Casting Announced For 2009 City Opera's VOX Showcase; Includes Schwartz's SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON

New York City Opera's acclaimed VOX: Showcasing American Opera series marks its 10th anniversary on Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2, at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place, at Washington Square South) at New York University. New York City Opera's annual VOX series demonstrates the company's commitment to the development of American opera, giving a free-of-charge platform to new or previously unperformed American operas. The final excerpt presented on Saturday, May 2, will mark the 100th opera presented by VOX.

From animation films to politics and musical theater, VOX 2009 brings together composers and librettists from highly diverse musical and cultural backgrounds. Eight new operas were chosen from a pool of some eighty submissions. These include: the first opera from the highly-acclaimed musical theater and film composer Stephen Schwartz, Séance on a Wet Afternoon; Armide, a passionate political tale of Iraq in 2019, by Jonathan Dawe, the youngest composer ever to be commissioned by James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra; and A Bird in Your Ear by David Bruce, originally commissioned by Dawn Upshaw for the Graduate Vocal Arts program at Bard College.

Séance on a Wet Afternoon, with Music and Libretto by Stephen Schwartz, is based on the novel by Mark McShane and screenplay by Bryan Forbes. The 9:50-10:30pm reading will be conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky. The cast includes Lauren Flanigan as Myra Savage, Jane Shaulis as Mrs. Wintry, Jennifer Zetlan as Miss Rose, Theodore Chletsos as Mr. Bennett, Andrew Oakden as Mr. Cole, Michael Zegarski as Bill Savage, Michael Marcotte as Irish Tenor, Jonathan Makepeace as Arthur, along with members of the New York City Opera Chorus.

Séance on a Wet Afternoon is a psychic and her husband plan an elaborate kidnapping scheme to legitimize her powers. Commissioned by Opera Santa Barbara for a world premiere in Fall 2009. Stephen Schwartz is the highly acclaimed composer of the musicals Godspell and Pippin and the film The Prince of Egypt, among other works. His most recent musical, Wicked, is currently running on Broadway and touring both nationally and internationally.

All selections will be performed by New York City Opera soloists and accompanied by the City Opera Orchestra. For the first time, the New York City Opera Chorus will also participate in several VOX selections.

Tickets are FREE and available now at www.vox.nycopera.com by visiting the Current Season page. The website also contains complete casting and information on all of the performances.

Also to be featured this year, for the first time, is VOX: SECOND LOOK, a new initiative designed to revisit operas previously performed at VOX. VOX 2009 will present fresh excerpts from Gordon Beeferman's The Rat Land (VOX 2007) and Anne LeBaron's Crescent City (VOX 2006), charting their progress since they were first presented at the festival.

"It is my pleasure to be a part of the growing success of New York City Opera's VOX: Showcasing American Opera. The role the festival has taken nationally in creating a platform for discovering new American opera has been incomparable. The 10th Anniversary brings a festival with amazing works that show the tremendous potential and diversity of our composers and point to a bright future for new opera", says George Steel, New York City Opera General Manager and Artistic Director.

In nine seasons of presenting VOX, New York City Opera has showcased excerpts from over 90 new operas, more than 30 of which have gone on to full productions at companies across the country. The last four contemporary operas produced by City Opera-Mark Adamo's Little Women, Charles Wuorinen's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Adamo's Lysistrata, and last season's production of Richard Danielpour's Margaret Garner-had all been showcased at VOX. Other operas featured in VOX have enjoyed world premieres at companies including Nashville Opera (Elmer Gantry by Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein), Houston Grand Opera (Little Women), Los Angeles Opera (Deborah Drattell's Nicholas and Alexandra), Washington National Opera (Scott Wheeler's Democracy), Santa Fe Opera (Bright Sheng's Madame Mao) and Michigan Opera Theater (Margaret Garner).

Since its founding in 1943, New York City Opera has been recognized as one of America's preeminent cultural institutions, celebrated for its adventurous programming and innovative, risk-taking production style. The company's wide-ranging repertory of 274 works spans five centuries of music and includes 29 world premieres and 61 American and/or New York premieres of such notable works as Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shostakovich's Katerina Ismailova, Busoni's Doktor Faust, Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges and The Flaming Angel, Zimmermann's Die Soldaten, Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, and Glass' Akhnaten. The company has been a leading showcase for emerging artists, having helped launch the careers of more than 3,000 singers including José Carreras, Phyllis Curtin, David Daniels, Plácido Domingo, Lauren Flanigan, Renée Fleming, Elizabeth Futral, Jerry Hadley, Catherine Malfitano, Bejun Mehta, Sherrill Milnes, Samuel Ramey, Gianna Rolandi, Beverly Sills, Norman Treigle, Tatiana Troyanos, and Carol Vaness. In 1983 City Opera made operatic history when it became the first American opera company to use supertitles, an innovation that has revolutionized the way opera is produced and appreciated worldwide.

In February 2009, George Steel, former Executive Director of the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, began his tenure as the company's new General Manager and Artistic Director. Building on the company's core mission of artistic excellence and accessibility, Mr. Steel's plans include broadening the company's adventurous approach to repertory, supporting the careers of promising new talent, and the continued development of the company's acclaimed education and outreach programs.

New York University's Jack H. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts is the premier venue for the presentation of cultural and performing arts events for NYU and lower Manhattan. The programs of the Skirball Center reflect NYU's mission as an international center of scholarship, defined by excellence and innovation and shaped by an intellectually rich and diverse environment. Since 2003, the 860-seat Center has provided a unique site for enhancing a sense of community while continuing the Greenwich Village traditions of creativity and artistic discovery with a broad range of compelling performance events at affordable ticket prices. Led by Executive Producer Jay Oliva (President Emeritus of New York University) and Director Michael Harrington, a natural and vital aspect of the Center's mission is to build young adult audiences for the future of live performance. www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu