NEA Grant Search - Data as of 02-09-2021 48 matches
American Opera Projects, Inc. (aka AOP) 1865852-36
Brooklyn, NY 11217-1695
To support Composers and the Voice, an opera writing training program. As many as nine composers will participate in a curriculum that will include vocal writing, libretto writing, improvisation, acting for opera writers, and two public performances of their works. Fellows will write for members of the Resident Ensemble of six professional singers, one of each of the basic operatic/vocal categories: coloratura soprano, lyric soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, and bass. This cycle of the tuition-free fellowship program will introduce travel and housing subsidies intended to broaden and diversify the scope of applicants.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 8 Grant Amount: $25,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 09/2022
Atlanta Opera (aka ) 1863962-36
Atlanta, GA 30318-4235
To support a chamber opera productions of Carmen by composer Georges Bizet and Threepenny Opera by composer Kurt Weill. Performance will occur in an outdoor circus tent pitched on a baseball field with an additional two sites in Atlanta being considered. Singers for these two operas will be selected from the newly formed Company Players and Glynn Studio Players. The Company Players compruise Jamie Barton, Kevin Burdette, Jasmine Habersham, Daniela Mack, Megan Marino, Michael Mayes, Ryan McKinny, Morris Robinson, Alek Shrader, Reginald Smith, Jr., Richard Trey Smagur, and Talise Trevigne. The Studio Players comprise Gabrielle Beteag, Susanne Burgess, Joshua Conyers, Calvin Griffin, Joseph Lattanzi, and Brian Vu.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 5 Grant Amount: $15,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 03/2021
Bard College (aka ) 1864543-36
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-9800
To support a production of "Le roi Arthus (King Arthur) by composer Ernest Chausson at the Fisher Center's Sosnoff Theater. The opera will be presented over two weekends during the annual SummerScape festival, held between late June and mid-August. We plan to perform this U.S. premiere on stage and with all necessary COVID-19 safety protocols for staff and artists. The production will be streamed to a global audience via Upstreaming, the new digital platform, which will allow increased viewership should live audience restrictions remain in place.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 19 Grant Amount: $15,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2021 Beth Morrison Projects (aka BMP) 1864733-36
Brooklyn, NY 11226-5337
To support the commission, development, workshops, and premiere of Adoration by composer Mary Kouyoumdjian and librettist Royce Vavrek. An adaptation of the film by Atom Egoyan, the opera tells two stories—a fictional story of terrorism, fueled by racism and xenophobia in a community, juxtaposed against a true story of a family dealing with racism. As part of a class assignment, a student reframes an historical terrorist attack and places his parents at its center; community hysteria ensues when his story goes viral, highlighting racial intolerance in society. The opera will be scored for six principals and a pre-recorded chorus, and activities will include a workshop and premiere performances.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 8 Grant Amount: $20,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2022
Boston Baroque, Inc. (aka ) 1864325-36
Boston, MA 02135-2066
To support virtual streamed performances of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Beethoven’s Fidelio, and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea as well as accompanying newly developed content. Streamed content will include both archival operatic productions and new content designed and created to enhance the audience’s virtual experience. New content may comprise director's cuts, concert talks, conversations with artists, and documentary short films about making of an opera. Two full archival opera productions will be available to virtual subscribers (Giulio Cesare and Fidelio).Additionally, highlights of the L’incoronazione di Poppea production will be released and available admission-free to audiences via the streaming platform Boston Baroque Live during March; after March it will be available to subscribers through June 2021.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 7 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021
Central City Opera House (aka Central City Opera) 1865079-36 Association
Denver, CO 80246-1253
To support a new production of Two Remain (Out Of Darkness) by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer. The two-act opera centers around the emotionally complex stories of two aging Holocaust survivors: Krystyna Zywulska, a political prisoner forced to hide her Jewish identity, and Gad Beck, a gay German Jew who attempted to free his lover, the poet Manfred Lewin, from Auschwitz. In addition to performances at the summer opera festival, the production will tour to Denver and Colorado Springs, in partnership with One Colorado and the Denver Jewish Community Center. As many as four performances will occur in Central City and three performances will occur in Denver and Colorado Springs.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 7 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2021 Chicago Opera Theater (aka ) 1865235-36
Chicago, IL 60601-5959
