. - .. Brooklyn " PeterJa y Sharp Building Communications Department Academy 30 LafayetteAvenue Sandy Sawotka of Brooklyn NY 11217- 1486 Fatima Kafele Music Telephone: 718.636.4129 Eva Chien Fax: 718.857 .2021 Tamara McCaw Jennifer Lam [email protected] News Release

BAM Presents Handel's Hercules, directed by Luc Bondy, featuring the return of Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie

Acclaimed Aix-en-Provence Festival production makes its U.S. premiere

BAM 2006 Spring Season is sponsored by Bloomberg

Hercules Music by Les Arts Florissants An Aix-en-Provence Festival Production Conducted by William Christie Directed by Luc Bondy

Set design by Richard Peduzzi Costume design by Rudy Sabounghi Lighting design by Dominique Bruguiere Movement director : Michel Kelemenis

A co-production with Aix-en-Provence Festival , the , and the Wiener Festwochen

With William Shimell (Hercules ), Joyce DiDonato (Dejanira), Ed Lyon (Hyllus), Ingela Bohlin (Iole), Katija Dragojevic (Lichas) , and Simon Kirkbride (Priest of Jupiter)

In English with English titles BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave) Feb 14*, 16* & 18t at 7:30pm Feb 19t at 3pm *Tickets: $35, 75, 110, 135 tTickets: $45, 85, 125, 150 Call 718.636.4100 or visit www.bam .org

" .. . Bondy' s stage direction is both brilliantly straightforward and intensely dramatic." -Le Figaro (Dec 8, 2004) Brooklyn, January 11, 2006--Baroque music ensemble Les Arts Florissants , led by its renowned founder William Christie, returns to BAM in Handel 's dramatic English opera, Hercules . This acclaimed Aix-en­ Provence Festival production is presented at BAM in its U.S. premiere. Director Luc Bondy-making his NY debut-modernizes this rarely performed,secular oratorio depictingthe tragic return of the hero after a triumphant military campaign. This ancient myth is performed on a sparse stage, carpeted in sand and evoking a Greek amphitheater . A monumental, shattered statue is the central scenic element, surrounded by moving platforms.

Completing the modem staging of the Baroque opera, a 32-member choir in contemporary dress will move about the stage and serve as both a traditional chorus and as spectators. Written in 1744, Hercules features some of Handel's most daring musical composition and vivid characterizations. "A highlight of the [Aix-en-Provence] festival," declared Opera News of Hercules, "It is a masterpiece. The heroes may be mythical, but their problems are timeless ."

Hercules will take place in the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House on Feb 14*, 16* & 18t at 7:30pm and Feb 19t at 3pm. Tickets-priced at $35, 75, 110, and 135 (Feb 14 & 16) and $45, 85, 125, and 150 (Feb 18 & 19}­ may be purchased by calling BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100 or by visiting www.bam .org.

With its origins in Sophocles and Ovid, Hercules considers the overwhelming and poisonous power of human jealousy. After Hercules' long absence on a military campaign, his wife, Dcjanira, fears he has died. But her lament is interrupted by the hero's triumphant return, accompanied by an unexpected prize of conquest: the beautiful princess Iole, whom Hercules has ravaged an entire city to possess. Assuming her husband has been unfaithful with his new slave, Dejanira ' s grief turns to jealous rage and, despite all protestations of innocence from both Hercules and Iole, she brings about his untimely death by poisoning his cloak. American mezzo­ soprano Joyce DiDonato, who sings Dejanira, gives a magnificent performance as a jealous wife turned murderer sinking into an abyss of madness and agony. Hercules premiered in Aix-en-Provence in 2004 and has since been performed at Opera de Paris and in Vienna.

About the artists Les Arts Florissants, founded by William Christie in Paris in 1979, takes its name from a three-century-old work by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and is widely considered to be the foremost Baroque opera ensemble. Les Arts Florissants is renowned for its crystalline renditions and reconstructions of and scores by largely French, Italian, and English seventeenth and eighteenth-century Baroque composers such as Lully, Monteverdi , and Purcell. Since 1989, Christie and Les Arts Florissants have performed seven operas and six concerts at BAM, including Arys (1989, 1992), Medee (1994), Orlando (1996), Hippolyte et Aricie (1997), Theodora (2000), II ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (2002), and Les Boreades (2003), as well as concerts in 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1999. Christie regularly guest-conducts orchestras and lectures on early music, and has recently established an academy for young singers called Le Jardin des Voix . Christie was the first American to become a professor at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris (1982), was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur in 1993, and is now a French citizen.

