Invented as party entertainment in beautiful homes,
experience the fun beginnings of opera with drinks-in-hand!
Check out pics from Oct. 22 Cosi fan tutte: SET 1, SET 2, SET 3
Spencer Platt, Staff Photographer, Getty Images
Focused on the future of opera, we nurture the opera stars of tomorrow-as we build new audiences. Our famous BYOB shows create a party-like atmosphere and make opera approachable. Unlike large opera houses, we bring great young artists to the people in their intimate spaces with stodgy-free and fun opera.
READ ABOUT OUR GREAT ARTISTS BELOW
Puccini's Madama Butterfly NOV. 19, 7:30PM-BYOB, NOV. 17, 7PM-STUDENT OPEN REHEARSAL; $5 - $35 As we bring talented young artists to intimate venues at an affordable cost, we present Madama Butterfly in Chelsea. Thursday, November 19th, 7:30PM, BYOB Performance FREE with BYOB paid admittance, 6:30PM Pre-concert Walking Tour of the High-Line, NYC's newest elevated park, 14th to 20th Streets. Learn about its culture, history and architecture. Meeting location is given to those who complete purchases. www.newyorkcity-tours.com. November 17th Student Open Dress Rehearsal,7PM STARRING Alexandra LoBianco - Butterfly Wei-En Hsu - Pianist, Vivian Penham - Cellist, Jay Meetze - Conductor Subtitles on Your Phone! $3.00
Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors Amahl and the Night Visitors is the first opera composed for television in America on NBC. Will Conard - Amahl Sarah Jane Hintz-Rau - Youth Vocal Coach Wei-En Hsu - Dec. 4 Pianist, William Hicks - Dec. 5 Pianist, Jay Meetze - Conductor
THE OCB 2009-2010 SEASON Want to SING, PLAY or CONDUCT with us? Click here to learn more. MEET OUR ARTISTS Will Conard is a 7th grader at the Trinity school. He has been in two previous performances with OCB, including Korczaks Orphans and last year’s production of Amahl and the Night Visitors (Amahl). He has been taking private voice lessons for 3 years, studies classical and jazz piano, and sings with 6 friends in a rock and roll band, performing at school, birthday parties and one Bar Mitzvah. William Hicks, Pianist, has worked with some of the leading singers of our time, appearing with them on television, on stage in recital and master class settings, and in his private studio. A few of the noted singers with whom he has worked are Luciano Pavarotti, Franco Corelli, Renata Scotto, Marta Eggerth Kiepura, Roberta Peters, Anna Moffo, Carlo Bergonzi, Regina Resnik, Sherill Milnes, Teresa Stratas, Catherine Malfitano, Thomas Hampson, Jerry Hadley, Ruth Ann Swenson, Regine Crespin, Judy Kaye, Marcello Giordani, Rockwell Blake, Margaret Jane Wray, and Harolyn Blackwell. Sarah Jane Hintz-Rau, OCB Youth Vocal Coach, is the Director of Programs for Midori & Friends. Since 2003, she has worked with OCB in various capacities including Executive Director and Children’s Chorus conductor. With a Masters degree in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University and having served as an adjunct voice faculty member for Alma College in Michigan, she was Education Director with City Lights Youth Theatre and has taught in NYC public schools as a teaching artist for the Third Street Music School Settlement and in Michigan as a public school vocal music educator. She has performed in Carmen, Tales of Hoffmann and The Magic Flute with the Mid-Michigan Opera Company. Wei-En Hsu, pianist, native of Taiwan, received his education from the Juilliard School, Royal Academy of Music, College-Conservatory of Music, and Taipei National University of the Arts. Winner of Scott Huxley Piano Accompaniment Prize, Major Van Someren-Godfery Prize Accompaniment Award(2004), Ludmilla Andrew Russian Song Prize Accompaniment Award, Sir Arthur Bliss Prize(2005). Recent engagements include conducting appearance at CCM for Ariadne auf Naxos in March, as well as a chamber concert at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall this May. He was named a Stern Fellow in SongFest 2009, and has just been awarded the Sing for Hope Grant for Arts Activism and Community Outreach. During the season 2009-2010, Mr. Hsu will join the Opera Company of Brooklyn Resident Artists as a pianist/coach/conductor. Alexandra LoBianco, soprano, is delighted to be a Resident Artist with OCB performing Cio Cio San (Madame Butterfly) and First Lady (Magic Flute). Her voice was described