The Metropolitan Opera Forms Partnership with The Juilliard School to Expand its Young Artist Program

Artistic Director James Levine and Executive Director Brian Zeger to Lead the New Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in Partnership with The Juilliard School

In a unique partnership between two prestigious musical institutions, the Metropolitan Opera and The Juilliard School will join forces for a joint training program to identify and train the finest young opera singers and accompanists, preparing them for careers in the world’s great opera houses. The newly-named Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in Partnership with The Juilliard School was announced today by Peter Gelb, the Met’s General Manager, and Joseph W. Polisi, President of The Juilliard School. Met Music Director James Levine will serve as the program’s Artistic Director, and Dr. Brian Zeger, Artistic Director of Juilliard Vocal Arts, will serve as Executive Director. Through this program, which will begin with the 2010-2011 season, participants will have access to both organizations’ considerable resources and personnel, in an effort to expand learning and performing opportunities for young artists. This will include one fully-staged or concert opera production per year at Juilliard, conducted by Maestro Levine, featuring members of the Young Artist Program and the Juilliard Orchestra.

 “This is a winning opportunity for both of our institutions and, most importantly, for aspiring young singers who need the best training to prepare themselves for the demands of an opera career,” said Mr. Gelb. 

Mr. Polisi added, “This new program will bring the resources and artistic traditions of two great institutions together for the first time to create a nurturing environment for future generations of opera singers from around the world.  We view this endeavor as a significant effort on the part of the Met and Juilliard to heighten the level of artistic education in operatic performance in the time ahead.”

Maestro Levine, who founded the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in 1980, said “I am delighted this important training program will be enhanced through the Met's new association with Juilliard. I know first hand the magnificent resources The Juilliard School makes available to young artists, and I look forward to working with Brian Zeger to maximize what we can offer our singers and accompanists in the program.”

Mr. Zeger, who will also continue in his current Juilliard role as Artistic Director of Vocal Arts, will assume his new duties as of June 1, 2008, when he begins developing the new expanded program, which will become fully operational in the 2010-2011 season. “I am honored by the opportunity to work with these two great institutions,” said Zeger. “We will create a new program which combines the performance standards of the Met with the educational depth of The Juilliard School to educate a new generation of young singers. We will be looking both in the U.S. and abroad for the highest level of talent to participate in this extraordinary program.”

The program’s yearly opera production will mark the first time that the Lindemann Young Artists, who as before, will be cast in Met productions, will take part in a fully-staged opera performance mounted for them in the 900-seat Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Juilliard.

Program participants will continue to receive the yearly stipend that the Met provides, in addition to musical and language coaching with the Met’s artistic staff. Vocal coaching, master classes, acting and movement classes, and Juilliard’s related educational courses will be available to the young artists. Participants will have access to practice rooms and studios as well as the Juilliard Library’s extensive resources.

The Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in Partnership with The Juilliard School is open to artists from around the world who will be selected by auditions held at the Met. Participants will take part in the program for a maximum of three years, with contracts renewed on an annual basis.

Juilliard’s Vocal Arts program annually enrolls more than 70 singers in a variety of undergraduate (bachelor of music, diploma) and graduate degrees (master of music, graduate diploma, Artist Diploma, doctor of musical arts). Between 12 and 14 Artist Diploma students currently study and perform in the Juilliard Opera Center, which is the most advanced of the three opera-performance groups in Juilliard’s vocal program. When the new program with the Met begins in 2010, Juilliard will continue to admit between 6 and 8 Artist Diploma singers each year, but without the specific focus on opera. Juilliard Opera Center will be reconfigured so that all of the school’s vocalists—from bachelor level through Artist Diploma–will be eligible to perform in two staged public performances at Juilliard each season.

About the Artistic Director:
Since his June 5, 1971 debut at the Metropolitan Opera with Tosca, Music Director James Levine has developed a relationship with that company that is unparalleled in its history and unique in the musical world today.  He conducted the first-ever Met performances of Mozart's Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani, I Lombardi and Stiffelio, Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Schoenberg's Erwartung and Moses und Aron, Berg's Lulu, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, as well as the world premieres of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and John Harbison's The Great Gatsby; all told, he has led nearly 2500 performances of 85 different operas there.  This season at the Met, he leads 33 performances of four works, including revivals of Tristan und Isolde and Manon Lescaut and new productions of Lucia di Lammermoor (his 28th Opening Night) and Macbeth. 