Director Luc Bondy studied pantomime and made his debut at the Paris Theatre Universitaire International. He became an assistant at the Thalia Theater in 1969 and co-directed the Berlin Schaubuhne from 1985- 1987. Since 1971, Bondy has directed numerous significant productions including Schnitzler's Das Weite Land (Nanterre, 1984); Botha Strauss' Time and the Room (Berlin, 1989); Ibsen' s John Gabriel Barkman (Lausanne and Vienna, 1993); Beckett's (Lausanne and Vienna , 1999); Chekhov's (Vienna, 2000); 's Drei Mal Leben (Vienna, 2000); 's Auf dem Land ( and Berlin, 2001); Strauss's Unerwartete Ruckkehr (Berlin, 2002); Schnitzler 's Anatol (Vienna, 2002); Reza's A Spanish Play (Paris, 2004); Crimp's Cruel and Tender (Vienna and London, 2004); and Strauss' Die eine und die andere (Berlin, 2005). Acclaimed for his brilliant opera interpretations, Bondy has directed Wozzeck (Hamburg, 1976); Cosifan tutte (Brussels, 1986); (Salzburg, Florence, London, and Paris, starting in 1992), (Paris, 1996); (Edinburgh, 1999 and Vienna, 2000); Boesman's Wintermarchen (Brussels, 1999); and Britten's The Turn of the Screw (Aix-en-Provence, 2001 and 2005, and Vienna, 2002). He recently staged for the reopening of Teatro della Scala. Luc Bondy has also directed three films, published several books, and has directed the Wiener Festwochen since 2001.

Baritone William Shimell (Hercules) has sung Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro in Milan (under ), Geneva, Zurich, , Chicago, Madrid, Glyndebourne, and at Vienna Staatsoper and Paris Bastille; as well as Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte at Covent Garden, Paris Bastille, the , and in Rome, Geneva, Zurich, and Tokyo. Shimell has performed the role of in Amsterdam, Zurich, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Madrid, San Francisco, Lyon, and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. He has also sung Marcello in La Boheme, Nick Shadow in The Rake's Progress, Olivier in Capriccio, Sharpless in Madame Butte,:fly, and de Bretigny in Manon .

American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato (Dejanira) was the recipient of the 2002 Richard Tucker Award and has sung at Houston Grand Opera, , , Munich Bayerische Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera, Covent Garden, and Teatro Real in Madrid. DiDonato has sung in the world premieres of Mark Adamo's Little Women (Meg) and Tod Machover's Resurrection (Maslova); and has performed Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Nicklausse in Les Contes D 'Hoffmann, Rosina in II Barbiere di Siviglia, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, Ino in Semele, Angelina in La Cenerentola, Sesto in Giulio Cesare, Idamante in Idomenee, Sister Helen in Dead Man Walking, the Wix.en in The Cunning Little Wixen, and Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda.

Credits BAM 2006 Spring Season is sponsored by Bloomberg. CAL YON Corporate and Investment Bank is the presenting sponsor for Hercules. Hercules is made possible with major support from the Grand Marnier Foundation and Anne H. Bass. Leadership support for BAM French programs is provided by The Florence Gould Foundation, with additional support from the Fribourg Family Foundation.

Support for BAM Opera is provided by Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation, Inc . Opera endowment funding has been provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund for Opera & Music Theater and The Peter Jay Sharp Fund for Opera and Theater. Programming in the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House is supported and endowed by The Howard Gilman Foundation.

BAM thanks its many donors and sponsors, including: Department of Cultural Affairs, The New York City Council, Brooklyn Delegation of the New York City Council, Brooklyn Delegation of the U.S. House of Representatives, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Estate of Richard B. Fisher, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Florence Gould Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Starr Foundation, Time Warner Inc., The Shubert Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Skirball Foundation, The Kovner Foundation, and Robert W. Wilson Foundation. JPMorgan Chase is BAM's Lead Corporate Partner. New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge is the official hotel for the Next Wave Festival. Yamaha is the official piano of BAM . RIGA is the sponsor ofBAM.org.

General information BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, BAMcafe, and Shakespeare & Co. BAMshop are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn's only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafe, operated by Great Performances, also features an eclectic mix of spoken word and live music on Friday and Saturday nights. A $21 three-course dinner at BAMcafe is available Fri-Sat for BAM Rose Cinemas ticket holders ( day of screening only). BAMcafe is open Fridays and Saturdays from 5pm -closing . Additionally, BAMcafe is open two hours prior to all Howard Gilman Opera House and Harvey Theater performances. Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B to Atlantic Avenue ; D, M, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue Train: Long Island Railroad to Flatbush A venue Bus: B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM Car: Commercial parking lots are located adjacent to BAM

For ticket and BAMbus information , call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit www.bam.org.

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