by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as“…velvet covered steel…” Roles include Leonora (Il Trovatore), Mother (Amahl), Praskowia (Merry Widow), Dama (Macbeth) and Sieglinde (Die Walküre) cover Mimi (La bohème) and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) and as Sister Robert Ann (Nunsense). In December, she returns to St. Petersburg in December to perform on the Candle Light Concert with St. Petersburg College. Percy Martinez, tenor from Peru, recently debuted with Bucharest National Opera as Des Grieux in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. He is praised as “…an attractive lyric tenor with power” in the San Francisco Classical Voice and the Los Altos Town Crier declared, “His rich tenor and confident delivery emphasized the foreshadowing in the first word…” He has performed leading roles in La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, Tosca, Un Ballo in Maschera, Rigoletto, Aida, Carmen, Lucia di Lammermoor, Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, Gounod’s Faust, Idomeneo and La Traviata. He trained with Santa Fe Opera and Sarasota Opera and holds degrees from the Accademia Internazionale di Canto in Pesaro, Italy, and from the Accademia Del Teatro, Cagli, Italy. Jay Meetze, Conductor - is lauded for his "passionate and undeniably impressive command of performances." (Opera News). He conducted the OCB CD on Albany Records featuring Sheri Greenawald and Ashley Putnam. Opera News named the CD Critic's Choice and Top 10 of the Year. Meetze was featured on CNN's Tips from the Top, and the front-pages of Wall Street Journal and Crain's NY Business. He has landed OCB on the Jeopardy quiz show and Good Morning America with MythBusters and has received rave reviews/articles in American Record Guide, NY Magazine and the NY Daily, Times and Post newspapers. Djoré Nance is a bass who is poised for a major operatic and recital career of international scope. With the Opera Company of Brooklyn, Mr. Nance has performed Zuniga in Carmen, and Colline in La Boheme. He has studied with, among others, Marylin Horne, W. Stephen Smith, and Fred Carama. He holds a Bachelors of Music from the Juilliard School in Voice Performance. While at Juilliard, Mr. Nance performed the roles of Sarastro and the Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte, and Rev. Olin Blitch in Susannah. His awards have included the Giulio Gari Foundation, the Gerda Lissner Foundation, and Opera Index. Nils Neubert, tenor, joins OCB for a second season this year, and is also performing with the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera, Underworld Productions and Pocket Opera New York. Past concerts venues include Steinway, Yamaha, and Alice Tully Halls, Carnegie Hall, Jordan Hall (Boston), Sanders Theatre (Harvard), the United Jewish Appeal Headquarters (NYC), and Kupferberg Center (Queens College). He is a regular guest artist at the International Academy of Music (Italy), the Burgos International Music Festival (Spain), and has also recently performed with Encompass New Opera Theatre and 4x4 Baroque Music Festival in NYC. For more information, please visit www.nilsneubert.com. Kenneth Overton, baritone, started off the 2009 season as Porgy(Porgy and Bess) with the Opera Theatre of Pittsburgh, followed by concert appearances in the same role with The Richmond Symphony and The Paducha Symphony. He also made his San Francisco Opera debut as Lawyer Frazier in the same opera. Upcoming engagements include the soloist in Handel's Messiah with The Norwalk Symphony and Verdi's Requiem at Montclaire State University and The Cathedral Basilica in NJ. Kenneth also made his Pensacola Opera debut this season in the world premier of David Ott's The Widow's Lantern and will return to Penscola Opera as Joe(Showboat). Later this season Kenneth reprises the role of Germont(La Traviata) in his return to Sacramento Opera in addition to Escamillo(Carmen) with Asheville Lyric Opera. The young baritone will also sing Zemlinsky's Lyric Suite with the Gulf Coast Symphony and Jake(Porgy and Bess) with the New Jersey State Opera. Vivian Penham, cello, A graduate of the Juilliard School and Columbia University, studies with Ardyth Alton and Lorne Munroe. Freelancing in the NY area, she plays with the New England Symphonic Ensemble, Scandia Symphony, and American Symphony. In addition, she is a Goethe Institute scholarship