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Press Kit
History of Opera at Juilliard Now approaching its centennial in 2005, The Juilliard School which was founded in 1905 as the Institute of Musical Art, began a slow merger with the Juilliard graduate School in 1926. (The merger wasn't formally completed until 1946.) In 1930 an opera department was created under the auspices of John Erskine, President of both schools, and Ernest Hutcheson, Dean of the Juilliard Graduate School. Albert Stoessel, a respected orchestral and choral conductor, was appointed head of the new department and remained director until his death in 1943. Between 1943 and 1947, Wilfred Pelletier, Edgar Schenkman, and Alfredo Valenti guided the program. Between 1929 and 1947, the School staged 31 productions; 23 were from pre-classical, classical, and romantic opera repertoire, and 15 were contemporary works, and including world premiere performances.When William Schuman became President of Juilliard in 1945 he elevated the status of the opera department within the School, changing its name to the Juilliard Opera Theater and appointed Frederic Cohen (an experienced conductor and director, co-founder and artistic director of the Jooss Ballet), as its first director. Assisting him were Frederic Waldman as Associate Director, Frederick Kiesler as Scenic Director, and Elsa Kahl as instructor in musical acting. Included on the faculty was an expanded staff of coaches, accompanists, and teachers of diction: Catherine Aspinall, Lucia Dunham, Eva Evans, Marion Szekely-Freschl, Sergius Kagen, Florence Kimball, Edith Piper, Dolf Seing, Belle Sondant, and Bernard Taylor. Productions presented at the Juilliard Opera Theater during its first six years included Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Milhaud's Le Pauvre Matelot as a double bill, Verdi's Falstaff, and Stravinsky's Mavra. In 1952, Milhaud's Robin and Marion was presented as the School's first commissioned opera. Mr. Cohen remained Director of the Juilliard Opera Theater for sixteen years, until he retired in 1963. Soon after, Peter Mennin became President of Juilliard. Christopher West, Mr. Cohen's successor as Director of Juilliard's Opera Theater, began his association with Juilliard in 1963 when he directed the American premiere of Paul Hindemith's The Long Christmas Dinner. Hindemith himself conducted the production. Other premieres staged by Mr. West during his tenure at Juilliard included the New York premiere of Jancek's Ktya Kabanov (1964) and the American premiere of Hans Werner Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers (1965). Standard works he produced were Puccini's Il tabarro and Gianni Schicchi (1964), Fidelio (1965), and Die Zauberflte, La bohme and Madama Butterfly (1966). Mr. West remained at Juilliard until his death in October 1967. Among the singers trained in the early years of Juilliard's opera program were Simon Estes, Evelyn Lear, Leontyne Price, Ris Stevens, Thomas Stewart, Tatiana Troyanos, Shirley Verrett, and Marilyn Zschau. In January 1965 Peter Mennin first announced plans for a new American Opera Center for Advanced Training at Juilliard, aided by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The Center would offer young artists from the United States and abroad advanced operatic training under professional conditions. The establishment of the American Opera Center took place three years later in 1968, and Tito Capobianco was named its first director. The Center's first production - Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf and directed by Tito Capobianco - coincided with the opening of the Juilliard Theater in April 1970, when The Juilliard School moved from its 122nd Street location and became Lincoln Center's only educational constituent. Peter Herman Adler succeeded Tito Capobianco as the American Opera Center's director in September 1973 and remained in that capacity until 1981. Some of the notable productions produced by the AOC during Mr. Adler's tenure include the world premiere of Virgil