The Curtis Opera Theatre

"More than a few cities around the country could feel lucky to have this as their local professional production."--The Philadelphia Inquirer, about La Bohème (2004)

ABOUT THE CURTIS OPERA THEATRE
The Curtis Opera Theatre, headed by Mikael Eliasen, is composed of approximately twenty-five singers, ages eighteen to twenty-eight. Each season the Curtis Opera Theatre presents fully staged performances and concert productions in venues such as the Prince Music Theater, Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and the Curtis Opera Studio. More than sixty alumni have sung with the Metropolitan Opera, and Curtis graduates can be found on the rosters of opera companies worldwide.

Curtis accepts a limited number of singers from all over the world into the vocal studies program, which can lead to a Bachelor of Music degree, a Master of Music in Opera degree, or a Professional Studies Certificate in Opera. With equal emphasis on musical and dramatic values, the program includes weekly classes in movement, repertoire, make-up, and foreign language diction, as well as performance seminars given by Mr. Eliasen. Every student receives a minimum of three hours per week of coaching with members of the outstanding faculty, as well as additional elective and language courses.

Singers also appear in the Student Recital Series and in concert performances with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra.

[top]

2007-08 SEASON
(Click below for production details)

Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart)
La Voix humaine (Poulenc) and Baroque cantata (Haydn or Vivaldi)
L'elisir d'amore (Donizetti)
Ainadamar (Golijov)
Iolanta (Tchaikovsky)

TICKETS

[top]

PRODUCTION DETAILS

Le nozze di Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Prince Music Theater
Thursday, November 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 18 at 2 p.m.

Mark Russell Smith, conductor
Chas Rader-Shieber, stage director
Nicholas Vaughan, scenic design
Jessica Trejos, costume design
Lenore Doxsee, lighting design

Perhaps the valet Figaro and his fiancée, the maid Susanna, shouldn't plan to live as newlyweds in a room between the Count and Countess--convenient for work, yes, but also for unwanted play. Mozart's comic masterpiece sparks musical and dramatic delights as a sequence of clever schemes provokes jealousy, passion, and laughter.

Program notes

Fully staged production with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, sung in the original Italian with English supertitles

This production is funded in part by a grant from the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.

La Voix humaine by Francis Poulenc
and either Arianna a Naxos by Haydn or
Cessate, omai cessate by Vivaldi
Curtis Opera Studio
Thursday, November 29 at 8 p.m. (Haydn)
Friday, November 30 at 8 p.m. (Haydn)
Saturday, December 1 at 2:30 p.m. (Haydn)
Saturday, December 1 at 8 p.m. (Vivaldi)
Sunday, December 2 at 2:30 p.m. (Haydn)
Sunday, December 2 at 8 p.m. (Vivaldi)

Mikael Eliasen, music director
Chas Rader-Shieber, stage director

This double-bill explores lost love across the centuries, from Poulenc's dramatic phone call between lovers back to Baroque cantatas.

Accompanied by piano and sung in English and Italian.

L'elisir d'amore by Gaetano Donizetti
Curtis Opera Studio
Thursday, February 14 at 8 p.m.
Friday, February 15 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, February 16 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, February 17 at 2:30 p.m.

Danielle Orlando, music director
Ned Canty, stage director

A love potion? Adina dismisses the absurd notion. Nemorino yearns for it. And Dr. Dulcamara sells just such an elixir in Donizetti's romantic comedy. But more than an intoxicating bottle is needed to overcome the barriers in their way, as Adina flirts with a handsome sergeant and Nemorino joins the military in despair. A timely inheritance--or is it the elixir?--intervenes.

Program notes

Fully staged production with piano accompaniment, sung in the original Italian.

Ainadamar by Osvaldo Golijov [Philadelphia premiere]
(in collaboration with Kimmel Center Presents and the Opera Company of Philadelphia)

Music by Osvaldo Golijov
Libretto by David Henry Hwang
Translated into Spanish by Osvaldo Golijov
By arrangement with Ytalianna Music Publishing, publisher and copyright owner

Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center
Friday, March 14 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, March 15 at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 16 at 2:30 p.m.

Corrado Rovaris, conductor
Chas Rader-Shieber, stage director
David Zinn, scenic design
Richard St. Clair, costume design
Mark Barton, lighting design

One of the most talked-about new operas in years comes to Philadelphia. Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar revisits the 1936 assassination of the eloquent Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca by Franco's Fascists. The tale unfolds through the memories of Lorca's muse, a Catalán actress, weaving flamenco rhythms and passionate melodies into a tapestry of "feeling, melody, and richly tonal harmonic writing" (New York Times).

Fully staged production with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, sung in the original Spanish with English supertitles. This production of Ainadamar is made possible by a grant from the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the University of the Arts.

Iolanta by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Prince Music Theater
Friday, May 9 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, May 11 at 2:30 p.m.

Rossen Milanov, conductor

A white rose, offered to a knight, blossoms into love--and sight--for the blind princess Iolanta. This fairy tale pairs light and romance, accompanied by Tchaikovsky's rich melodies.

Program notes

Concert production with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, sung in the original Russian with English supertitles.

This production of the Curtis Opera Theatre is funded in part by a grant from the Spector Gadon & Rosen Foundation.

Single tickets: $33; available at the Prince Music Theater box office and through UpStages, 215-569-9700

[top]