To support performances of Il Postino (The Postman) by composer and librettist Daniel Catán. A co- production with Virginia Opera and Opera Southwest, the three-act opera is based on the 1985 novel Ardiente Paciencia by Antonio Skármeta and the subsequent 1994 Oscar Award-winning film Il Postino. Set in a small, insular village frozen in post-Mussolini 1950s Italy where nationalism, political chaos, and old class structures hold influence, exiled poet Pablo Neruda symbolizes a new era of political activism, intellectualism, and socioeconomic mobility—and serves as the catalyst for a shy local postman Mario to find his voice.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 7 Grant Amount: $20,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 04/2021
Cincinnati Opera Association (aka ) 1865485-36
Cincinnati, OH 45202-7531
To support performances of Awakenings by composer Tobias Picker and librettist Aryeh Lev Stollman. During 1916-27, a global pandemic of sleeping sickness killed millions and left thousands trapped in a catatonic state. In the 1960s, Dr. Oliver Sacks was able to temporarily awaken these patients using the drug L-Dopa, and the opera tells the true story of these patients as they experience life again before ultimately slipping back into their catatonic state. A co-production with Opera Theatre Saint Louis, the company will also partner with UC Health to develop a series of programs centered on the medicine in the opera and wellness as a whole.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 1 Grant Amount: $25,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 08/2021
Dallas Opera (aka ) 1864580-36
Dallas, TX 75201-2415
To support a condensed semi-staged production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. The 90-minute condensed opera will be part of a shortened spring season. The company will explore streaming and/or broadcasting options for those who cannot or do not feel safe attending live performances. As many as four performances will occur in April 2021 at the opera house for limited audiences.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 30 Grant Amount: $30,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021
Experiments in Opera (aka ) 1864078-36
Brooklyn, NY 11232-1479
To support the creation, development, workshop, filming, and world premiere of Everything for Dawn written collaboratively by eight composers and ten librettists. The resulting work will comprise a film opera that is a ten-episode, three-act serial opera, with each 15-minute episode written by a different librettist/composer team. A coming-of-age story set in the 1990s, the opera is about a community college student and "riot-grrrl" named Dawn, who is dealing with the impact of her father's suicide and confronting his legacy as an outsider artist. The new opera will be scored for eight singers and five musicians.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 7 Grant Amount: $15,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 05/2021 - 03/2022 Florentine Opera Company, Inc. (aka Florentine Opera) 1864359-36
Milwaukee, WI 53212-2212
To support a reimagined production of Puccini's La Bohème. The opera will be set in Milwaukee's Bronzeville neighborhood during the 1940s, when neighborhood businesses were owned by African Americans and the area reflected a vibrant arts and culture scene. The performances will feature an all African-American cast.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 4 Grant Amount: $15,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 05/2021
Florida Grand Opera, Inc. 1864049-36
Miami, FL 33122-1504
To support performances of Fellow Travelers by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce. In 1953, amidst the Red Scare paranoia about communism during the Cold War, President Eisenhower signed an Executive Order that deemed being gay a security risk, and thus began a systematic effort to remove gay people from the Federal Government, which became known as the Lavender Scare. The opera, set during the Lavender Scare, when an estimated 10,000 people were fired or forced to resign, tells the love story of Timothy Laughlin, an aspiring young journalist, and Hawkins Fuller, a State Department official.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 25 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 05/2021
Greenville Light Opera Works 1865424-36-21
Greenville, SC 29605-6429
To support the world premiere of Stinney: An American Execution by composer and co-librettist Frances Pollock and co-librettist Tia Price. Based on the life of 14-year-old George Junius Stinney, Jr., who, in 1944 in Alcolu, South Carolina, was wrongly accused of the rape and murder of two white girls. Stinney was subsequently convicted and became the youngest person legally executed in 20th-century America.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 3 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 10/2021 - 09/2022
Guerilla Opera 1864055-36
Boston, MA 02123-0486
To support the development and premiere of Island of Hope, Island of Tears by composer Gabriele Vanoni, librettist Ewa Chrusciel, and video artist Laine Rettmer. Based on true stories of immigrants to the United States, the multimedia immersive opera will weave together oral and written interviews drawn from the Ellis Island Oral Histories project with artifacts brought to this country. Through the perspective of three protagonists, the opera will present themes of cultural identity and will shed light on the acceptance or intolerance of different immigrant cultures throughout our nation's history. Activities will include workshops, an installation, and premiere performances.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 3 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 07/2021 Houston Grand Opera (aka ) 1864191-36 Association, Inc.
