Cincinnati Opera Company

The company, originally named Cincinnati Opera Association, gave its first performance, Flotow's Martha, on June 27, 1920. During its early days, members of the Association also raised funds to mount the world premiere of Ralph Lyford's opera Castle Agrazant which took place at the Cincinnati Music Hall on April 29, 1926.[2] For most of its first fifty years, Cincinnati Opera's performances were held at the Cincinnati Zoo Pavilion. During that time, many prominent singers appeared in the company's productions including Plácido Domingo, Beverly Sills, Norman Treigle, Sherrill Milnes, Montserrat Caballé, Jan Peerce, Robert Merrill, Roberta Peters, Shirley Verrett, Lawrence Tibbett, Richard Tucker, Martina Arroyo, James Morris, and Barbara Daniels. In 1972, Cincinnati Opera moved its performance base to the newly renovated Cincinnati Music Hall. James de Blasis became the company's Resident Stage Director in In 1968. He then served as its General Director from 1973 to 1987. In 1988 he became its Artistic Director, a post which he held until 1996. Under his tenure, the company began to program rare operas such as Maxwell Davies' Resurrection and Weinberger's Schwanda the Bagpiper. It also added musicals to its repertory in an effort to broaden its audience base. One of the highlights of the de Blasis era was a new interpretation of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore which changed the setting from the Basque region of Spain in the 1820s to the "Wild West" of late 19th century Texas. The production was filmed by PBS and nationally televised in 1968. In 2006, Evans Mirageas, an influential casting director and former head of Decca's Artists & Repertoire division, became Cincinnati Opera's new Artistic Director. Following his first season with the company, Opera News magazine listed him as one of the "25 Most Powerful Names in U.S. Opera".[4] The 2008 Summer Festival was the first to be fully programmed by Mirageas and included the classics, Madama Butterfly and La Traviata, as well as Lucia di Lammermoor in Donizetti's 1839 French version and the company premiere of Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas. The company's 2009 season, "Opera Goes to Spain", presented Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Carlo, Carmen, and the regional premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar.

Works Performed

Adolphus Hailstork, Composer

The project marks the Cincinnati Opera debut of award-winning American composer Adolphus Hailstork. His symphonic, chamber, and choral works have been performed by major orchestras all over the nation, including Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York, and have been led by leading conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Daniel Barenboim, and Kurt Masur.

David Gonzalez, Librettist

Broadway playwright and librettist David Gonzalez has created numerous productions including The Frog Bride, nominated for a 2006 Drama Desk Award for "Unique Theatrical Experience," and critically acclaimed shows ¡Sofrito! with Larry Harlow and The Latin Legends Band, and MytholoJazz with the D.D. Jackson Trio. All three of these productions have enjoyed sold-out runs at Broadway's New Victory Theater. His work Double Crossed: The Saga of the St. Louis, was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution's Discovery Theater and has toured nationally including at ...