Sarasota Opera is a professional opera company in Sarasota, Florida, USA, which owns and performs in the now-renovated 1,150-seat Sarasota Opera House.
Contents |
Company history
The company was founded as the Asolo Opera Guild which presented the Turnau Opera of Woodstock, New York in chamber-sized opera at the historic Asolo Theater on the grounds of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. In 1974 the guild began mounting its own productions at the Asolo. After acquiring the Edwards Theatre in 1979, the company set about a rehabilitation of the old vaudeville and movie theater and opened as the Sarasota Opera in 1984.
Under the artistic direction of Victor DeRenzi since 1982 and executive director Susan T. Danis since 1999, the company presents its Winter Opera Festival, in February and March, usually four fully-staged operas with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra. The repertoire includes standard works as well as lesser known operas. In 2008 the company added its first fully-staged fall production, bringing the number of operas presented in a season to five.
Characteristic features of the company
- Verdi Cycle
One of the company's important initiatives is the Verdi Cycle, an effort which began in 1989 to perform all of the works of Giuseppe Verdi, including all alternative versions of the operas.[1] After presenting I due Foscari in 2008, remaining Verdi operas to be performed in future years include Un giorno di regno, I Lombardi, Jérusalem (a revised version of I Lombardi), La battaglia di Legnano, Aida and Otello. Don Carlos was given in 2009 in the revised four act version, sung in French since that is the language that Verdi almost always worked in when composing and revising the opera. The five act original version will be performed in a future season. In 2010 the Verdi Cycle opera will be Giovanna d'Arco.
- The Masterworks Revival Series,[2]
which presents neglected works of artistic merit. Operas presented in this cycle have included Alfredo Catalani's La Wally, Carl Nielsen's Maskarade, Engelbert Humperdinck's Königskinder, and Stanisław Moniuszko's Halka.
The company also runs an Apprentice Program and a Studio Artists Program. Both programs provide young singers with additional training and performance opportunities in the chorus or other small roles in the company's productions.
The Sarasota Opera has a long-running Youth Opera program, a comprehensive training program designed for young people ages 10 and above. The program admits all who apply, regardless of skill level, and provides an exploration of the musical and theatrical aspects of opera. In recent years, the Sarasota Youth Opera has mounted world premieres on Sarasota's stage, the best-known being The Language of Birds, and gave the US premiere of Canadian composer Dean Burry's children's opera The Hobbit in 2008. Sarasota Opera has commissioned a new work for the 2010 season. Based on Windsor McCay's comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland to a libretto by J. D. McClatchy, it was originally to be composed by Ned Rorem, but he has withdrawn from the project. A search is currently underway for a new composer.
Sarasota Opera House
Recognizing the need for a larger theater with an orchestra pit, the guild purchased the then-closed A. B. Edwards Theatre, which had been renamed as the Florida Theatre in December 1936. The theater had been built in 1926 by an important early resident of Sarasota, Arthur Britton Edwards, as a versatile performance venue that could be adapted for vaudeville or as a movie house. The guild members renovated the building beginning in 1982. The next year the A. B. Edwards Theatre was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and was reopened as the Sarasota Theatre of the Arts in 1984. The name was changed to the Sarasota Opera House a few years later. From 2007 until the opening of the new season on 1 March 2008, the opera house was extensively remodeled and updated throughout its interior and exterior. The $20 million renovations included a gutting of the auditorium, resulting in a newly configured seating plan, expansion of the public areas and Opera Club on the second level, the opening up of the atrium to reveal a newly installed skylight system which had existed in the 1926 building. Seating has been expanded to approximately 1,150.
2009–2010 season
The 2009–2010 season will again include a fall production. The Winter Opera Festival will run from February 6 through March 21, 2010 and include Verdi's Giovanna d'arco.
References
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
