Looking back, it should have been clear in October how New York City Opera’s year was going to end. The company opened its season then with the New York premiere of A Quiet Place, the strange, flawed, fascinating final opera by Leonard Bernstein, one of the city’s favorite sons. The opera is close to the Read More
With New York City Opera's season opening only a few weeks away, the company has taken on new leadership after years of troubled finances and a muddled sense of its mission. Charles R. Wall, who served on City Opera's board from 2001 to 2008, was elected chairman of the company's board on Thursday.
"The board is Read More
Every time a Handel opera gets put on, it seems, people talk about a Baroque revival. Forget that it’s been almost 50 years since a landmark New York City Opera production of Giulio Cesare sparked American interest in the period. Or that it’s been almost 20 years since the Baroque group Les Arts Florissants brought Read More
The City Opera has ceded shared theater space to the City Ballet for an increased portion of the fall season, The Times reported yesterday. The four weeks in September and October will allow the ballet to stage its first fall repertory season in 45 years. Meanwhile,f giving up time in the Read More
When the lights went up Sunday afternoon on a shirtless man next to a pantsless man—both American, both young—I knew that City Opera was back. It was the start of the second act of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and the two men were playing the eponymous antihero and his servant, Leporello.
Christopher Alden’s new production of Read More
It’s been a tumultuous few years at the New York City Opera. It has been continually plagued by financial troubles, and leadership of the organization has been haphazard since Paul Kellogg announced he was planning to leave the position of general and artistic director in 2005. Controversy dogged the short tenure of French impresario Gerard Read More
"It wasn't my intention to get notoriety," James Jorden said. It was a sunny morning, and he was sitting at a cafe near his home in Woodside, Queens, where he lives with his partner, Carl ("Queens is where all the queens are going now," he says).
As an avid reader of his Web site about opera, Read More
By 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 24, a Divas Shop for Opera Shopping and Cocktails benefit for the New York City Opera, held at a "pop-up" shop on Madison Avenue, had turned into a fashion frenzy. Ravenous shoppers sprawled two floors, prowling the racks and grabbing Manolos, Louboutins, Dior frocks, and more. A dressing Read More
“I think the retail and the real estate markets are going to tank because there isn’t enough money to pay the rents,” said Perry Rothenberg of JDF Realty, who added that the downward spiral is already happening. “The down cycle is a snowball: it’ll take several years before things come back.”
Mr. Rothenberg Read More
The New York City Opera just sent out a release announcing the appointment of George Steel, former executive director of Columbia University's Miller Theater, as its new general manager and artistic director. Two months ago, the Paris Opera's Gerard Mortier, who was supposed to become City Opera's general manager starting with its 2009/2010 season, backed Read More
As we mentioned back in June, the New York City Opera is going on a tour of the five boroughs for its 2008-2009 season while its home at the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center undergoes renovations. Part of that series, the Opera announced today, will be a new program of 20th Read More
Brokeback Mountain is coming back to New York, this time in the form of an opera. The New York City Opera has commissioned American composer and New York native Charles Wuorinen to adapt the E. Annie Proulx short story and subsequent Oscar-winning film for its 2013 spring season. It will be Mr. Wuorinen’s second world Read More
As the New York Sun reports, the New York City Opera’s home at the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center is currently undergoing renovations. So to keep the music alive, the Opera will tour the five boroughs during its 2008-2009 season with a series of concerts, showcases, screenings and discussions at various Read More
Last week in this newspaper, Rex Reed wrote, “The music scene has been more interesting lately than the movies, and that’s a fact.” I’ll drink to that—and did, at Minetta Tavern, just after attending the first session (on May 10) of “VOX 2008: Showcasing American Composers,” held at N.Y.U.’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Read More
The New York State Theater will go dark during New York City Opera’s 2008-9 season so that it can be renovated. Susan L. Baker, chairwoman of the company, said that opera officials did not resent having to lose the company’s home for 2008-9, even though the New York City Ballet is not making similar sacrifices. Read More
