The Curtis Institute of Music Announces the Philadelphia Premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Grammy® Award-Winning Ainadamar
March 15, 2007
Curtis Institute of Music President Roberto Díaz announced today that the Curtis Opera Theatre will perform the Philadelphia premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, which recently won Grammy® Awards for Best Classical Contemporary Composition and Best Opera Recording.
Ainadamar ("Fountain of Tears"), described by the composer as an opera in three images, will be presented in four performances on March 14, 15 and 16, 2008 in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater. Sung in Spanish, this new production will be presented by Kimmel Center Presents and produced by the Curtis Opera Theatre under the direction of Mikael Eliasen, head of Vocal Studies at Curtis. Corrado Rovaris, music director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, will conduct the production. Chas Rader-Shieber is stage director, with scenic design by David Zinn.
In a notable first, Ainadamar will be presented as an add-on to the 2007-2008 subscription seasons of both the Opera Company of Philadelphia and Kimmel Center Presents. This innovative cooperative venture allows the Opera Company and the Kimmel Center to provide marketing support to Curtis, including access to more than 10,000 opera and new-music supporters in the region. In turn, both the Opera Company and the Kimmel Center are able to provide preferred access for their subscribers to this important Philadelphia premiere.
"We at Curtis are honored to present this electrifying work by Osvaldo Golijov for the first time to Philadelphia audiences," said Curtis President Roberto Díaz. "It represents a remarkable opportunity for our students, and one that we are pleased to be able to offer with the participation of our colleagues at the Opera Company of Philadelphia and Kimmel Center Presents. The Curtis Opera Theatre has established a notable record of producing operas by living composers, and Ainadamar will be a wonderful new exploration for our singers and orchestra."
"We have long enjoyed a mutually supportive relationship with the Curtis Institute and with Mikael Eliasen," noted Opera Company General Director Robert B. Driver. "By providing its marketing support, the Opera Company is pleased to help Curtis make a contemporary work of this magnitude available to Philadelphia opera lovers in the ideal intimate setting."
"I am delighted we are able to work with The Curtis Institute of Music and the Opera Company of Philadelphia to present this terrific opera by Osvaldo Golijov, one of the most important composers of our day," said Mervon Mehta, the Kimmel Center’s Vice President of Programming and Education. "In the five years since the Kimmel Center opened we have presented numerous great artists from Curtis, including Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, Gary Graffman, and Leon Fleisher; as well as Ned Rorem’s opera Miss Julie. We look forward to continuing that close relationship."
Ainadamar means "Fountain of Tears" in Arabic and refers to an ancient well near Granada, where the Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca was assassinated by Fascist Falangist forces in August 1936. Golijov’s opera tells the story of Lorca’s murder through the memories of the playwright’s muse, Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu. The opera is told in reverse, in a series of flashbacks, as Xirgu prepares to perform in a Lorca play 33 years after his murder. Like much of Golijov’s work, the opera incorporates Arab, Jewish, and flamenco idioms. The libretto was written by David Henry Hwang and translated into Spanish by the composer.
Golijov wrote Ainadamar for the Tanglewood Festival, where it was premiered in 2003 under the baton of Curtis alumnus Roberto Spano (Conducting, ’85) to universal critical acclaim. The opera’s first recording was issued in 2006 by Deutsche Grammophon, conducted by Spano and featuring the cast that performed the premiere along with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. An immediate commercial and critical success, it received two 2006 Grammy® Awards, for Best Opera Recording and Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
Tickets for Ainadamar will be available to subscribers of the Curtis Opera Theatre, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, and Kimmel Center Presents through July 2007. Single tickets will go on sale in August 2007.
Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household surrounded by classical chamber music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, and the new tangos of Astor Piazzolla. Moving to Israel in 1983, he studied with Mark Kopytman at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy and immersed himself in the colliding musical traditions of that city. Golijov moved to the United States in 1986, earning his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with George Crumb, and was a fellow at Tanglewood, studying with Oliver Knussen. He has collaborated with such diverse artists as the St. Lawrence and Kronos Quartets, the Romanian Gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks, the legendary Argentine composer, guitarist, and producer Gustavo Santaolalla, and soprano Dawn Upshaw, who created the role of Margarita Xirgu in Ainadamar. Golijov is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, composer-in-residence for the 2007 Mostly Mozart Festival, and co-composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the next two seasons. He is on the faculty of College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA) and the Boston Conservatory. Future works include a new opera commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera.
