BEHIND THE CURTAIN SPRING 2011

Gotham Chamber Opera is GREETINGS FROM the nation’s foremost com- OUR PRESIDENT pany dedicated to produc- 2001 may not have been a propitious time to ing rarely-performed cham- start an opera company in New York City, but ber operas from the Baroque Neal Goren believed that his vision of producing era to the present. chamber works at the highest level of musician- Our mission is to present in- ship could succeed in a climate hungry for cul- novative, fully-staged produc- tural affirmation. Neal had the tireless support tions of the highest quality in of founding board members and original patrons in creating our inspiring and aspiring company intimate venues. initially housed at the Henry Street Settlement. Ten years later both our resilient city and our ir- NEAL GOREN repressible Gotham Chamber Opera are as ARTISTIC DIRECTOR thrilling as ever. We look forward to celebrating Gotham’s tenth anniversary with you, our still loy- DAVID BENNETT al patrons, in the coming season. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a substantial grant to Gotham Chamber BOARD OF DIRECTORS Opera and its producing partners, Music-Theatre Group and the Opera Company of Philadelphia, KAREN LERNER to foster the creation of repertory. While Gotham PRESIDENT EMERITUS will continue to produce intimately scaled clas- sical operas, this support by Mellon promotes TED TRUSSELL PORTER our role as an essential catalyst for exciting new PRESIDENT works. Along with recognizing Gotham’s artis- tic excellence, the Mellon Foundation is also sa- DOMNA C. STANTON luting our company’s professional management, VICE PRESIDENT led by David Bennett and his small but dedicat- ed team. This grant is yet another sign that after DONALD N. GELLERT ten years Gotham remains, in the words of The SECRETARY & TREASURER New York Times, “the preeminent small opera company in New York.” ROBERT BAREUTHER Thank you, BEATRICE BROADWATER Tdusselle r Porter luna della mondo Il BROOKE HAYWARD DUCHIN President of the Board ANDREA K. FALLEK PAUL L. KING

