Dicapo Opera
Encyclopedia
Dicapo Opera Theatre was co-founded in 1981 by General Director Michael Capasso and Artistic Director Diane Martindale. Aside from the Metropolitan Opera
and New York City Opera
, it is the only professional non-profit opera company in New York City presenting an annual season of opera productions, musical theater, concerts, and other events.
(The Night Bell), the New York premieres of Oscar Straus
’s The Merry Niebelungs, Wargo’s A Chekhov Trilogy, Robert Ward’s Claudia Legare, Tobias Picker
's Thérèse Raquin
, as well as the New York premiere of Lehár’s The Merry Widow
with a contemporary libretto by the late Wendy Wasserstein.
. It gave the first performances anywhere of all three versions of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly
(Milan, Brescia, and Paris) successively in one weekend. With choreography by Dicapo’s Director of Dance Nilas Martins, Dicapo was the first to present music and dance presentations of Puccini’s Le Villi
and The Mass, and has also presented settings of a number of Puccini songs and incidental music to dance. By the end of 2008, the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Dicapo Opera Theatre will have presented all of his major works, from Le Villi, the composer’s first opera, and orchestral works through his final opera, Turandot
.
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
and New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
, it is the only professional non-profit opera company in New York City presenting an annual season of opera productions, musical theater, concerts, and other events.
Programming and premieres
Dicapo Opera Theatre’s presentations range from traditional repertoire to rarely performed operas, special opera-dance presentations, family events, and at least one contemporary work each season. Its premieres have included the American premiere of Donizetti’s Il campanelloIl campanello
Il campanello or Il campanello di notte is a melodramma giocoso, or opera, in one act by Gaetano Donizetti. The composer wrote the Italian libretto after Mathieu-Barthélemy Troin Brunswick and Victor Lhérie's French vaudeville La sonnette de nuit...
(The Night Bell), the New York premieres of Oscar Straus
Oscar Straus
Oscar Straus may refer to:*Oscar Straus , Viennese composer of operettas*Oscar Straus , United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor from 1906 to 1909...
’s The Merry Niebelungs, Wargo’s A Chekhov Trilogy, Robert Ward’s Claudia Legare, Tobias Picker
Tobias Picker
Tobias Picker is an American composer. Picker began composing at the age of eight and studied at the Manhattan School of Music, The Juilliard School and Princeton University, where his principal teachers were Charles Wuorinen, Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt...
's Thérèse Raquin
Thérèse Raquin (opera)
Thérèse Raquin is an opera in two acts composed by Tobias Picker to a libretto by Gene Scheer based on the novel Thérèse Raquin by Emile Zola. It is Picker's third opera, following Emmeline and Fantastic Mr. Fox and was commissioned by the Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, and the Opéra de Montréal...
, as well as the New York premiere of Lehár’s The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
with a contemporary libretto by the late Wendy Wasserstein.
Puccini at Dicapo
Since its founding, Dicapo has been particularly dedicated to the music of Giacomo PucciniGiacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
. It gave the first performances anywhere of all three versions of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
(Milan, Brescia, and Paris) successively in one weekend. With choreography by Dicapo’s Director of Dance Nilas Martins, Dicapo was the first to present music and dance presentations of Puccini’s Le Villi
Le Villi
Le Villi is an opera-ballet in two acts composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, based on the short story Les Willis by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. Karr's story was in turn based in the Central European legend of the Willis, also used in the ballet Giselle...
and The Mass, and has also presented settings of a number of Puccini songs and incidental music to dance. By the end of 2008, the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Dicapo Opera Theatre will have presented all of his major works, from Le Villi, the composer’s first opera, and orchestral works through his final opera, Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
.