Houston, TX 77002-1504
To support a new production of Breaking the Waves by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek. Based on the 1996 film by Lars Von Trier, the opera tells the story of a husband and wife grappling with the issue of infidelity after a paralyzing accident.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 18 Grant Amount: $70,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 03/2021 - 05/2021
In Series Inc., The 1865741-36
Washington, DC 20009-4425
To support the commission and premiere of Black Flute featuring Mozart's music and a revised story and perspective concieved by playwright Sybil Williams and poet Jarrod Lee. The Magic Flute will be re-imagined with the creation of a new English text for both the sung and spoken sections of the opera, reframing the narrative in the style of an African folk-narrative featuring Mozart's music, African drumming, and hip-hop. As many as 50 students will spend a year learning about Mozart's opera and will suggest their own reading of the work, which will inform the final concept for Black Flute. Students will be commissioned to design and create the set and costumes, and performances of the final work will be presented to local student groups as an example of opera reclaimed as a multicultural space. The work will be scored for six performers, one actor, and local youth performers.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 98 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2021
Intermountain Opera Association (aka Intermountain Opera) 1864279-36 of Bozeman
Bozeman, MT 59715-4760
To support a recital series. The concerts will allow the company to engage artists and bring operatic performances to the community. The recital series may be expanded to a small staged production.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 1 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021
Kentucky Opera Association, Inc. 1863944-36
Louisville, KY 40202-2141
To support a new production of Orfeo and Euridice by Christopher Willibald Gluck. Based on the 1762 opera by Gluck, in this production the roles of Orfeo ("O") and Euridice ("E") will be cast as two married women, to show that the story of love and commitment is a universal experience to people of all backgrounds and identities. O waits at the hospital to learn if the doctor can save E, a wounded soldier and O's wife, who recently sustained injuries in war. Faced with the possible loss of her wife, O's mind journeys through the worst and best times of their relationship.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 3 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 05/2021 Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, (aka ) 1865367-36-21 Inc.
San Francisco, CA 94102-3916
To support a double-bill of Swipe! by composer Anthony R. Green and librettist Mark Labowskie and 4:30 Movie by composer Kurt Rohde and librettist Donna Masini. Swipe! will speculate on a future affected by today's dating apps by tracking the relationship trajectory of a number of characters whose intimacy is mediated through the use of futurist dating technology. 4:30 Movie is based on the librettist's funny, touching, and ruthless poems written about her sister's cancer diagnosis, treatment, and death. Each of the new micro-operas will be up to 35 minutes in length and will be created and performed with small groups to allow performances anywhere. The project also will include workshops and premiere performances.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 12 Grant Amount: $15,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2022
Long Beach Opera (aka LBO) 1865157-36
Long Beach, CA 90805-3757
To support the bi-coastal world premiere of Comet / Poppea conceived by Yuval Sharon with score by George Lewis and libretto by Douglas Kearney. The work explores the opera genre's association with elitism and societal racism by juxtaposing Monteverdi's 1643 opera The Coronation of Poppea with W.E.B. Du Bois' 1920 fiction short story "The Comet." Using Monteverdi's masterpiece as a point of departure, the composer will create a new work based on the W.E.B. Du Bois short story. The two worlds will unfold simultaneously on a constantly rotating stage, one half of the stage portraying an ancient world where power and sex eclipse morality, while the other half portrays a 20th-century setting that takes on issues of race and love in the vacuum of an imagined apocalypse. The new work is a co-production with National Sawdust, the Gagosian Gallery, and the Metropolitan Opera.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 44 Grant Amount: $25,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021
Los Angeles Opera Company (aka LA Opera) 1865645-36
Los Angeles, CA 90012-3013
To support Breaking the Waves by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek. Based on the 1996 film by Lars Von Trier, the opera tells the story of a husband and wife grappling with the issue of infidelity after a paralyzing accident.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 34 Grant Amount: $65,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2021 Lyric Opera of Chicago (aka Lyric Opera or Lyric) 1863555-36
Chicago, IL 60606-2899
To support Florencia en el Amazonas by composer Daniel Catán and librettist Marcela Fuentes- Berain. Based on the work by Gabriela García Márquez, the story is set in the 20th century on board a steamboat in the Amazon River, where a famous opera singer is returning home to perform at the opera house in hopes of reuniting with her long-lost love, Cristóbal.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 7 Grant Amount: $65,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 10/2021 - 12/2021
Metropolitan Opera Association, (aka The Metropolitan Opera; The Met) 1865752-36-21 Inc.
