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Performing Arts

NYC Opera announces 1st full season after bankruptcy

Composer Tobias Picker has been commissioned to compose “American Venus” for the New York City Opera’s 75th anniversary in 2019. The opera will be based on Audrey Munson, an early 20th century figure considered by some to be the first U.S. supermodel.

NEW YORK – The revived New York City Opera announced its first full season after its emergence from bankruptcy, planning 28 performances of six works in 2016-17 that include the U.S. debut of Antonio de Literes’ “Los Elementos” and area premieres of Peter Eotvos’ “Angels in America” and Tobin Stokes’ “Fallujah.”

In addition, Tobias Picker has been commissioned to compose “American Venus” for the company’s 75th anniversary in 2019. The opera will be based on Audrey Munson, an early 20th century figure considered by some to be the first U.S. supermodel.

Next season, announced Tuesday, will open Sept. 8 with a double bill that will include the New York premiere of Rachmaninoff’s “Aleko” in a pairing with Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci.” Both debuted in May 1892.

The schedule will include Bernstein’s “Candide” and Respighi’s rarely performed “La Campana Sommersa (The Sunken Bell).” Four of the works will be at Jazz at Lincoln Center, with “Los Elementos” at Harlem Stage and “Fallujah” at a site to be announced.

General director Michael Capasso said the company’s niche, at least in the next few years, will be largely to perform rarities.

“The void is something City Opera always filled in its earlier years,” he said.

“Fallujah,” about a Marine who returned from the Iraq war, had its world premiere this March at the Long Beach Opera and will come to New York in November. “Candide” will be directed in a new staging next January by Harold Prince, who also was in charge of the work’s first expanded opera house production at City Opera in 1982.

“La Campana Sommersa,” given its U.S. premiere by the Metropolitan Opera in 1928, will be performed starting March 31, followed in May by the early 18th century “Los Elementos” and in June by “Angels,” based on the Tony Kushner play and first seen at Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet in 2004.

After filing for bankruptcy in 2013, the company emerged in January under Capasso with a 12-performance season that already has included Puccini’s “Tosca” and Stewart Wallace’s “Hopper’s Wife.” There are performances in June of Daniel Catan’s “Florencia en el Amazonas.”

Capasso said the budget for next season is $6.5 million and the company had hired a director of development. His 2017-18 plans likely will include six or seven stagings.

“I’d like to say we could increase by a production, but I don’t know,” he said. “’16-17 will give us an idea of what the public will support, what the fundraising is going to be.”



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