Maestro Levine inaugurated the "Metropolitan Opera Presents" television series for PBS in 1977, founded the Met’s Young Artist Development Program in 1980, returned Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen to the repertoire in 1989 (in the first integral cycles in 50 years there), and reinstated recitals and concerts with Met artists at the opera house -- a former Metropolitan tradition.  Expanding on that tradition, he and the MET Orchestra began touring in concert in 1991, and since then have performed around the world and each year on its own subscription series at Carnegie Hall. This season, he led a special concert with the Juilliard Orchestra at Lincoln Center in February to close Juilliard’s 100th-birthday tribute to Elliott Carter with the New York premiere of his Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei (1993-96); that program also included Carter’s Cello Concerto, with the winner of Juilliard’s concerto competition, and Ives’s pathbreaking Three Places in New England. 

James Levine's fourth season as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra opened with an all-Ravel program (soloists Susan Graham and Jean-Yves Thibaudet) on October 4; following on last summer’s extended Tanglewood season and a two-week European tour; he leads a dozen programs in Boston in 2007-08 (and three at Carnegie, as well), including world premieres of a new horn concerto by Carter and symphonies by John Harbison and William Bolcom, the Boston and New York premieres of Henri Dutilleux’s Le Temps l’horloge with Renée Fleming, and season-ending performances of Berlioz’s Les Troyens.  His Boston season also includes a Sunday afternoon performance of Schubert’s “Winterreise” with bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff in February.

In addition to his responsibilities at the Met and the BSO, Mr. Levine is a distinguished pianist and an active and avid recital collaborator, especially in Lieder and song repertoire.  He began accompanying such artists as Jennie Tourel, Hans Hotter and Eleanor Steber more than forty years ago, and since that time has given recitals with most of the great singers of our time.  From 1973 to 1993, James Levine was Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, summer home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Outside the United States, his activities have been characterized by his intensive and enduring relationships with Europe's most distinguished musical organizations: the Salzburg (1975-1993) and Bayreuth (1982-1998) festivals, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Berlin Philharmonic.  He was Chief Conductor from 1999-2004 of the Munich Philharmonic and has conducted every major orchestra in America and Europe.

James Levine holds an honorary doctorate from The Juilliard School, and has lectured at Harvard and Yale Universities, Sarah Lawrence College and Juilliard.  Maestro Levine is the recipient in recent years of the Centennial Medal from The Juilliard School; the 2005 Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the 2006 Opera News Award; and the National Medal of Arts (1997) and Kennedy Center Honors (2003).

About the Executive Director:
Brian Zeger has built a career not only as a pianist, appearing in concert venues throughout the United States and Europe, but also as an ensemble performer, radio broadcaster, artistic administrator, and educator.

In a career spanning more than two decades, Mr. Zeger has collaborated with many of the world’s top artists: violinist Itzhak Perlman, flutist James Galway, actress Claire Bloom, and numerous song recitalists including Marilyn Horne, Kathleen Battle, Arleen Auger, Frederica von Stade, Samuel Ramey, Susan Graham, Bryn Terfel, Maria Bayo, Thomas Hampson and Joyce DiDonato.  Current and upcoming engagements include recitals with Deborah Voigt, René Pape, Dame Kiri te Kanawa, Denyce Graves, Hei-Kyung Hong, Adrianne Pieczonka, Juliane Banse and Isabel Leonard.

From 1993-2000 he was artistic director of the Cape and Islands Chamber Music Festival, headquartered on Cape Cod and now in its 29th season, where his performances included collaborations with the Borromeo and Brentano Quartets as well as with Bernard Greenhouse, Glenn Dicterow, Eugene Drucker and Paula Robison. He has been a regular guest at many other summer festivals including Aspen, Ravinia, Caramoor, Aldeburgh, and Santa Fe, and collaborates regularly with An die Musik and the New York Philharmonic Chamber Ensembles.  He has also made concerto appearances with the Boston Pops.

Some of his critical essays and other writings have appeared in Opera News, The Yale Review and Chamber Music magazine. He has appeared frequently on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts both on the opera quiz and as intermission host and performer. He has adjudicated the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Concert Artists Guild auditions and the Walter W. Naumberg Vocal Competition. His recordings may be heard on the EMI Classics, New World, Naxos and Koch record labels, his most recent recording being All My Heart, a recital of American songs with soprano Deborah Voigt.

