On Site Opera Begins A DOUBLE BILL OF MONODRAMAS at the Harmonie Club in September

Known for staging "the ultimate in intimate productions" (The New York Times), On Site Opera begins their sixth annual season on September 29-30 with an evening of powerful monodramas including Dominick Argento's Miss Havisham's Wedding Night and Hector Berlioz's La Mort de Cléopâtre (The Death of Cleopatra) in the exquisite grand ballroom at The Harmonie Club. The evening stars soprano Leah Partridge as Miss Havisham and mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert as Cleopatra and features the string quintetSYBARITE5 at the center of a chamber orchestra. Conducted by OSO's Music Director, Geoffrey McDonald, and directed by the company's General & Artistic Director, Eric Einhorn, the site-specific production features lighting design by Shawn Kaufman and costume design by Fay Leshner. OSO invites audiences to join as Miss Havisham's wedding guests for the evening - there's champagne and cake for all!

A Double Bill of Monodramas will take place September 29 at 7:00 pm and September 30 at 7:30 pm. Tickets, which go on sale July 20, are $500 for the September 29 benefit performance, which includes a seated three-course dinner, and $50 for the September 30 performance. Tickets can be purchased online at www.osopera.org. The Harmonie Club is located at 4 East 60th Street, New York, NY 10022. Performance running time is approximately 90 minutes.

On Site Opera's 2016-2017 performances:

May 2017: On Site Opera joins forces with The Atlanta Opera's Discoveries Series for a new site-specific co-production of Mozart's The Secret Gardener (La finta giardiniera). Written by an 18-year-old Mozart, The Secret Gardener is a story of love, madness, and redemption that unfolds in the lush setting of a beautiful garden. Performances will take place at New York's West Side Community Garden before travelling to Atlanta's Botanical Gardens and marks a bi-city first for the two companies. More information: osopera.org/secretgardener/

June 2017: On Site Opera's acclaimed Figaro Project concludes with the U.S. premiere of Darius Milhaud's La Mère coupable (The Guilty Mother) featuring a collaboration with the award-winning International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) in a new chamber orchestration. The site-specific production celebrates the 125th birthday of Milhaud and is dedicated to Katharine Warne, composer and founder of the Darius Milhaud Society.

Mezzo-Soprano Blythe Gaissert (Cleopatra) has established herself as a fresh and exciting artist in great demand in the United States for opera, concert and recital engagements. The Texas native has received great praise from critics for her rich sound and intense, dramatic interpretations of operatic roles. In the coming 2016-17 season, Ms. Gaissert will perform Cleopatra in Berlioz's exciting monodrama La Mort de Cleopatre with On Site Opera and reprise the role of Hannah After in a new production of As One with Opera Colorado. She will also continue her relationship with American Opera Projects' Composers and the Voice series, serve as soloist in the Mozart Requiem with the National Chorale at David Geffen Hall, and perform a solo recital with double bassist Louis Levitt of Sybarite5 as a part of the Phoenix Concert Series. Highlights of the 2015-16 season included performances with AOP's Composers and the Voice project, two world premiere operas: The Whole Truth by Robert Paterson with American Modern Ensemble and Frau Schindler by Thomas Morse and Ken Cazan in a Los Angeles concert performance, and additional performances with American Modern Ensemble. www.blythegaissert.com

Soprano Leah Partridge (Miss Havisham) has performed more than 30 roles in 50 operatic productions across the United States, South America, and Europe in companies such as The Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Washington National Opera, Atlanta Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, Dresden Semper Oper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Italy, and Vlaamse Oper in Antwerp Belgium, among many others. Ms. Partridge has recorded with the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series and has a recording of American Art Songs with composers Ricky Ian Gordon and Jake Heggie accompanying their pieces. For the 2015-16 season, Ms. Partridge will make a return to her home opera company at the Atlanta Opera as Musetta in La Bohème, and will follow these performances with her debut as Mimì in La Bohème with Opera Coeur d'Alene in Spokane, Washington. She will begin 2016 with performances of Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera Eugene in Eugene, Oregon and make her role debut as Pamina in Mozart's beloved The Magic Flute with the renowned Boston Baroque Orchestra in April 2016. www.leahpartridge.com

