Juilliard Opera Center presents the NYC premiere of Ned Rorem's "Our Town" on Wednesday, April 23 and Friday, April 25 at 8 PM, and Sunday, April 27 at 2 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater

The Juilliard Opera Center presents Ned Rorem’s Our Town, an opera in three acts, on Wednesday, April 23 and Friday, April 25 at 8 PM, and Sunday afternoon, April 27 at 2 PM in Juilliard’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater at 155 West 65th Street. The libretto by American poet and writer and longtime Thornton Wilder scholar, J.D. McClatchy, is based on Wilder’s play (which opened on Broadway on February 4, 1938 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama that year). Edward Berkeley directs the production, which features singers from the Juilliard Opera Center, and conductor Anne Manson leads the Juilliard Orchestra. Set design is by John Kasarda; lighting design is by Lloyd Sobel; and costume design is by Meredith Palin.

In collaboration with the opera, Juilliard and the Film Society of Lincoln Center will present the New York premiere of the feature documentary film, "Ned Rorem: Word and Music," on Saturday, April 26 at 5 PM in the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center. Mr. Rorem will be interviewed after the screening by cultural writer Matthew Gurewitsch. Filmmakers James Dowell and John Kolomvakis will be present at the screening. For more information on this event, call (212) 496-3809.

The cast of Our Town features singers from the Juilliard Opera Center: Marc Webster as Dr. Gibbs; Jennifer Zetlan as Emily Webb; Andy McCullough as Frank; Alek Shrader as George Gibbs; Paul Appleby as Joe Crowell; Carin Gilfry as the lady in the balcony; Paul La Rosa as the man in the audience; David McFerrin as Mr. Webb; Renée Tatum as Mrs. Webb; Jessica Klein as Mrs. Gibbs; Julie Boulianne as Mrs. Soames; Kelly Markgraf as Sam; Nicholas Bentivoglio as Simon Stimson; and Alex Mansoori as the Stage Manager. 

Our Town is about life and love and death in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, in the early 20th century. George Gibbs meets Emily Webb, the girl next door, amid white picket fences and the drugstore soda counter. As in the well-known theater version, the Stage Manager is the play’s narrator. The opera received its world premiere at Indiana University in 2006 and was the lead commission for the opera. It also was presented by five co-commissioners after the IU premiere: Opera Boston, Lake George Opera in Saratoga Springs, the Aspen Music Festival and School, North Carolina School of the Arts, Festival Opera in Walnut Creek (California).

Tickets are $20, available beginning March 19 at the Juilliard Box Office, as well as through CenterCharge (212) 721-6500. Half-price student and senior citizen tickets are available with a valid ID at the Juilliard Box Office. TDF vouchers are accepted. The Juilliard Box Office is located at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM – 6 PM. The Box Office is accessible by elevator, escalator, or stairs located on W. 65th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. For further information, call the Juilliard Box Office at (212) 769-7406 or visit the Web site at www.juilliard.edu.

Winner of the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for his orchestral suite Air Music, composer Ned Rorem has written three symphonies, four piano concertos, and an array of other orchestral works; music for numerous combinations of chamber music forces; nine operas; choral works of every description; ballets and other music for the theater; and hundreds of songs and cycles. He is the author of 16 books, including five volumes of diaries and collections of lectures and criticisms. Mr. Rorem has been the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship (1951), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1957), and an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1968). He received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards in 1971 for his book Critical Affairs, A Composer’s Journal, in 1975 for The Final Diary, and in 1992 for an article on American opera in Opera News. He was chosen “Composer of the Year” by Musical America in 1998. 
      
Edward Berkeley (Director) is director of the Aspen Opera Theater Center, where he has directed many classics including Cavalli's Eliogabalo (North American premiere) and Giasone, as well as new works by Bright Sheng, Augusta Read Thomas, Michael Torke, Mark-Anthony Turnage, H.K. Gruber, Thomas Adès and Bernard Rand. He is artistic director of the Willow Cabin Theater Company for whom he directed Thornton Wilder's translation of The Rape of Lucrece and Wilder, Wilder, Wilder on Broadway. Berkeley has directed New York premieres of plays by Derek Walcott (The Odyssey), Israel Horovitz, Terence McNally, Leonard Melfi, Louise Page (Tissue), and Tennessee Williams (Confessional), as well as New York Shakespeare Festival productions. He has directed for Houston Grand Opera, Library of Congress, Williamstown Theater Festival, Old Globe Theater, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Ravinia, and Brooklyn Philharmonic, the New York premiere of Thomas Adès's Powder Her Face and Christopher Theofinidis' The Cows of Apollo for BAM. At Juilliard, Mr. Berkeley is the director of undergraduate studies and has directed the recent North American premiere of Cavalli's La Doriclea, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Vanessa, The Mighty Casey, Eccles's Semele, The Mother of Us All, Don Giovanni, What a Movie! and Love x 3. He teaches Shakespeare at Circle in the Square Theater School, has been a guest faculty member for the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and a distinguished guest professor at Carleton College, Princeton University and Williams College.
      