Conductor Corrado Rovaris made his Opera Company of Philadelphia debut in 1999 leading The Marriage of Figaro, and was appointed as the Company's first Music Director in 2004. A native of Bergamo, Italy and a graduate of Milan's Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, Maestro Rovaris is a frequent guest conductor with Teatro alla Scala, La Fenice, Arena di Verona, and the renowned Rossini Festival in Pesaro. Beyond Italy, he enjoys credits with Frankfurt, Cologne, Bilbao, Lyon, Tokyo, and Santa Fe Opera. Ainadamar marks his debut conducting the Curtis Symphony Orchestra.
Stage director Chas Rader-Shieber has directed several Curtis Opera Theatre productions, including L’Ormindo, Albert Herring, Miss Julie, and The Consul. In the spring of 2007 he will direct a new production of I Puritani for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, as well as a revival of The Cunning Little Vixen for the Houston Grand Opera. In recent seasons he has staged productions for the New York City Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Minnesota Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass, and Pittsburgh Opera.
In recent seasons, designer David Zinn has created sets and costumes for Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Santa Fe Opera, as well as American Repertory Theatre, Williamstown Theater Festival, and Seattle Repertory Theatre. In 2007 he will design sets for The Taming of the Shrew at the Dallas Theater Center, Handel’s Flavio at the New York City Opera, and I Puritani at the Opera Theater of St. Louis.
The Curtis Opera Theatre, headed by Mikael Eliasen, is the performing entity of the Curtis vocal studies department, comprising approximately twenty-five singers between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight. Curtis vocal studies graduates have sung with opera companies all over the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Covent Garden, the Vienna Staatsoper, Houston Grand Opera, and San Francisco Opera. Several recent graduates are among the current Metropolitan Opera performance roster, including leading tenors Juan Diego Flórez and Michael Schade, bass-baritone John Relyea, and mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham.
The Curtis Institute of Music trains exceptionally gifted young musicians for careers as performing artists on the highest professional level. As one of the world’s leading music schools, it is exceedingly selective, and enrollment is limited to about 160 students annually. Under the leadership of President Roberto Díaz, Curtis continues to provide a highly personalized education, the cornerstone of which is one-on-one study with some of today’s leading musical artists, complemented by uncommonly frequent performance opportunities.
As Philadelphia’s leading producer of opera, the Opera Company of Philadelphia presents four mainstage productions at the Academy of Music each season, along with a growing list of community partnerships and initiatives with institutions such as the Curtis Institute of Music, Art Sanctuary, Philadelphia Freedom Theatre and the School District of Philadelphia. The 2007-2008 Season features Rigoletto, Hansel and Gretel, the East Coast Premiere of the new opera Cyrano by David DiChiera, and Norma. For information, call 215-732-8400 or visit operaphilly.com.
Kimmel Center, Inc., a charitable, not-for-profit organization, owns, manages, supports and maintains The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, Innovation Studio, and the Merck Arts Education Center. Kimmel Center, Inc. also manages the Academy of Music, owned by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association. The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and the Academy of Music serve as home to eight Resident Company performing arts organizations, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Ballet, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, American Theater Arts for Youth, PHILADANCO, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Peter Nero and the Philly Pops®. Kimmel Center, Inc.’s mission also includes arts in education, community outreach and a rich diversity of programming through its Kimmel Center Presents and Cadillac Broadway Series of performances.
The Curtis Opera Theatre
Ainadamar by Osvaldo Golijov
Presented by Kimmel Center Presents in association with the Opera Company of Philadelphia
Corrado Rovaris, conductor; Chas Rader-Shieber, stage director; David Zinn, scenic design
Friday, March 14, 2008 at 7:30pm
Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 2:30 and 7:30pm
Sunday, March 16, 2008 at 2:30pm
Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
Tickets are available to subscribers of the Curtis Opera Theatre, Kimmel Center Presents, and the Opera Company of Philadelphia through July 2007. Single tickets will be available in August 2007. For additional information, visit:
www.curtis.edu
www.kimmelcenter.org
www.operaphilly.com
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