New York, NY 10023-6980
To support the American premiere of Hamlet by composer Brett Dean and librettist Matthew Jocelyn. The new work features an occasionally jazzy score, a text that has had incisive cuts, rearrangements, and adapted portions, and will be presented in a modern-dress production created by Neil Armfield for the 2017 Glyndebourne (United Kingdom) premiere.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 10 Grant Amount: $75,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 08/2021 - 07/2022
Michigan Opera Theatre (aka MOT) 1864190-36
Detroit, MI 48226-2115
To support performances of Another Brick in the Wall: The Opera by lyricist/composer Roger Waters and composer Julien Bilodeau. The opera is based on the Pink Floyd album The Wall (1979) and Alan Parker's live action/animated musical drama feature film Pink Floyd - The Wall (1982). The story focuses on a British musician (Pink) struggling through isolation and alienation to come to terms with the death of his father during Pink's infancy in World War II. Written for 8 soloists, a chorus of 48, and a 70-piece orchestra, the opera will feature rock concert-inspired lighting effects and video projections to translate the iconic experience of Pink Floyd's original concerts.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 13 Grant Amount: $40,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 04/2021
Minnesota Opera (aka ) 1864444-36
Minneapolis, MN 55401-1225
To support performances of Albert Herring by composer Benjamin Britten. The production is part of a larger effort to explore new, more contemporary repertoire, and is part of an effort to re-frame the opera canon in order to present stories in a new way. The story holds potential to connect with Minnesota audiences, with its tie to rural, regional life as well as local May Day celebrations. The production will be developed to align with COVID-19 safety measures, as the work is well-suited to outdoor performance. The opera will be presented either via digital platform or live at an outdoor venue, with an advanced recording to ensure greatest flexibility.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 5 Grant Amount: $45,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021 Music and Dance Theater (aka Harris Theater for Music and 1863860-36 Chicago Inc. Dance)
Chicago, IL 60601-6530
To support performances of Cape Town Opera in the Mandela Trilogy and the premiere of a new adaption for young audiences Freedom in Our Time at the Harris Theater. The first work is a musical collage of traditional Xhosa songs, jazz, and opera and centers around the life of Nelson Mandela. The second work will introduce young people to the life of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's fight for equality, and the country's rich, dynamic music and culture.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 7 Grant Amount: $20,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 02/2021 - 02/2021
Music of Remembrance (aka ) 1864824-36
Seattle, WA 98115-8163
To support the commission, premiere, and professional recording of Tres Minutos by composer Nicolas Lell Benavides and librettist Marella Martin Koch. The title of the opera refers to a program allowing selected families separated by immigration policies a three-minute supervised reunion at the border. Avoiding politics and ideology, the opera will explore the consequences of separation in intimate emotional terms. The opera portrays a fictional brother and sister who share DNA but not citizenship, and the differences that confront them as a result. The project includes a world premiere in Seattle, a subsequent performance in San Francisco, and the production of a professional-quality video recording.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 7 Grant Amount: $20,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 08/2021
New Camerata Opera, INC 1865414-36
New York, NY 10034-2939
To support a double-bill of Faust et Hélène by Lili Boulanger and L'heure Espagnole (The Spanish Time) by Maurice Ravel with a new reduced chamber orchestration. Based on a text by Eugène Adénis and inspired by Goethe's Faust, the cantata is about the scholar Faust who wants to experience true love unbound by time so asks Méphistophélés to awaken the legendary Helen of Troy from the grave. At age 19, Boulanger was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix de Rome award for this cantata, making her the first woman to do so. Based on the French play by Franc-Nohain, L'Heure Espagnole is a one-act opera set in 18th-century Spain about a clockmaker's unfaithful wife whose paramours hide, and eventually become stuck, inside her husband's clocks.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 13 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 05/2021 - 05/2021 NOW Ensemble Inc 1865574-36
New York, NY 10003-6706
To support the final development and U.S. premiere of A Marvelous Order by composer Judd Greenstein and animator/director Joshua Frankel with a libretto by former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. The two-act opera is about the battle between two American urban visionaries, Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, whose decisions would shape New York City in the 1960 and beyond. The opera asks a question that resounds in cities across the globe: who gets to decide what to build and what to destroy? Activities will include the final development phase of the work, rehearsals, and premieres.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 10 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2021