From Mozart to Radiohead, SYBARITE5's (String Quintet) eclectic repertoire and commanding performance style is turning heads throughout the music world: "...that impassioned playing, those hard-driving rhythms, the blissed-out faces of the mostly young audience...Genuine, spontaneous...excitement" (The Washington Post). The Quintet's debut EP disc Disturb the Silence, featuring music by Radiohead and Piazzolla, plus two original works written for Sybarite5, was released in spring 2011 and quickly reached the top ten on the Billboard charts. The group's follow-up CD, Everything in its Right Place, is a continuation of the Radiohead Remixed Project and was released in November 2012 on the CAG Records label. SYBARITE5's 2016-2017 season starts with a summer tour across the United States including appearances at Wolf Trap, Music in the Mountains, Fontana Chamber Arts, Miami's Community Arts Program and culminating with a performance of their latest commissioning project, Look Back/Move Forward, at the Interlochen Arts Festival. In the 2016-2017 season, the group will be seen in performances and residencies at series including Cliburn Sessions, Arts Tucson, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Wittenberg Series, Ohio University Performing Arts, Bologna Performing Arts Center, Chamber Music Society of St. Cloud, Cornell College, Hesston-Bethel Performing Arts, Pittsburg State University, Binghamton Philharmonic and at the cell in New York City. The group will serve as the resident ensemble for Wolf Trap Opera's "Studio Spotlight" as well as for On Site Opera in New York City. A feature of their season is their newest project titled "OUTLIERS" featuring works written by some of today's hottest composers including Shawn Conley, Jessica Meyer, Daniel Bernard Roumain and Michael Gilbertson. An album by the same name will be released in the fall of 2016. With their dynamic view on 21st-century entrepreneurial musicianship, the group will conduct residencies and workshops at major institutions and conservatories including the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory among others. SYBARITE5 will serve as the resident ensemble for the American Composers Forum International Competition in the fall of 2016 to be held at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. www.sybarite5.org

Embarking on its sixth season of producing immersive site-specific opera, On Site Opera (OSO) has established itself as one of New York City's most imaginative, nimble opera companies by doing more than simply staging musically and dramatically rich works outside of the opera house. OSO's team of General & Artistic Director, Eric Einhorn, Music Director, Geoffrey McDonald, and Executive Director & Producer, Jessica Kiger have pushed the boundaries of operatic storytelling, producing operas in locations that allow singers and audiences alike to immerse themselves in the narrative. Reviewing the first chapter of The Figaro Project, in which OSO is staging lesser-known operatic adaptations of French playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais' (1732-1799) famed trilogy of Figaro plays, Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote, "This visionary company could be on to something big." He also noted that the "space proved ideal for the intrigues of the opera."

OSO has presented Shostakovich at The Bronx Zoo, Gershwin at Harlem's legendary Cotton Club, Rameau at Madame Tussauds New York and the Lifestyle-Trimco mannequin showroom, Paisiello at Fabbri Mansion, Marcos Portugal at 632 on Hudson as well as a site-specific workshop of Clarimonde, a new work by Frederic Chaslin and P.H. Fisher. Committed to exploring new technology in opera, OSO implemented the first-ever Google Glass supertitles during its 2014 run of Rameau's Pygmalion, of which The Verge reported: "Few things seem like obvious fits for Google Glass so far, but this is one of them." Founded in 2012, OSO is dedicated to producing site-specific opera in non-traditional venues throughout New York. OSO molds its productions to specific locations using physical space to create an environment in which the concept, storytelling, music, and performers unite to form an immersive, cohesive, and meaningful whole. OSO, a registered 501(c)(3), is a proud member of Opera America and the New York Opera Alliance. www.osopera.org

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