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By Ben Mattison
07 Sep 2005
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| Pamela Armstrong as the Countess in New York City Opera’s Capriccio |
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| photo by Carol Rosegg |
New York City Opera opens its 2005-06 season tonight with a gala performance of Strauss's Capriccio.
The production, directed by Stephen Lawless, stars Pamela Armstrong as the countess. Music director George Manahan conducts. Sets and costumes are by Ashley Martin-Davis, lighting by Pat Collins, and choreography by Seán Curran.
The evening also includes cocktails, dinner, and dancing. Tickets are $1,000; NYCO also sold 100 $25 tickets as part of an effort to expand its audiences.
In addition to Capriccio, the season includes new productions of Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, Dukas' Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, and Richard Rodney Bennett's The Mines of Sulfur.
The company will also present two new operas that originated at Houston Grand Opera: Rachel Portman's The Little Prince, which premiered in Houston in 2003; and NYCO composer-in-residence Mark Adamo's Lysistrata, which premieres on March 4 there and is a New York City Opera co-production.
Patience will be directed by Tazewell Thompson, whose Dialogues of the Carmelites came to NYCO last season. Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, a version of the Bluebeard story, will star Renate Behle, replacing an injured Carol Vanness; Leon Botstein, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and a specialist in neglected repertoire, conducts.
The Mines of Sulfur, which premiered in 1945, will be directed by David Schweizer. NYCO bills the production, which premiered at Glimmerglass Opera this summer, as the opera's "first major New York City staging."
NYCO will also present revivals of Madama Butterfly, Il viaggio a Reims, Tosca, The Barber of Seville, Turandot, La bohème, Don Giovanni, Acis and Galatea, and the Frank Loesser musical The Most Happy Fella.
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