“ WHEN OPERA Termine Richard © Photo , LOUIS MIANO BECAME INTIMATE” JOHN L. MOORE I I I Building on its rich ten-year history, Gotham WILLIAM OLIVER Chamber Opera is gearing up for a cele- ROBERT TURNER bration. The company’s Tenth Anniversary CHRISTIE ULRICH Season will feature the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters, a co-commission Albert Herring, Photo © Richard Termine Ariadne Unhinged, Photo © Richard Termine L'isola disabitata, Photo © Richard Termine with Music-Theatre Group and the Opera moon with the opera’s characters through Company of Philadelphia, as well as the NASA projections on the 360-degree dome NOTES FROM revival of Gotham’s very first production, of the Hayden Planetarium. THE EXECUTIVE Christopher Alden’s staging of Mozart’s Il “When you think of opera, the last thing DIRECTOR Dear Friend of Gotham Chamber Opera, sogno di Scipione. The future of intimate op- you think of is intimate. But that’s what we The upcoming year marks an important era in New York City is very bright. do,” said Neal Goren, Artistic Director and milestone in the history of our company: ten This season underscores Gotham Founder of Gotham Chamber Opera. The seasons of innovative, challenging operatic Chamber Opera’s tremendously successful company made a bold statement of this works for intimate spaces. During this time, partnerships during the past ten years. The mission with its first production, Il sogno di we have produced seventeen new produc- company has worked with a vast array of or- Scipione, performed in 2001 at the 325-seat tions that, taken together, make up a body ganizations and directors to create inventive Abrons Arts Center on the Lower East Side. of operatic work that is unique in New York and engaging opera. Noteworthy collabora- Since then, Gotham has staged seventeen City and beyond. tors include Armitage Gone! Dance (Ariadne new productions, including seven U.S. pre- Gotham Chamber Opera’s first decade Unhinged, a world premiere work with mu- mieres and one world premiere. In this, the is also remarkable because of the many im- sic by Monteverdi, Haydn, and Schoenberg); Tenth Anniversary Season, Gotham adds to portant collaborations we have shared: our David Parsons and Parsons Dance (María de the repertoire of chamber opera by present- first partner, the Henry Street Settlement; the Buenos Aires by Piazzola); and Mark Morris. ing its first commissioned opera, the world Lincoln Center Festival and Spoleto Festival; Last season, Gotham and director Moisés premiere of Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters, as The Morgan Library & Museum; John Jay Kaufmann’s Tectonic Theater Project pre- well as a revival of . College of Criminal Justice; the American sented Montsalvatge’s El gato con botas It was an incredibly difficult work for the Museum of Natural History and American (Puss in Boots) for seventeen performances company’s debut, as Mozart’s allegorical tale Repertory Theater; Tectonic Theater Project at the New Victory Theater on 42nd Street, features an improbable plot and wildly py- and the New Victory Theater; and finally, our with both human and non-human charac- rotechnical arias. But saying that “there is most recent co-commissioning and co-pro- ters represented by the innovative puppetry no such thing as an unstageable opera,” the ducing partners, Music-Theatre Group and of Blind Summit Theatre. director Christopher Alden made the most the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Gotham’s inspired choice of directors of the material – and the resulting produc- These partnerships have allowed us to over the past ten years has directly contrib- tion was greeted with cheers from audienc- grow in a thoughtful, fiscally responsible uted to the intimate theatrical experience of es and critics alike. Anthony Tommasini of manner, even during a time of economic un- its performances. After directing the com- The New York Times enthused that “Mozart certainty. We recently added a new full-time pany’s first production, Christopher Alden never imagined a hero in pajama bottoms.” position, Manager of External Affairs, and returned to the company again in 2005 to The New York Observer added that “there is will soon add another position, Production stage Handel’s Arianna in Creta, emphasiz- much to cheer about the arrival of this new Associate, to be shared with our partner, ing the title character’s loneliness by placing company.” Ten years later, audiences are still Music-Theatre Group. And we now share an her in a room full of portraits. Mark Morris’s cheering. Opera Composers’ Residency Program -- “witty production” (The New York Times) of the first of its kind -- with our partners, the Haydn’s L’isola disabitata in 2009 put the Opera Company of Philadelphia and Music- action on a bare stage with a large, rotat- Theatre Group. ing naturalistic rock as the only set piece. In Next year, our operating budget will sur- 2010 Gotham invited Diane Paulus, director pass $1 million and we will expand our of- of Broadway’s recent hit production of Hair, ferings, both milestones for our still relative- to stage another Haydn opera, Il mondo del- ly young company, and remarkable in light la luna. Thanks to a unique collaboration of the fact that opera companies throughout between Gotham, the American Repertory the country are either shrinking or shutting Theater, and the American Museum of their doors altogether. Natural History, the audience traveled to the Of course, our success is only possible 2 Arianna in Creta, Photo ©Stephanie Berger Il Signor Bruschino, Photo © Richard Termine , Photo © Richard Termine

