons have included Verdi's Falstaff starring Bryn Terfel; Kiri Te Kanawa in the title role of Samuel Barber's Vanessa; Puccini's La bohème and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci starring Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna; Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Massenet's Manon starring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón; an all-star La traviata (Verdi) with Renée Fleming, Rolando Villazón and Renato Bruson; Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa starring Karita Mattila; Erwin Schrott in Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro; and Kurt Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny starring Anthony Dean Griffey, Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone. To date, Plácido Domingo has sung 20 different roles with the company, most recently Siegmund in Die Walküre, Vidal Hernando in Luisa Fernanda, and the title roles in Tamerlano, Idomeneo and Parsifal. He has also conducted 11 different operas and numerous concerts with the company. Other frequent and notable guests with the company have included Samuel Ramey, Violeta Urmana, Hildegard Behrens, Denyce Graves, Frederica von Stade, Sumi Jo, Deborah Voigt, James Morris, Rod Gilfry, Jennifer Larmore, Maria Ewing, Susan Graham and Ferruccio Furlanetto.
The company's multi-year Recovered Voices project, begun during the 2006-2007 season, is dedicated to presenting little known operas by the lost generation of composers whose lives and careers were cut short by the Third Reich. To date, the company has presented Alexander von Zemlinsky's Eine florentinische Tragödie (An Italian Tragedy) and Der Zwerg (The Dwarf), the U.S. premiere of Viktor Ullmann's Der zerbrochene Krug (The Broken Jug), Walter Braunfels' Die Vögel (The Birds) and the U.S. premiere of Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten (The Stigmatized) as part of this mission, as well as children's performances of Hans Krasa's Brundibar.
The 2010-2011 season opened with the world première of Daniel Catán's opera based on the film Il Postino with Plácido Domingo as the poet Pablo Neruda, Charles Castronovo in the title role and Grant Gershon conducting.[2] The season continued with a revival of the company's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro conducted by Plácido Domingo and starring Daniel Okulich, Marlis Petersen, Rebekah Camm, Bo Skovhus, Martina Serafin and Renata Pokupic.[3] Subsequent productions included a new production of Wagner's Lohengrin, also conducted by Conlon and starring Ben Heppner, Soile Isokoski and Dolora Zajick,[4] a production of Verdi's Rigoletto conducted by James Conlon and starring George Gagnidze,[5] a production of Rossini's Il Turco in Italia starring Nino Machaidze, Simone Alberghini, Paolo Gavanelli and Thomas Allen,[6] and a production of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw [7] starring Patricia Racette, William Burden and Ann Murray, conducted by Conlon.
Los Angeles Opera's 2011-2012 season begins on September 17, 2011, with the company's first presentation of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin featuring baritone Dalibor Jenis and soprano Oksana Dyka, conducted by James Conlon. The season continues with Mozart's Cosi fan tutte conducted by Conlon and featuring Aleksandra Kurzak, Ruxandra Donose, Roxana Constantinescu, Saimir Pirgu, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo and Lorenzo Regazzo; a revival of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, conducted by Placido Domingo and starring Nino Machaidze and Vittorio Grigolo; Verdi's Simon Boccanegra conducted by James Conlon and starring Placido Domingo; Britten's Albert Herring conducted by Conlon and starring Alek Shrader in the title role, with Janis Kelly and Christine Brewer sharing the role of Lady Billows; and a revival of Puccini's La Boheme starring Stephen Costello and Ailyn Perez, conducted by Patrick Summers.
The company presented its first presentation of Richard Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen in the summer of 2010. New productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre were performed in early 2009, followed by Siegfried (September/October 2009) and Götterdämmerung (April 2010). Three full cycles were produced from May 29 through June 26, 2010, accompanied by the citywide Ring Festival LA. The innovative production was directed and designed by German theater artist Achim Freyer and conducted by James Conlon. The principal artists included Linda Watson, Vitalij Kowaljow, Michelle DeYoung, Plácido Domingo, John Treleaven, Graham Clark, Richard Paul Fink, Eric Halfvarson, Alan Held and Jennifer Wilson, among others.
The festival drew criticism from Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, which argued that Wagner's work was the "soundtrack to the Holocaust", a reference to Wagner's anti-Semitic views.[8] Antonovich requested that Los Angeles Opera broaden the scope of the festival to include other classical and operatic performers, while the Los Angeles Opera argued that proper attention was made to educate festival-goers on Wagner's racist views, and that broadening the scope would be inappropriate. On a 3-1 vote, the other supervisors rejected Antonovich's motion to have the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors send a letter to Los Angeles Opera to shift the focus away from Wagner.[9]
Subsequently, partly as a result of the cost of producing the Ring, the Los Angeles Opera requested an emergency $14 million loan from the Board of Supervisors due to reduced sponsorships and escalating costs. The Board approved the loan 4-1, with Antonovich dissenting.
For over 20 years, LA Opera has produced a wide variety of education and outreach programs designed to bring opera to people of all backgrounds, from young children experiencing opera for the first time to experienced opera lovers of all ages. These include "In-School Operas" performed for and by elementary school students; full-scale student matinees and a summer "Opera Camp" for secondary school students; accredited teacher training programs; large-scale free community performances for families; a popular lecture series for ticket holders before every mainstage performance; and open dress rehearsals for senior centers. In 2008, these programs were enjoyed by an all-time high of more than 159,000 students, teachers and community members.
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