New programme books for contemporary operas

I have recently received the programme books for the three following performances :

- Jake Heggie : Three Decembers, Milwaukee (Florentine Opera), March 11, 2016 ;
- Bright Sheng : Dream of the Red Chamber, San Franciso, September 10, 2016 ;
- Oscar Strasnoy : Comeback, Berlin (Staatsoper im Schiller Theater), September 30, 2016.

The first one is a 30 pages brochure. It contains :

- complete cast and crew ;
- synopsis ;
- About the Composer ;
- William Florescu : Director's Note ;
- biography of the librettist Gene Scheer ;
- biography of the stage director William Florescu ;
- biography of the conductor Joseph Rescigno ;
- artist biographies, all with color headshots.

The second is a 86 pages magazine. It contains :

- Ken Smith : Dreamweavers - An all-star creative team transports an epic Chinese novel to the operatic stage ;
- Synopsis, personnel, orchestra setting and family tree ;
- complete cast and crew ;
- Ann Waltner : Red Chamber Refelctions ;
- Stephen Roddy : Delving Deeper into 'Dream of the Red Chamber' ;
- Artist profiles with balck and white headshots.

The last one is a poster folded into a 16 pages leaflet. It contains :

- complete cast ;
- biography of Emil Jannings, a character of the opera and first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor ;
- biography of Tilla Durieux, another character of the opera, an Austrian actress ;
- Roman Reeger : Eben war ich noch der Mittelpunkt und jetzt ?

This programme is entirely in German. The scanned covers of all programme books for contemporary operas I have in my collection can be viewed in this flickr folder.

Today : world première of Oscar Strasnoy's 'Comeback' in Berlin

Today, the Staatsoper im Schiller Theater Berlin presents the world première performance of Oscar Strasnoy's new stage work, Comeback, with a libretto by Christoph Hein.

Oscar Strasnoy has composed several works for the stage, operas, operetta and musical-theatre, since Midea (Spoleto, 2000), including Le Bal (Hamburg, 2010), Un Retour (Aix-en-Provence, 2010) and Cachafaz (Quimper, 2010).

Tilla Durieux was once very successful on stage. Years later, things are different. After the suicide of her husband Paul Cassirer and the seizure of power by the National Socialists, she left Germany and experienced years of privation in Croatia, working as a seamstress, before returning to her homeland seven years after the end of the war. Emil Jannings was a successful actor for silent films. He must now answer the questions of his nephew Jörg about his behavior during the Nazi dictatorship. (freely translated from the Staatsoper website)

The cast includes bass baritone Ralf Lukas (Emil Jannings), soprano Josephine Renelt (Tilla 1), soprano Maria Husmann (Tilla 2), baritone Martin Gerke (Paul), countertenor Johannes Euler (Jörg Jannings) and mezzo Nadia Steinhard (Gussy Holl). Max Renne conducts and Ingo Kerkhof directs.

Today : World Première of the new opera composed by Oscar Strasnoy 'Requiem' in Buenos Aires

Today, Oscar Strasnoy's tenth opera, Requiem, with a libretto by Matthew Jocelyn after William Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun will be performed for the first time at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.

The cast is the following : Jennifer Holloway (Temple Drake), Siphiwe McKenzie (Nancy Mannigoe), James Johnson (Gavin Stevens), Damián Ramírez (The Jailor) and Brett Polegato (Geowan Stevens). the opera will be conducted by Christian Baldini and directed by Matthew Jocelyn.

New season 2014-2015 at the Opéra Comique in Paris

During the 2014-2015 season, the Opéra Comique will celebrate its 300th anniversary.

Since Jérôme Deschamps is managing director, this theatre has offered a number of typical 19th Century French opera comiques :
 

- Emmanuel Chabrier : L’Étoile, in December 2007 ;

- Ferdinand Hérold : Zampa, in March and December 2008 ;

- Daniel François Esprit Auber : Fra Diavolo, in January 2009 ;

- Emmanuel Chabrier : Le Roi malgré lui, in April 2009 ;

- André Messager : Fortunio in December 2009 ;

- Hector Berlioz : Béatrice et Bénédict, in March 2010 ;

- Ambroise Thomas : Mignon, in April 2010 ;

- Jules Massenet : Cendrillon, in March 2011 ;

- Jacques Offenbach : Les Brigands, in June 2011 ;

- Daniel François Esprit Auber : La muette de Portici, in April 2012 ;

- Reynaldo Hahn : Ciboulette, in February 2013 ;

- Henri Rabaud : Marouf, savetier du Caire, in May 2013 ;

- Léo Delibes : Lakmé, in January 2014 ;

- Charles Lecoq : Ali-Baba, in May 2014.

Many of these operas had not been staged in France for years.

Baroque operas and contemporary works have also been performed :

- Jean-Baptiste Lully : Cadmus et Hermione

- Henry Purcell : Dido and Aeneas

- Jean- Baptiste Lully : Atys

- Johann Christian Bach : Amadis de Gaule

- Pier Francesco Cavalli : Egisto

- Marc-Antoine Charpentier : David et Jonathas

- Jean-Philippe Rameau : Platée

- Pascal Dusapin : Roméo et Juliette

- Peter Eötvös : Lady Sarashina

- Georges Aperghis : Les Boulingrin

- Oscar Strasnoy : Cachafaz

- Marco Stroppa : Re Orso

- George Benjamin : Written on Skin

For his last season as managing director, and before closing the theatre for a whole season (to build an air conditioning system in the hall) Deschamps offers a season similar to the previous ones :

- Johann Strauss : La Chauve-souris, in a new French version ;

- André Campra : Les Fêtes vénitiennes ;

- Philippe Boesmans : Au Monde, the opera that received its first performance last March in Brussels ;

- Ferdinand Hérold : Le Pré aux Clercs ;

- Reynaldo Hahn : Ciboulette ;

- Xavier Dayer : Les Contes de la lune vague après la pluie, only 2 months after the world première in Rouen ;

- Louis Varney : Les Mousquetaires au couvent.