because of you, our generous supporters. next six months considering authors, poets, Each and every gift has contributed to our and playwrights as potential librettists before success. As we take this opportunity to look being led to . Stephen, it im- back, we do so with much gratitude for your mediately became clear, was Nico’s equiva- support. lent in the theatrical realm, both in spirit and Sincerely, in accomplishment. My mission had already DvidBnnetta e borne rare fruit: a perfectly harmonious col- Executive Director laboration. And now I am happy to say that in Dark Sisters, that collaboration has pro- duced something rarer still: a touching new NOTES FROM opera that I cannot get enough of. OUR ARTISTIC Looking forward is a perpetual job at DIRECTOR Gotham, but on the occasion of our tenth You might have thought I was being prema- anniversary, it is equally important to look ture when, five years ago, I decided that the back with pride and with gratitude on what best way to express the joy and wonder- we—our donors, board, artists, designers, ment of Gotham’s tenth anniversary would staff, and enthusiasts—have already accom- be to commis- plished together. To honor that accomplish- sion an opera ment, I could think of nothing more fitting of our own. than to schedule our first revival, and specif- After all, we ically a revival of the opera that introduced were then just us to New York in the first place: Mozart’s celebrating astonishing Il sogno di Scipione. I hope it our fifth anni- once again proves to be a harbinger of great versary. But things to come. I had big as- pirations for NalGrene o our first com- mission, and five years is a typical gestation period for a work of the size I had in mind. For one thing, because it seemed crucial that the new work’s creators reflect the essence of Gotham Chamber Opera, we needed time to figure out exact- ly what that essence was. I set about col- lecting descriptions of Gotham from our friends, and these are some that were of- fered: young, brash, confident, surprising, scrappy yet elegant, intelligent, and above all, substantive. Those adjectives raised the bar quite high, but after a year of searching, I chanced upon Nico Muhly, whose music I immediate- ly loved and who miraculously matched our list in every particular. Nico and I spent the Nico Muhly and Neal Goren at the Dark Sisters workshop, Photos © Stephanie Berger 3 UPCOMING Tickets for the 2011-2012 Season are now on sale!

Photo © 59 Productions Photo © George Mott DARK SISTERS IL SOGNO DI SCIPIONE by Nico Muhly By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart World Premiere Production 10th Anniversary Production November 9–19, 2011 April 11–21, 2012

All performances at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College. For tickets and information, visit www.gothamchamberopera.org, or call 212-868-4460

NEWS FROM GOTHAM’S SINGERS

CAITLYN LYNCH KEVIN BURDETTE ALBINA SHAGIMUTOVA will be busy before com- is familiar to Gotham au- wowed audiences in Il ing to us as Eliza in diences from his per- mondo della luna and the world premiere of formances as Minos in was greeted with simi- Dark Sisters. Recently Arianna in Creta, the lar acclaim for her per- she sang the roles of Priest in Die schwarze formance of Lucia di Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte Spinne and the Ogre in Lammermoor at Houston (Palm Beach Opera) and Konstanze in The El gato con botas. Recently, he appeared at Grand Opera. In May, she made her debut Abduction from the Seraglio (Arizona Opera) Boston Lyric Opera in Der Kaiser von Atlantis at the Glyndebourne Festival as Donna Anna and this summer will be performing Mrs. and will portray Nick Shadow in The Rake’s in Don Giovanni. Gobineau in The Medium at Spoleto Festival Progress this summer before returning as the USA. Prophet in Dark Sisters. EVE GIGLIOTTI GINGER-COSTA JACKSON WE’D LIKE TO who will portray Ruth in (the Cat in El gato con bo- HEAR FROM YOU Dark Sisters, was recently tas) recently appeared at seen at the Metropolitan the Met as Wowkle in La What do you most enjoy Opera in the new produc- Fanciulla del West, which about Gotham Chamber tion of Die Walküre, which was also broadcast in HD. Opera? was broadcast in HD at She recently made her Please let us know at movie theaters around the world. She will be debut in Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu [email protected] busy this summer singing the Verdi Requiem as Lola in Cavalleria rusticana and will ap- We will report your responses in our autumn with the Baltimore Symphony and Giulietta in pear at Glimmerglass Opera this summer as newsletter. Les contes d’Hoffmann at Wolf Trap Opera. Carmen.

4 HELP US END OUR FISCAL YEAR ON A HIGH NOTE! We hope to be able to count your support among our many successes this year.

El Gato Con Botas, Photo © Richard Termine

The generosity of our donors allows us to present unique, artistically- rewarding productions like this past season’s critically acclaimed El gato con botas. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution before June 30th. Thank you.

For all inquiries, including how to make your gift in stock, please call David Bennett at 212.868.4460. Donations are tax- deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law. The Gotham Chamber Opera is an IRS 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation

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