On Site Opera, Inc. (aka ) 1865629-36
New York, NY 10022-3181
To support performances of Taking Up Serpents by composer Kamala Sankaram and librettist Jerre Dye, and Amahl and the Night Visitors by composer Gian Carlo Menotti as part of the company's tenth anniversary season. The first opera follows 25-year-old Kayla, the estranged daughter of a snake-handling Pentecostal preacher. Set in the Appalachian South, the opera interweaves the present with Kayla's memories of her difficult upbringing in the church. In line with the company's mission to produce site-specific operas, performances will be staged in a storefront church in Manhattan to evoke the church environment so integral to the story. The second opera will include a chorus of volunteer singers and dancers in residency at Breaking Ground, the city's largest provider of housing for the homeless, who will perform alongside professional soloists and the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 12 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2021
Opera Association of Central (aka Opera Columbus) 1864059-36 Ohio
Columbus, OH 43215-4203
To support Opera Columbus' new production of Puccini's La Bohème. The opera about early 19th- century bohemians in Paris will be staged in Columbus's modern-day "bohemian" artists space—a century-old former factory converted to a creative artists space. Performed in the round, with the orchestra on each side of the stage and the audience seated along the other two sides of the stage, a new chamber orchestration will be created for this production to reflect the nontraditional orchestra setup required by the space. There will be no set, but rather lighting will provide the main visual component, which will be a rock concert aesthetic, and performances in English will feature a new translation.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 3 Grant Amount: $20,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 03/2021 - 06/2021 Opera Cultura (aka ) 1864790-36
San Leandro, CA 94577-3646
To support the commission and performance of Mi Camino (My Pathway/Journey) by composer/librettist Héctor Armienta. The new song cycle is inspired by stories collected from new immigrants, immigrants at risk of being deported, and recently deported immigrants. Video interviews of immigrants who have recently arrived in the United States and those recently deported to Mexico will be incorporated into the production to support the narrative. A community component will engage foster youth, incarcerated youth, and students.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 13 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021
Opera Maine (aka Opera Maine (formerly 1864643-36 PORTopera))
Portland, ME 04101-4613
To support a new production of Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale. The opera will be set in the 1920s with an art deco aesthetic that will create a new twist on the tale of an old bachelor's romantic delusions and the young lovers who outwit him. The creative team may include conductor Giovanni Reggioli, director Dona D. Vaughn, set designer Germán Cárdenas-Alaminos, Tony Award-winning lighting designer Tyler Micoleau, and costume designer Millie Hiibel.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 1 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 09/2021
Opera on Tap (aka ) 1865472-36
Brooklyn, NY 11218-2408
To support The Playground Operas. This school-day residency program that will immerse elementary school children in the creation, production, and performance of an opera. Through as many as ten sessions, students will participate in hour-long workshops which will culminate in an opera performance on the school's playground.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 9 Grant Amount: $15,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2021
Opera Orlando Inc 1864069-36-21
Orlando, FL 32803-5316
To support workshops and the premiere of The Secret River by composer Stella Sung and Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Mark Campbell. Based on Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' book, the opera is set in Florida during the Great Depression, and centers on an imaginative young girl who realizes her community and family have fallen on hard times. She learns of a secret river teeming with fish and brings home enough food to feed her family and community. She attempts to find it again only to learn a lesson about humility and the difference between asking for too much and asking for enough. The first opera the company has commissioned, activities will include a piano-vocal workshop, an orchestra and technical workshop, and performances.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 7 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2021 Opera Parallele 1864206-36
San Francisco, CA 94102-6011
