Opera Philadelphia Announces 2017-18 Season and Festival

Opera Philadelphia's 2017-2018 Season opens with a twelve-day festival that transforms the city into a stage for the future of opera, as six venues come alive with the talents of dozens of spectacular artists in more than 25 performances. The inaugural festival, O17, takes place from September 14-25, and promises opera lovers and newcomers a fresh way to experience the art form.

Known for commissioning new works that are "ambitious, accomplished and dramatically direct" (The New York Times) and lauded as "one of America's most innovative opera companies" (WQXR), Opera Philadelphia will "blanket the city with opera" (The Washington Post) during O17. The festival comprises five productions-three world premieres, a site-specific Philadelphia premiere, and the exclusive East Coast appearance of a playfully revolutionary staging of Mozart's classic The Magic Flute-as well as a recital and master class starring Festival Artist Sondra Radvanovsky, and a free outdoor Opera on the Mall broadcast.

"The 2017-2018 season truly pushes the limits of how and where and why we experience this wonderful art form," said David B. Devan, General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia. "Our city is our stage, and our stage is our city, as we present three magnificent productions in the historic Academy of Music and engage our community in a festival that will bring new audiences to opera and to Philadelphia. We are delighted to collaborate with so many of our city's treasured institutions like the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Barnes Foundation, as well as internationally significant co-producers like The Apollo Theater and Hackney Empire in London. Together, we are creating a breadth of new operatic repertoire which is gloriously interdisciplinary and tremendously inspired in its use of sound, space, and storytelling."

"Opera Philadelphia has been working tirelessly to revitalize opera for the 21st century, commissioning world premieres and energizing the classical canon by providing established and emerging artists with opportunities to create their most imaginative work," said Jack Mulroney Music Director Corrado Rovaris. "This season, first with O17 and continuing through the spring, our mission has truly reached a new level. I invite opera lovers, and those whom perhaps find opera a bit intimidating, to join us."

A highlight of this landmark season is the world premiere of Elizabeth Cree, a chamber opera by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell, conducted by Jack Mulroney Music Director Corrado Rovaris in the Kimmel Center's intimate Perelman Theater. Fresh off her house debuts at the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack makes her Opera Philadelphia debut in the title role of Elizabeth Cree, with baritone Troy Cook as her husband, John Cree.

Underscoring the company's commitment to programming works relevant to its multicultural community, Opera Philadelphia, in a co-commission and co-production with The Apollo Theater and Hackney Empire, presents the world premiere of We Shall Not Be Moved, from the creative team of Haitian-American composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and director/choreographer/dramaturge Bill T. Jones. The opera is informed by a tragic moment from Philadelphia's past while suggesting an alternate, more hopeful future through the eyes of its young protagonists. On the run after a series of tragic incidents, five North Philly teens find refuge in an abandoned, condemned house in West Philadelphia. The home sits at the exact location that served as headquarters of the MOVE organization when, in 1985 a standoff with police infamously ended with a neighborhood destroyed and 11 people dead, including five children.

Staged in the Wilma Theater, the opera combines spoken word, contemporary movement, video projection, classical music, R&B and jazz singing, and a brooding, often joyful score filled with place, purpose, and possibility. Following the Philadelphia premiere, We Shall Not Be Moved will immediately travel to The Apollo Theater for its first New York performances and makes its European premiere at London's Hackney Empire in October.

A third World Premiere, The Wake World, by Opera Philadelphia composer in residence David Hertzberg, takes the audience on a musical journey through the world-renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and early Modern paintings on display at the Barnes Foundation. As a fully immersive performance, The Wake World, directed by R.B. Schlather and based on Aleister Crowley's fantastical tale, challenges understandings of art, opera, and the self-in a way audiences are unlikely to forget.

The exclusive East Coast appearance of Barrie Kosky's visually stunning, internationally renowned production of Mozart's The Magic Flute will be mounted in the Academy of Music. Tenor Ben Bliss reprises his star turn as Tamino opposite the Pamina of soprano Rachel Sterrenberg, with baritone Jarrett Ott making his role debut as Papageno.

A site-specific and all-too-topical double bill pairs Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Monteverdi's tale of two warriors - the Christian soldier Tancredi (baritone Craig Verm) and the Muslim soldier Clorinda (mezzo-soprano Cecelia Hall) - with I Have No Stories To Tell You (2014), written in response to Monteverdi's work, by Lembit Beecher, a graduate of Opera Philadelphia's Composer in Residence program, and librettist Hannah Moscovitch. The two operas will be presented together as War Stories in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Monteverdi's masterwork will be staged in the Museum's dramatic, medieval stone cloister, with its carved limestone cornices and 12th-century fountain, while audiences will experience Beecher's contemporary piece in the Museum's soaring Great Stair Hall, one of the city's most iconic civic spaces.

As the inaugural Festival Artist, superstar soprano Sondra Radvanovsky will not only give a solo recital in the Perelman Theater, but also conduct a Master Class with emerging artists.The festival will conclude with a free HD broadcast of an opera production (title TBD) as part of Opera Philadelphia's annual Opera on the Mall series on Saturday, September 23, at Independence National Historical Park.

Spring brings two new productions to the Academy of Music. George Benjamin's first full-length opera, Written on Skin, called "a triumph for modernist musical languages" by The New York Times, makes its Philadelphia premiere in the Academy of Music in a new production by director Will Kerley (2013's Powder Her Face). Lauren Snouffer lends her "rich-toned soprano" (Boston Globe) to the role of Angès, alongside the "matinee-idol good looks, vocal warmth, and personal charm" (Opera News) of baritone Mark Stone as the Protector. Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, with his "instrument of inexorable beauty" (Opera News), takes on the dual role of Boy and First Angel.

Daniela Mack returns in April to close out the season in the title role of a new production of Bizet's Carmen, directed by Paul Curran (2015's La traviata).

O17 festival packages and full season subscriptions are now on sale at operaphila.org, or by calling 215.732.8400 (Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.). Single tickets will go on sale on Monday, May 15, at operaphila.org or 215.732.8400.

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