recipient. Other artistic activities include touring with The Mantovani Orchestra, Phantom of the Opera, and the Southwest Florida Symphony. In addition she is the founder of Claremont strings and ensemble, which has performed regionally presenting unique interpretations of old masters and Music in Urban spaces under the auspices of HAI. Christine Reimer, mezzo-soprano, is proud to be making her debut with Brooklyn Opera. Her international career has taken her to the Wexford Opera Festival in Ireland, as well as to Austria, Switzerland, and the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Originally from the San Francisco area, Ms. Reimer has sung with the San Francisco Opera, Marin Opera, and Oakland Opera companies. Her most recent work in New York was as a soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Schenectady and Utica Symphonies. Her varied repertoire includes Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, Dorabella in Cosi fan Tutte, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, and the title role in Carmen. Basia Revi, Mezzo-soprano holds Masters of Music degree with distinction from the Academy of Music in Katowice, Poland and MA from ACSM at Queens College. In Poland, she sang the roles of Third Lady, Olga, and the mezzo solo in Missa Criolla by A. Ramirez in televised performances. Most recently she performed the role of Balia and Madonna Montecchi with International Opera Theater in Italy. In 2007 she made her New York City Opera debut as a Spirit in a production of Cendrillon. Other roles: Giulietta and the Voice of the Mother in Martina Arroyo’s Prelude to Performance. Nina Riley, soprano, heralded as "the kind of Despina one hopes for: diminutive, agile and with just the right clear, slender soprano voice"(NYTimes), has performed with OCB, Dell'arte Opera, Martina Arroyo Foundation, Project Opera of Manhattan, Chelsea Opera, Center City Opera, and Minato Mirai Opera in Japan. This fall: Javotte (Manon) with New York Lyric Opera Theater at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Gauchito (Gauchito and The Pony) with Queens Symphony Orchestra. Roles: Despina (Cosi Fan Tutte), Oscar (Un Ballo in Maschera), Papagena (Die Zauberflöte),Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia), La Novizia (Suor Angelica), Mrs Hayes (Susannah), *Adina(L'elisir D'amore), and *Zerlina (Don Giovanni). *(cover) Barry Robinson, baritone, is a native of Greenville, SC. He holds a Master of Music from Rice University and a Bachelor of Music from Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Robinson has performed the roles of Frank (Die Fledermaus), Henry Davis (Street Scene), Giove (La Calisto). In Opera Scenes programs he has performed Frank (The Postman Always Rings Twice), Taddeo (L'italiana in Algeri), The Forester (The Cunning Little Vixen), Il Conte and Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), and both Don Barbara Staffen, mezzo-soprano, has been praised by the San Mateo County Times for her “rich and lyrical mezzo-soprano” and “ability to dominate the stage with her well-paced dramatic presence.” Performances in 2009 included Enrichetta di Francia (I Puritani) with OCB, La Cieca (La Gioconda) with Center Stage Opera in Harrisburg, PA, and Erda (Siegfried) with Fort Lee Opera. Previous OCB roles include Cecily (La Divina), Dritte Dame (Die Zauberflöte), and Marcellina (Le nozze di Figaro). She looks forward to performing Baba (The Medium) and Annius (La Clemenza di Tito) with OCB in 2010. Leslie Tay is a Singaporean character tenor who has performed in opera, oratorio, musical theater, choral, pop a cappella and theater. His operatic roles include Monostatos, Beppe, Don Basilio, Alfred, King Kaspar and Adalgiso (Tassilone). He has sung with Dicapo Opera, Bronx Opera, American Opera Projects, Opera Manhattan, Brooklyn Repertory Opera and Singapore Lyric Opera. He has created lead roles in original musicals by Singaporean playwright, Stella Kon and performed Banquo in Shakespeare's Macbeth with Singapore Repertory Theatre. Leslie holds a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music where he was in the studio of Arthur Levy. OPERA & FASHION OCB collaborated with designers Hayden-Harnett (HH) for NYC's Fashion Week. See photos by Spencer Platt, Staff Photographer at Getty Images, at life.com .
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