To support the world premiere of Sophia's Forest by composer Lembit Beecher and librettist Hannah Moskovitch and La Belle et La Bête (The Beauty and the Beast) by composer and librettist Philip Glass. Inspired by the composer's grandmother and infant mother's escape from Estonia during World War II having survived the Nazi and Soviet occupations of their country, the libretto of Sophia's Forest unfolds during the 1990s war in the Balkans. The opera focuses on a nine-year old's recent immigration to the United States, and how she uses her imagination to survive the traumatic journey and civil war in her homeland. La Belle et la Bête is the second part of a Trilogy written by Glass as an homage to French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau. Based on the Cocteau film of the same name, the opera for ensemble and film replaced the original film soundtrack with the composers music and as well as written music for singers to perform on stage. Productions of the work comprise the film projected on screen, musicians on stage, and singer in front of the film screen. This production of La Belle et la Bête will present a hybrid film-opera which involves singers performing live that, at times, also will be "transported" into the Cocteau film.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 12 Grant Amount: $25,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021
Opera Philadelphia 1865592-36
Philadelphia, PA 19102-4204
To support the American Premiere of The Listeners by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek as part of Festival O21. A co-commission with National Norwegian Opera and based on the story by playwright Jordan Tannahill, the opera is set in a suburban enclave of the American Southwest and revolves around a middle-aged school teacher who is beset by hearing a hum—an environmental din of unknown origins that only a select few people in her community can hear.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 2 Grant Amount: $35,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 12/2021
Opera San Jose, Inc. (aka ) 1864246-36
San Jose, CA 95131-1312
To support a new production of Strauss' Salome that will use immersive technology and virtual reality (VR). The company plans to place interactive multimedia and VR installations throughout the lobby that illustrate historical portrayals of Salome and will install closed circuit televisions in wig and makeup rooms that will allow patrons to see areas previously concealed from view. The characters from the opera also will be seated in the audience and the orchestra will be visible on-stage behind the set. The Resident Artist Program annually provides up to seven artists, musicians, and directors opportunities to perform leading roles, conduct, and work on the creative team for mainstage productions. Participants are provided coaching, professional development, annual salary, health benefits, and a rent-free apartment that allows artists to concentrate on developing performance experience and role repertoire.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 17 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021 Pittsburgh Opera Theater, Inc. (aka Pittsburgh Festival Opera) 1865722-36
Pittsburgh, PA 15201-2808
To support performances of The Falling and Rising by composer Zach Redler and librettist Jerry Dye. Commissioned and produced in 2016 by the U.S. Army Field Band, the opera is about a soldier's imagined journey as she is in a coma following an injury from a roadside improvised explosive device while deployed. A series of panel discussions featuring veterans, scholars, the composer, and librettist will tackle subjects including post-traumatic stress disorder, mental health, creative arts therapy, and how the opera is used as a tool for reflection and healing for military service people facing such real-life challenges. Performances will occur at the Soldiers and Sailors Hall and at the VA Hospital in Pittsburgh.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 18 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 06/2021 - 08/2021
Pittsburgh Opera, Inc. (aka ) 1865848-36
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-4639
To support performances of Charlie Parker's Yardbird by composer Daniel Schnyder and librettist Bridgette Wimberly. The opera centers around the life of legendary jazz musician Charlie Parker and explores love, loss, and the nature of creativity as viewed through the prism of racial inequality, drug abuse, and mental illness.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 14 Grant Amount: $25,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021
San Diego Opera Association (aka ) 1865966-36
San Diego, CA 92101-4095
To support a new production of La Hija de Rappaccini (Rappaccini's Daughter) by composer Daniel Catán and librettist Juan Tovar. Based on the 1956 play by Nobel Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz and the 1844 short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two-act opera is about a mad scientist and his daughter. Raised in isolation and intentionally exposed to his toxic plants, she has been made immune to their effects, but she and the plants are poisonous to others. Originally scored for five principals and a chorus of three female voices, the company will present a reduced orchestration version for two pianos, percussion, and harp. It is a co-production with Jardín Botánico Culiacán and Sociedad Artística Sinaloense (Mexico.)