 In addition to his position as Artistic Director of the Vocal Arts Department at The Juilliard School, Brian is also the director of the vocal program at the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival.  He has been on the faculty of the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, the Chautauqua Institute, the Mannes College of Music and the Peabody Conservatory and has given master classes for numerous institutions, including The Guildhall School of Music in London, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Tanglewood Music Center, and the Marilyn Horne Foundation.

About the Metropolitan Opera:
Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, the Met provides valuable training and performance opportunities for young artists as well as educational outreach programs.

The Lindemann Young Artist Development Program (LYADP), named after benefactors Mr. and Mrs. George Lindemann, has been instrumental in building a new generation of artists for more than 20 years. Founded in 1980 by Met Music Director James Levine, the LYADP discovers and nurtures a select group of exceptionally gifted singers and coach/accompanists, drawing upon the Met’s unique artistic resources to complete their training. Alumni of the program include: Stephanie Blythe, Dwayne Croft, Anthony Dean Griffey, Paul Groves, Nathan Gunn, Aprile Millo, Heidi Grant Murphy, Mark Oswald, Denis Sedov, Gregory Turay, and Dawn Upshaw. 

The oldest and most wide-reaching singing competition in the country, the Met’s National Council Auditions offer the opportunity for aspiring young singers to launch a major opera career. The Auditions cover 50 districts and 17 regions in North America and Puerto Rico. Each year, the Met hosts a Grand Finals Council on its stage at which 25 regional contest winners compete for one of five finalist positions and cash prizes; finalists and regional winners are eligible to return to the Met for up to five years to audition for artistic staff. Former National Council Audition members include such opera luminaries as Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Hei-Kyung Hong, Denyce Graves, and Deborah Voigt

Recently, the Met has launched a series of initiatives designed to broaden its audience and revitalize opera, ranging from free, public Open Houses to innovative education programs. In 2007, the Met launched its Live in HD in Schools program as part of a larger outreach initiative to public school students. In partnership with the New York City Department of Education and the Metropolitan Opera Guild, the Met transmits opera performances live via satellite into designated public schools, one in each of New York’s boroughs, free of charge to teachers and their students. The program provides specially-designed HD program materials, curriculum guides, and media resources.

About The Juilliard School’s Department of Vocal Arts:
The Juilliard School’s Department of Vocal Arts offers young artists programs tailored to their talents and needs.  From bachelor and master of music degrees to advanced artist diploma programs in voice and opera studies, Juilliard provides frequent performance opportunities featuring its singers who receive comprehensive education in opera, lieder and art song, diction, movement, acting, and stagecraft, as well as private musical coaching for performances. They also take courses in opera scene study, improvisation, make-up application, and languages.

In 1905, when the School was founded, solo voice study comprised the entire vocal curriculum. An opera department was created in 1930, its repertoire ranging from pre-Classical through numerous contemporary works. Included were world premieres by George Antheil and Robert Russell Bennett, and the New York premieres of Handel’s Julius Caesar and Xerxes. Opera gained increase importance with the School’s first commission in 1952, Milhaud’s Robin and Marion followed soon after by the American premieres of Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner, Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers, and the New York premiere of Janácek's Kátya Kabanová. During the past forty years, the pre-professional Juilliard Opera Center produced world premieres by Virgil Thomson, Lowell Liebermann, and Stephen Paulus, U. S. premieres by Chabrier and Weill, New York premieres by Delius, Rhim, Convery, and coming in April 2008, the Rorem/McClatchy Our Town. 

A remarkable array of well known singers are alumni of Juilliard’s vocal programs.  Among them are: Simon Estes, Lauren Flanigan, Renee Fleming, Anthony Dean Griffey, Barbara Hendricks, Hei-Kyung Hong, Michael Maniaci, Audra McDonald, Susanne Mentzer, Leontyne Price, Florence Quivar, Rise Stevens, Tatiana Troyanos, Shirley Verrett, and Veronica Villarroel.

For more information, please contact:

Sommer Hixson    Janet Kessin
Metropolitan Opera    The Juilliard School
(212) 870-7457    (212) 799-5000 ext. 207
shixson@metopera.org   jkessin@juilliard.edu

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