Thomson's Lord Byron (Gerhard Samuel, conductor; John Houseman, director; and Alvin Ailey, choreographer) in April 1972; Samuel Barber's revised version of Antony and Cleopatra (James Conlon, conductor; and Gian Carlo Menotti, director) in February 1975; and the U.S. premiere of Emmanuel Chabrier's Le Roi malgr lui (Manuel Rosenthal, conductor; Bliss Hebert, director; and George Balanchine, choreographer) in November 1976. Martin Smith, a head coach with the Center from 1973-81, served as acting director for the 1985-86 academic year. David Lloyd was the American Opera Center's director from 1986 until his retirement in the spring of 1988, after which Frank Corsaro was appointed the Center's artistic advisor. Beginning with the 1988-89 performance season, the Center was more simply renamed the Juilliard Opera Center. Today it is restructured as part of the Department of Vocal Arts under the leadership of Brian Zeger, Director of Vocal Performance Activities at the School with expanded opera studies and song repertoire programs at several levels of study for undergraduate and graduate singers. The Juilliard Opera Center offers a professional training program for the finest young singers from around the world with full tuition and living stipend provided. Participants are given the opportunity to perform in opera productions staged each season, as well as take part in Juilliard's own series of masterclasses presented by esteemed artists who have included Elly Ameling, Arleen Auger, Fedora Barbieri, Rgine Crespin, Sherrill Milnes, Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, and Jos van Dam. Alumni of the Opera Center include John Aler, Peter Atherton, Gail Dobish, Faith Esham, Rene Fleming, Anthony Dean Griffey, Barbara Hendricks, Ben Holt, Hei-Kyung Hong, Matthew Lord, Leona Mitchell, Marie Plette, and Veronica Villaroel, among others. In its nearly 74 year-history, Juilliard's opera department has presented numerous premieres of new operas as well as standard repertoire. Commissioning new works is part of a long tradition at Juilliard that began in 1952 and continues with recent works which included the world premiere of Heloise and Abelard (in 2002) by composer Stephen Paulus and director/librettist Frank Corsaro and, in 2006, composer and Juilliard alumnus Lowell Liebermann's Miss Lonelyhearts, which takes this tradition into Juilliard's centennial year and beyond. This season the Juilliard Opera Center presents two mainstage productions: Handels' Oreste and the Stravinsky double-bill of Oedipus rex and Le rossignol. Other Juilliard Opera Center productions include Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Mozart's Don Giovanni, Carlisle Floyd's classic American opera, Susannah, Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, Rossini's La Cenerentola (2000-2001); Weill's Der Kuhhandel, (the United States premiere with a newly commissioned translation by Jeremy Sams); Armide (1999-2000); and Nino Rota's Il cappello di paglia di Firenze (1998-99). In December 1997, the Juilliard Opera Center made history when its production of Humperdinck's Hnsel und Gretel was featured as the first full-length conservatory opera production broadcast on "Live from Lincoln Center" on PBS. This production featured new sets and costumes designed by Maurice Sendak, and was co-produced with five other opera companies. Humperdinck's opera holds a unique place at Juilliard: in 1929 it became the first opera ever performed at Juilliard.