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 52 Grant Amount: $20,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 05/2021
San Francisco Opera Association (aka ) 1864243-36
San Francisco, CA 94102-4509
To support the American premiere of Innocence by composer Kaija Saariaho and librettist Sofi Oksanen. The focus of the opera is the exploration of generational conflict in the wake of trauma—a random attack targeting innocent young students. The production was co-commissioned by the Aix- en-Provence Festival, Dutch National Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the Finnish National Opera.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 12 Grant Amount: $75,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2023 - 12/2024 Santa Fe Opera (aka ) 1865460-36
Santa Fe, NM 87506-2823
To support the world premiere The Lord of Cries by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Corigliano and liberttist Mark Adamo. The opera is based on the points of intersection between Euripides' The Bacchae and Bram Stoker's Dracula, timeless stories that explore our animal nature and its ability to turn monstrous and destroy us. When a strange, androgynous deity returns to earth and materializes in Victorian England as Dracula, he offers a mortal three chances to "ask for what you want," or risk the consequences.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 3 Grant Amount: $70,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 09/2021
Seattle Opera (aka ) 1863835-36
Seattle, WA 98109-4600
To support semi-staged filmed performances of Flight by composer Jonathan Dove and librettist April De Angelis, with an adapted production by Opera Parallèle. The opera is based on the true story of stateless refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri's 18-year forced residency at Charles de Gaulle Airport (Paris, France). The work uses comedy to explore the challenges faced by refugees and the societal need for empathy and understanding. The project includes performances with a reduced- size cast, orchestra, and crew, a virtual film presentation via YouTube, and a live broadcast on Classical KING FM.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 7 Grant Amount: $25,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 03/2021
UrbanArias, Inc. 1865599-36
Arlington, VA 22201-5869
To support the American premiere of #echochamber by composer Michael Betteridge and librettist Ingunn Kristjansdotter. The opera is inspired by the true story of Justine Sacco, an American corporate communications director, who tweeted "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" before boarding a plane. When she disembarked 12 hours later, she discovered her tweet had gone viral and she had been fired from her job; yet her odyssey of public shaming had only begun. The new production will be translated into English by the librettist, and the composer will expand the original orchestration from piano to eight instrumentalists. An interactive opera, the audience is encouraged to tweet throughout the performances and those tweets will appear on onstage screens.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 8 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 07/2021 - 12/2022 Washington Concert Opera (aka WCO) 1865342-36
Washington, DC 20009-4101
To support a concert opera production of Vincenzo Bellini's I Puritani. Set in 1640s England during the English Civil War between the Royalists and Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell, the opera depicts the love between a Royalist cavalier and a Puritan woman driven to madness. Related project activities may include lectures, discussion groups, a meet-the-artists event, and open dress rehearsals for voice majors from local universities.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 98 Grant Amount: $10,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 06/2021
Washington National Opera (aka WNO) 1864876-36
Washington, DC 20037-1905
To support a new production of Mozart's Così fan tutte (Thus Do They All). The opera is about two male friends challenged by a cynical philosopher about the fickleness of women, who set out to prove that their respective lovers are steadfastly faithful. This production will explore feminism, gender roles, and gender politics—both in the 18th-century and in the present. The creative team may include legendary opera soprano and Grammy Award-winning Renée Fleming in her directorial debut, director Francesca Zambello, conductor Dalia Stasevkska, production designer S. Katy Tucker, set designer Erhard Rom, costume designer Amanda Seymour, and lighting designer Mark McCullough.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 98 Grant Amount: $50,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 03/2021
White Snake Projects, Inc. 1864946-36
Brookline, MA 02445-5915
To support the commissioning, development, and world premiere of Monkey: A Kung Fu Puppet Parable by composer Jorge Sosa and librettist Cerise Lim Jacobs. Based on the iconic Asian quest saga "Journey to the West," a monk journeys West to bring the Buddhist Sutras back to China and is accompanied by a band of misfits: Monkey is hatched from a stone egg, a gluttonous man is reincarnated as a Pig (Zhu), and a woman, is now a cannibalistic monster (Sha). A family-friendly transmedia work, the company will create a puppet-centric show with Monkey, Zhu, and Sha as life- size puppets who will sometimes "merge" into avatars projected in 3D. Bunraku puppetry and computer-generated imagery (CGI) will combine to create characters that will exist as live singers, puppets, and 3D avatars.
Fiscal Year: 2021 Congressional District: 4 Grant Amount: $15,000
Category: Grants for Arts Projects Discipline: Opera Grant Period: 01/2021 - 10/2021