Gotham Chamber Opera

Gotham Chamber Opera is a professional opera company located in New York City, New York, and is a member of the professional organization, OPERA America. The company was founded in 2000 under the name of the Henry Street Chamber Opera by Artistic Director Neal Goren and specializes in producing rarely performed chamber operas from the Baroque era to the present. In 2003, it changed its name to the Gotham Chamber Opera after incorporating as an independent 501(c)3 organization. Its Executive Director is David Bennett.[1]

History

Henry Street Chamber Opera

The company first presented the American premiere of Mozart's Il sogno di Scipione (1771), staged by Christopher Alden in 2001 at the Playhouse at the Abrons Arts Center, a 350-seat theater on the New Yorks's Lower East Side.

Soon after, the company produced a double bill of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1689) and Darius Milhaud's Les malheurs d'Orphée (1924). Two more American premieres followed in November 2002 with Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů's 1928 Dada opera, Les larmes du couteau (Tears of the Knife),[2] and his 1935 Hlas lesa (The Voice of the Forest).[3]

Gotham Chamber Opera

After incorporating as a non-profit organization in 2003, the newly renamed Gotham Chamber Opera (GCO) continued its emphasis on overlooked treasures with the American premiere of Swiss composer Heinrich Sutermeister's 1935 masterpiece Die schwarze Spinne (The Black Widow).

Gotham's February 2005 production of Handel's Arianna in Creta played to full houses and drew favorable reviews. That summer, in a co-production with the Lincoln Center Festival and Spoleto Festival USA, the company performed Ottorino Respighi's fantastical La bella dormente nel bosco (Sleeping Beauty in the Woods), featuring the puppetry of Basil Twist. In the spring of 2006, Benjamin Britten's only comedy, Albert Herring, received its first professional staging in New York in more than 30 years, and in the winter of 2007, Rossini's Il signor Bruschino received its first major professional New York staging in more than half a century.

In the 2007/08 season, the company presented New York City's first staged production of Astor Piazzolla's 1968 tango opera María de Buenos Aires, as well as Scenes of Gypsy Life, a fully staged evening of song cycles by Janáček and Dvořák, and Ariadne Unhinged, a retelling of the Ariadne myth through the music of Monteverdi, Haydn, and Schoenberg. And in 2009, Mark Morris directed the U.S. stage premiere of Haydn's L'isola disabitata.

Gotham presented Haydn's Il mondo della luna at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History in January 2010. This high-tech production, staged by Diane Paulus, featured NASA-generated moon travel projections on the planetarium's 360-degree dome.

In October 2010, GCO with Tectonic Theater Project presented the U.S. premiere of Xavier Montsalvatge's El gato con botas[4] (Puss in Boots). The production was directed by Moisés Kaufman, with bunraku puppetry by the Blind Summit Theatre of London, England. The opera premiered at the New Victory Theater in New York City.

In November 2010, Gotham Chamber Opera, Music-Theatre Group and Opera Philadelphia announced the commission of a new American opera, Dark Sisters, composed by Nico Muhly with libretto by Stephen Karam, to be conducted by Neal Goren, and directed by Rebecca Taichman. The work was co-commissioned and planned to be staged by the three organizations. The world premiere was given in November 2011 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College in New York, one of the first works to be presented at the theater following the creation of a new lobby at the space. Dark Sisters was also be presented in June 2012 as part of Opera Philadelphia's chamber opera series at the Perelman Theater in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Gotham scheduled two workshops and orchestra readings, in November 2010 and March 2011, for the new work.

As it has grown, Gotham Chamber Opera has increasingly become more involved in the New York City community, with appearances on WNYC, displays at Bergdorf Goodman and Prada SoHo, annual collaborations with the Gagosian Gallery, and performances in various Manhattan venues. The company's activities also include school residencies, workshops, and free rehearsals.[5]

U.S. and world premieres

Productions of the company

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Information on GCO's website
  2. ↑ Les larmes du couteau on the company's website
  3. ↑ Production details and photographs for Hlas lesa on the company's website
  4. ↑ Vivian Schweitzer, "From Wily House Cat to Lord of the Manor", The New York Times, October 3, 2010
  5. ↑ More information from the company's website
  6. ↑ Production details and photos from El gato con botas on the company's website

Sources

External links