Juilliard Opera Center Productions 1970 - 2003/04 1970 Fidelio/Ludwig van Beethoven The Rake's Progress/Igor Stravinsky Il giuramento/Saverio Mercadante 1971 La clemenza di Tito/W.A. Mozart A White Butterfly/Alan Leichting World Premiere The Losers/Harold Farberman World Premiere Huckleberry Finn/Hall Overton World Premiere Die Zauberflte/W.A. Mozart 1972 La bohme/Giacomo Puccini Lord Byron/Virgil Thomson World Premiere Don Pasquale/Gaetano Donizetti 1973 DOUBLE BILL The Bear/Sir William Walton Suor Angelica/Giacomo Puccini Macbeth/Ernest Bloch NY Premiere The Bartered Bride/Bedrich Smetana 1974 La bohme/Giacomo Puccini Ariadne auf Naxos/Richard Strauss Tosca/Giacomo Puccini 1975 Antony and Cleopatra/Samuel Barber Premiere, revised version The Turn of the Screw/Benjamin Britten, Rusalka/Antonn Dvork La traviata/Giuseppe Verdi 1976 Il matrimonio segreto/Domenico Cimarosa DOUBLE BILL Il cordovano/Goffredo Petrassi US Premiere The Hundred Nights/Hugo Weisgall World Premiere DOUBLE BILL Signor Deluso/Thomas Pasatieri Savitri/Gustav Holst Le Roi malgr lui/Emmanuel Chabrier US Premiere 1977 Die Zauberflte/W.A. Mozart Falstaff/Giuseppe Verdi The Medium/Gian Carlo Menotti Madama Butterfly/Giacomo Puccini 1978 La calisto/Pier Francesco Cavalli Jenufa/LeoJancek Un ballo in maschera/Giuseppe Verdi 1979 L'Orfeo/Claudio Monteverdi La finta giardiniera/W.A. Mozart A Midsummer Night's Dream/Benjamin Britten La rondine/Giacomo Puccini
1980 Feathertop/Edward Barnes World Premiere The Mother of Us All/Virgil Thomson DOUBLE BILL Le Rossignol/Igor Stravinsky La vida breve/Manuel de Falla The Hero/Gian Carlo Menotti NY Premiere 1981 Lucia di Lammermoor/Gaetano Donizetti La buona figliuola/Niccol Piccinni La traviata/Giuseppi Verdi 1982 Montezuma/Roger Sessions NY Premiere School For Fathers/Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari Manon/Jules Massenet 1983 I Capuleti ed i Montecchi/Vincenzo Bellini Die Walkre (Act I)/Wagner - Concert Version Cos fan tutte/W. A. Mozart La bohme/Giacomo Puccini 1984 Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk/Dmitri Shostakovich La Vie Parisienne/Jacques Offenbach Il trittico/Giacomo Puccini 1985 Postcard From Morocco/Dominick Argento Xerxes/George Frederick Handel Pyramus and Thisbe/Robert Convery NY Premiere Casey at the Bat/William Schuman 1986 Mireille/Charles Gounod Don Giovanni/W.A. Mozart Le nozze di Figaro/W.A. Mozart 1987 Albert Herring/Benjamin Britten DOUBLE BILL Tamu-Tamu/Gian Carlo Menotti Jakob Lenz/Wolfgang Rihm NY Premiere 1988 Batrice et Bndict/Hector Berlioz A Midsummer Night's Dream/Benjamin Britten The Crucible/Robert Ward 1989 A Celebration of Grand Opera L'amico Fritz/Pietro Mascagni Cos fan tutte/W. A. Mozart 1990 DOUBLE BILL Rothschild's Violin/Fleischmann-Shostakovich The Seven Deadly Sins/Kurt Weill Hugh the Drover/Ralph Vaughan Williams DOUBLE BILL A Matter of Taste/William Schuman The Mighty Casey/William Schuman 1991 Falstaff/Giuseppe Verdi DOUBLE BILL Le donne rivali/Domenico Cimarosa Lo sposo deluso/W. A. Mozart Vanessa/Samuel Barber 1992 A Celebration of 20th-Century Opera Fennimore and Gerda/Frederick Delius New York Premiere Medea/Jacob Druckman Don Pasquale/Gaetano Donizetti 1993 DOUBLE BILL Les Mamelles de Tirsias/Francis Poulenc La Voix humaine/Francis Poulenc The Rape of Lucretia/Benjamin Britten Il viaggio a Reims/Gioachino Rossini 1994 A Celebration of Song from Mussorgsky to Bernstein L'incoronazione di Poppea/Claudio Monteverdi The Immortal Hour/Rutland Boughton 1995 The Impresario/W.A. Mozart Werther/Jules Massenet L'Amour des trois oranges/Serge Prokofiev 1996 Le nozze di Figaro/W.A. Mozart Elegy for Young Lovers/Hans Werner Henze 1997 DOUBLE BILL Monsieur Choufleuri/Jacques Offenbach Hnsel und Gretel December 11, 13, 15, 17 (Live from Lincoln Center broadcast) Randall Behr, condutor; Frank Corsaro, director Maurice Sendak, new costume and set design 1998 Il cappello di paglia di Firenze/Nino Rota November 18/20/22 Randall Behr, conductor; Frank Corsaro, director; Franco Colavecchia, set design 1999 Armide/Christoph Willibald Gluck November 17/19/21 Randall Behr, conductor; Chas Rader-Shieber, director; David Zinn, set and costume design 2000 Der Kuhhandel/Kurt Weill La Cenerentola/Gioachino Rossini 2001 Dialogues of the Carmelites/Francis Poulenc Susannah/Carlisle Floyd 2002 Heloise and Abelard/Stephen Paulus/Frank Corsaro World Premiere Eugene Onegin/Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky 2003 Don Giovanni/W. A. Mozart November 12/14/16 Daniel Beckwith, conductor, Lillian Groag, director
2004 10/03 |
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