We have 3 new productions : La Chauve-souris, Les Fêtes vénitiennes and Le Pré aux Clercs, 2 coproductions : Au Monde and Les Contes de la lune vague après la pluie, and 2 revivals : Ciboulette and Les Mousquetaires au couvent (from Lausanne, December 2013).

Program books for new operas, 2012-2013 season

In the 2012-2013 season, I have managed to acquire the program books for the following new operas :

- Timo Juhani Kyllönen : The Seal, Savonlinna, July 20, 2013
- André Tchaikowsky : The Merchant of Venice, Bregenz, July 18, 2013
- Vasco Mendonça : The House Taken Over, Aix-en-Provence, July 6, 2013 (PDF)
- Mark Adamo : The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, San Francisco, June 19, 2013

 
- D. J. Sparr : Approaching Ali, Washington, June 8, 2013 (PDF)
- Diego Collatti : Die Ballade von El Muerto, Vienna (Festwochen), June 6, 2013
- Matthias Heep : Momo, Stuttgart, June 6, 2013
- David Lang : The Whisper Opera, Chicago (International Contemporary Ensemble), May 31, 2013

 
- Georg Friedrich Haas : Thomas, Schwetzingen, May 24, 2013
- Adam Roberts : Giver of Light, Boston (Guerilla Opera), May 23, 2013
- Cristobal Halffter : Schachnovelle, Kiel, May 18, 2013

 
- Knut Vaage : Khairos, Oslo, May 10, 2013
- Franz Koglmann : Join !, Vienna (Festwochen), May 8, 2013
- Helmut Schmidinger : Lynx, der Luchs, Linz, May 1, 2013 (PDF)
- Anno Schreier : Wunderland, Würzburg, April 18, 2013 (PDF)
- Kamran Ince : The Judgement of Midas, Milwaukee, April 12, 2013
 

 
- Michel van der Aa : Sunken Garden, London (English National Opera at the Barbican), April 12, 2013
- Thierry Escaich : Claude, Lyon, March 27, 2013
- Sidney Corbett : Das grosse Heft, Osnabrück, March 16, 2013

 
- Claire Renard : Orimita, Reims, March 8, 2013 (PDF)
- Michel Fourgon : Lolo Ferrari, Rouen, March 8, 2013
- Helmut Oehring : Sehnsuchtmeer oder vom fliegenden Holländer, Düsseldorf, March 8, 2013
- Benoît Mernier : La Dispute, Brussels, March 5, 2013
 

 
- Christian Jost : Heart Sutra, Taipei, March 2, 2013 (PDF)
- Nolan Gasser : The Secret Garden, San Francisco, March 1, 2013 (PDF)
- Ludger Vollmer : Lola rennt, Regensburg, February 28, 2013 (PDF)
- Alois Bröder : Die Frauen der Toten, Erfurt, February 2, 2013
- Lin Wang : Oh, wie schön ist Panama, Berlin (Deutsche Oper), January 26, 2013
- Priit Pajusaar : The Prince and the Pauper, Tallinn, January 26, 2013
 


- Douglas J. Cuomo : Doubt, St. Paul, January 26, 2013
- Peter Androsch : Spiegelgrund, Vienna (Federal Assembly Chamber of Austrian Parlament), January 25, 2013
- Philip Glass : The Perfect American, Madrid (Teatro Real), January 22, 2013

- Richard Gill : Sleeping Beauty, Melbourne, January 17, 2013
- Cristian Carrara : Oliver Twist, Modena, December 16, 2012
- Hans-Jürgen von Bose : Verkehr mit Gespenstern, Vienna (KammerOper), December 5, 2012

- Oscar Strasnoy : Slutchaï, Bordeaux, November 26, 2012
- Andres Reukauf : Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse, Hagen, November 25, 2012
- Frank Schwemmer : Die Schatzinsel, Zurich, November 17, 2012

  
- Margret Wolf : Refidim Junction, Würzburg, November 10, 2012 (PDF)
- Matthew Harris : The Mark of Cain, Chelsea, November 8, 2012 (PDF)
- Jörg Widmann : Babylon, Munich, October 27, 2012
- Thomas Beimel : Vom guten Ton, Wuppertal, October 21, 2012
- Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini : Der Sandmann, Basel, October 20, 2012

 
- Peter-Jan Wagemans : Andreas weent, Amsterdam, October 20, 2012 (PDF)
- Gareth Williams : The Elephant Angel, Giffnock (Scottish Opera), October 19, 2012
- Jens Michael Müller (Sagardia) : Josefine, Mönchengladbach, October 13, 2012
- Carl Unander-Scharin : The Elephant Man, Umeå , October 6, 2012 (PDF)
- Felix Leuschner : Sprung in die Leere, Gelsenkirchen, October 6, 2012 (PDF)
- Victoria Bond : Mrs. President, Anchorage, October 5, 2012

  
- Olga Neuwirth : American Lulu, Berlin (Komische Oper), September 30, 2012
- Tristan Schulze : Premiere, Vienna (Theater an der Wien), September 26, 2012
- Stefano Gervasoni : Limbus-Limbo, Strasbourg (Musica Festival), September 22, 2012

  
- Elena Kats-Chernine : Orpheus / Odysseus / Poppea, Berlin (Komische Oper), September 16, 2012
- Philippe Fénelon : JJR (Citizen of Geneva), Geneva, September 11, 2012