New Dennehy/Walsh Opera THE LAST HOTEL to Play St. Anne's Warehouse

Landmark Productions / Wide Open Opera Show Comes to the New St. Ann's Warehouse Steinberg Theater January 8-17, 2016 for Seven Performances Only, Following Highly Acclaimed Engagements at Edinburgh International Festival, Dublin Theatre Festival and London's Royal Opera House

Conducted by André de Ridder / Alan Pierson, Featuring Singers Claudia Boyle, Robin Adams and Katherine Manley, and Actor Mikel Murfi

Co-presented with PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now and Irish Arts Center

St. Ann's Warehouse will continue the inaugural season in its new waterfront theater with the American Premiere of Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy and writer-director Enda Walsh's thrilling new opera The Last Hotel, in a Landmark Productions / Wide Open Opera production. Singers Claudia Boyle, Robin Adams and Katherine Manley, actor Mikel Murfi, and an ensemble of New York's finest contemporary players, conducted alternately by André de Ridder and Alan Pierson, will deliver this "searingly powerful new chamber work" (The Guardian). Presented by St. Ann's Warehouse and co-presented withPROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now and Irish Arts Center, The Last Hotel comes to New York after tremendously acclaimed engagements at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Dublin Theatre Festival and the Royal Opera House in London.

Performances will take place in St. Ann's new Steinberg Theater January 8, 9, 12, 15 & 16 at 8pm; and January 10 & 17 at 3pm. (André de Ridder will conduct January 8-10, and Alan Pierson will conduct January 12-17.) Tickets are $50-70 and can be purchased at stannswarehouse.org, 718.254.8779 and 866.811.4111. St. Ann's Warehouse is located in Brooklyn Bridge Park at 45 Water Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

Since their relationship began with the American Premiere of The Walworth Farce in 2008, St. Ann's Warehouse has introduced numerous Enda Walsh works to New York City and American audiences. Directing his play The New Electric Ballroom, Walsh created a small town dance hall at St. Ann's in 2009. In addition to The Walworth Farce, Mikel Murfi directed Walsh's Penelope, which took place in a drained swimming pool, at St. Ann's in 2010. Druid Theatre Company produced all three plays. And in Misterman-written and directed by Walsh, composed by Dennehy, and produced by Landmark Productions and the Galway International Arts Festival-Cillian Murphy's Thomas Magill unraveled in a warehouse-within-a-warehouse designed by Jamie Vartan, who has returned to work with Walsh on The Last Hotel. Misterman was a runaway hit in the 2011-12 St. Ann's Warehouse season.

Over the course of these years, Walsh has entered the ranks of New York's-and the world's-most beloved theater-makers, winning a Tony Award for his book to the Broadway musical Once in 2012, among many other accolades. Donnacha Dennehy has garnered acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic as a composer of works for Kronos Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, Bang On A Can All-Stars, Dawn Upshaw and others, and as the founder of the renowned new music group Crash Ensemble.

In The Last Hotel, a husband (baritone Robin Adams) and wife (soprano Katherine Manley) arrive at an Irish seaside hotel manned by a kinetic concierge (actor Mikel Murfi) and chosen by a beautiful woman (soprano Claudia Boyle). They are there to assist her with her suicide. As in many of his plays, Walsh infuses the opera with both devilish humor and heartfelt empathy, creating a work that is "powerful, funny, moving, mischievous, aphasic, devastating, beautiful" (Irish Independent). In addition to praising Walsh's "unnerving and funny" libretto, The Scotsman writes that "Dennehy's score is red-hot," and Opera Magazine says it "rises to heights of ecstatic lyricism." The Independent says that the cast sings "thrillingly well" and calls Murfi's performance as the Caretaker "enigmatic and hilarious."

At St. Ann's Warehouse, de Ridder and Pierson will conduct a 12-member ensemble including Courtney Orlando (violin), Yuki Numata (violin), Nadia Sirota (viola), Clarice Jensen (cello), Logan Coale (double bass), Andrew Rehrig (flute, piccolo, tenor recorder), Hideaki Aomori (clarinet, bass clarinet), David Nelson (trombone), Chris Thompson (percussion), David Friend (piano), Caleb Burhans (electric guitar, sampler) and Nathan Koci (accordion).

The productionfeatures set and costume design by Jamie Vartan, lighting design by Adam Silverman, and sound design by David Sheppard and Helen Atkinson. Sophie Motley is Associate Director.

The Last Hotel is the second collaboration between St. Ann's Warehouse and PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now, following Carmina Slovenica's critically lauded Toxic Psalms in January 2015.

The American Premiere of The Last Hotel is made possible with support from piece by piece productions, The Arts Council Ireland and Culture Ireland.

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