Conductor Anne Manson has achieved a series of historic milestones. She was the first woman to conduct at the Salzburg Festival, where she led the Vienna Philharmonic and a cast that included Samuel Ramey and Philip Langridge in a production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov which met with great critical acclaim. Ms. Manson is one of the few women to have been appointed music director of a leading American symphony orchestra - the Kansas City Symphony - which she directed from 1999 to 2003. She launched her career in 1988 as music director of the London-based Mecklenburgh Opera, where, over a span of eight years, she programmed operas ranging from Mozart to 20th-century rarities, while commissioning world premieres from numerous composers. Ms. Manson continues to take on new challenges in her career as she balances acknowledged masterworks with vanguard contemporary works. She debuted with the New York City Opera in the company’s premiere of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa, in November 2007. In July and August 2007, she conducted Philip Glass’s Orphée at Glimmerglass Opera. During the 2007-08 Season, Ms. Manson led the Juilliard Orchestra on October 11, 2007 in a program that featured Zhou Long’s Rhyme of Taigu, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, Jennifer Higdon’s fanfare ritmico, and Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin. In January, Ms. Manson led the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra in a concert that celebrated the 75th anniversary of the orchestra’s founding. The 2007-08 season culminates with Ms. Manson conducting the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, followed by this New York City premiere of Ned Rorem’s Our Town with the Juilliard Opera Center. Upcoming engagements for the 2008-09 season include leading a tour with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, as well as conducting the Minnesota Opera Company in the United States premiere of Jonathan Dove’s new opera, The Adventures of Pinocchio. In May 2009, Ms. Manson joins the Canadian Opera Company in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Canadian mezzo soprano Julie Boulianne (Mrs. Soames) is a first year member of the Juilliard Opera Center where she studies with Edith Bers. She has been selected to participate in the first Juilliard residency by William Christie and members of Les Arts Florissants in early April. A graduate of McGill University, Ms. Boulianne’s operatic roles include Nicklausse (Les contes d’Hoffmann), Stefano (Roméo et Juliette) and Mercedes (Carmen) at the Opéra de Québec, Annio (La clemenza di Tito) at the Opéra de Montréal. Zerlina (Don Giovanni) at the Opéra d’Avignon, and Zweite Dame (Die Zauberflöte) at the Théâtre de Reims. She has appeared in concert with various orchestras, including the Orchestra Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and Les Violons du Roy. She sang the role of Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia) at the Opéra de Montréal in February 2008.

Soprano Jessica Klein (Mrs. Gibbs) from Chicago is a member of the Juilliard Opera Center. As an undergraduate at DePaul University, she performed the title role in The Coronation of Poppea, Miss Wordsworth in Albert Herring, and Frasquita in Carmen. She was also invited by Richard Pearlman to work with the coaches of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In 2005, she was a semi-finalist in the Houston Grand Opera competition, and she was the first place winner of the Bel Canto Competition in Chicago. Ms. Klein attended the Chautauqua Institution in 2004 and 2006 and holds a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music. In 2007, she made her Avery Fisher Hall debut singing the soprano solos of the Verdi Requiem. She studies with Marlena Malas at Juilliard. 
      
Alex Mansoori (Stage Manager) is currently in his first year of graduate studies at Juilliard. A native of Seattle, Washington, he has appeared as Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte, Don Curzio in Le nozze di Figaro, and the Juilliard Opera Center’s production of L’enfant el les Sortileges. As part of Juilliard’s centennial celebration in 2005-06, he sang in the concert 100 Years Juilliard Composers in Song, as well as the annual Vocal Honors Recital in Alice Tully Hall. He has spent the last two summers at the Aspen Music Festival singing Pasek in The Cunning Little Vixen and Joe Crowell in Our Town. In 2004, he sang in the New York Philharmonic’s production of Candide. He has sung in the cathedrals along the Camino de Santiago, at the Vatican, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and at New York’s Rainbow Room. An avid musical theater performer, he has worked on more than fifty productions in the Pacific Northwest region. He received his bachelor of music degree from Juilliard, where he is a student of W. Stephen Smith.
      
Baritone David McFerrin (Mr. Webb) has appeared this year with the Santa Fe and Florida Grand Operas and is also a frequent performer of concert and recital repertoire. He has been selected to participate in the first Juilliard residency with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants in early April. As an apprentice artist in Santa Fe this summer, he portrayed Morales in Carmen and covered the role of Sebastian in the American premiere of Thomas Adès’ The Tempest. Morales is also one of the six mainstage roles Mr. McFerrin has sung in Florida, where he also has spent the past two seasons as a member of the opera’s Young Artist Studio. He has sung with the Sarasota and Central City operas and at music festivals in North Carolina, England, and Italy. Recent concert performances have ranged from Mozart arias with the Miami Symphony to recitals of Hugo Wolf lieder to a program of Porter and Gershwin favorites in Omaha, Nebraska. A native of Western Massachusetts, he holds degrees from Carleton College and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and studied voice with Mark Oswald, William McGraw, and Rick Penning. His plans for the upcoming year include recitals of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin in Florida and Minnesota, as well as continued professional training at the Juilliard Opera Center as a student of Robert C. White.

Tenor Alek Shrader (George Gibbs) is a first-year member of the Juilliard Opera Center and studies with Dr. Robert White. He has performed as Almaviva in Rossini’s Barber of Seville with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and Ramiro in La Cenerentola with the Merola Opera Program, and other roles at the Oberlin Conservatory. He has attended the Music Academy of the West under the tutelage of Marilyn Horne. Last spring, Mr. Shrader was named one of the winners in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and also received a Sarah Tucker Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation. 
       
Mezzo soprano Renée Tatum (Mrs. Webb) is a member of the Juilliard Opera Center, where she studies with Cynthia Hoffman. She is the recipient of the 2007 Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Foundation Award, and a winner of the 2007 Giulio Gari Foundation Competition. Ms. Tatum returned to the Chautauqua Opera this past summer, where she sang Mercedes in Carmen. She was a regional finalist in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Ms. Tatum received her master of music and professional studies diploma from the Manhattan School of Music.

Bass Marc Webster (Dr. Gibbs) is in his second season with the Juilliard Opera Center, where he studies with Dr. Robert White. He performed the role of Don Alfonso with the Florida Grand Opera Studio and the role of Pistola in Falstaff with the Seattle Opera Studio and performed with the New York Festival of Song in January at Juilliard. Mr. Webster attended the San Francisco Opera Center’s Merola Opera Program in 2006 and performed extensively with the Wolf Trap Opera Company this past summer where he made his debut as Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte. He received his bachelor of music degree from Ithaca College and his master of music degree from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Carol Webber.

Jennifer Zetlan (Emily Webb) made her Metropolitan Opera debut this season as the 2nd French actress in War and Peace and 1st Madrigal Singer (cover) in Manon Lescaut. She also will make her New York City Opera debut in several roles, including Zerlina (cover) in Don Giovanni, Frasquita in Carmen, Le Fée (cover) in Cendrillon, and Nanetta (cover) in Falstaff. She performed in Our Town in summer 2006 at the Aspen Music Festival. Ms. Zetlan recently completed the studio artist program with the Florida Grand Opera. She graduated from Juilliard in 2006 and holds a bachelor of music degree from Mannes College of Music, and has already earned numerous awards. She was a finalist in the 2007 Palm Beach Opera competition, the Eastern Region third place winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2006, a finalist in the Houston Grand Opera’s 2005 Eleonor McCollum, competitions, and the 2005 winner of the Mannes College of Music concerto competition through which she made her Alice Tully Hall orchestral debut under the baton of Yves Abel.

About the Juilliard Opera Center:
The Juilliard Opera Center is comprised of singers enrolled in the Artist Diploma program in Opera Studies. The advanced singers of the Juilliard Opera Center perform in two fully-staged opera productions on the main stage of Juilliard’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Emphasis is placed on training for opera careers. Juilliard singers participate in recital, song, oratorio, chamber music and orchestral concerts, and special projects proposed by students and faculty. This tuition-free program is for pre-professional singers and provides a bridge between conservatory training and the professional world. 

OUR TOWN
Wednesday, April 23 and Friday, April 25 at 8:00 PM; Sunday, April 27 at 2 PM
The Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 155 West 65th Street, NYC
Tickets are $20, available beginning 3/19 at the Juilliard Box Office. CenterCharge: (212) 721-6500
Half-price tickets available for students and seniors; TDF accepted only at the Box Office.

Music by Ned Rorem
Libretto by J.D. McClatchy
Directed by Edward Berkeley
Anne Manson, Conductor
Juilliard Orchestra
Ashley Pollard, Stage Manager
John Kasarda, Set Designer
Meredith Palin, Costume Designer
Lloyd Fobel, Lighting Designer
Celeste Montemanaro, Supertitles

Singers from the Juilliard Opera Center:
Dr. Gibbs, the town doctor: Marc Webster
Emily Web, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Webb: Jennifer Zetlan
Frank, friend of George: Andy McCullough
George Gibbs, son of Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs: Alek Shrader
Joe Crowell, friend of George: Paul Appleby

Lady in the Balcony: Carin Gilfry
Man in the Audience: Paul LaRosa
Mr. Webb, newspaper editor: David McFerrin
Mrs. Webb: Renée Tatum
Mrs. Gibbs: Jessica Klein
Mrs. Soames: Julie Boulianne
Sam, friend of George: Kelly Markgraf
Simon Stimson, the choirmaster:
  Nicholas Bentivoglio
Stage Manager: Alex Mansoori