Community Calendar

Grace Kelly, the Girl Next Door Exhibit highlights Kelly's film career, personal life and her life as the Princess of Monaco. Highlights are movie stills, posters, costumes, gowns, movie props, scripts, family pictures and her relationship with Jimmy Stewart.

Now streaming on the Opera Philadelphia Channel! In a special concert adaptation, the tragic tale of Tosca takes on a completely new dimension. Seen through the eyes of an omniscient narrator, this innovative version of Puccini’s beloved work bridges opera and storytelling, highlighting major themes from the original. Created to address concerns around audience and artist safety, The Drama of Tosca is 90 minutes (with no intermission) and focuses on the three principal characters. They are joined by the spoken narrator, full orchestra, and adult chorus. GRAMMY Award-winning soprano Ana María Martínez makes her company and role debuts as the fiery opera singer Floria Tosca, who takes matters into her own hands when the dreaded chief of police Baron Scarpia (baritone Quinn Kelsey in his company and role debuts) hunts for her lover, the zealous painter Mario Cavaradossi (tenor Brian Jagde in his company debut). Maestro Corrado Rovaris, Opera Philadelphia’s Jack Mulroney Music Director, conducts 68 players from the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra, while 40 chorus singers perform from the balcony.

Grace Kelly, the Girl Next Door Exhibit highlights Kelly's film career, personal life and her life as the Princess of Monaco. Highlights are movie stills, posters, costumes, gowns, movie props, scripts, family pictures and her relationship with Jimmy Stewart.

Grace Kelly, the Girl Next Door Exhibit highlights Kelly's film career, personal life and her life as the Princess of Monaco. Highlights are movie stills, posters, costumes, gowns, movie props, scripts, family pictures and her relationship with Jimmy Stewart.

Opera Saratoga announces updated casting and ticket information for its innovative new festival model that embraces partnerships with multiple venues across the region. At the heart of the 2022 Summer Festival will be performances of Rossini's bel canto comedy The Barber of Seville on Proctors MainStage, as well as his exquisite Petite Messe Solennelle at The Round Lake Auditorium; the deeply moving Sky on Swings by Lembit Beecher and Hannah Moscovitch at The Egg, which explores the journey of two women living with Alzheimer's disease; and Stephen Sondheim's Broadway masterpiece, Sweeney Todd, on the Amphitheater Stage of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Additional events will include Stars of Tomorrow at The Charles R. Wood Theater in Glens Falls; A Broadway Cabaretat The Mansion of Saratoga in Rock City Falls; and A Juneteenth Celebration at Proctors' GE Theater in Schenectady. In addition, the 2022 Opera Gala – Opera Under the Stars will take place on Sunday, June 5th at The Barn at French Mountain in Lake George Village. For more information, visit www.operasaratoga.org. Tickets for Summer Festival performances are currently available through Festival Passes (previously called Subscriptions); or tickets can be purchased to individual performances, which will go on sale March 21st. This season, Opera Saratoga is offering two Festival Passes, which provide significant savings, priority ticket access, and the greatest degree of flexibility: ALL ACCESS PASS: Opera Saratoga's All Access Pass provides the best value this summer while guaranteeing the best seats for every production and concert. Benefits include: saving 20% off tickets to Sweeney Todd, Sky on Swings, The Barber of Seville, the Petite Messe Solennelle, and A Broadway Cabaret; and FREE tickets to A Juneteenth Celebration and Stars of Tomorrow. All Access Pass holders also receive a 20% discount off any additional tickets they wish to purchase. FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS PASS: Opera Saratoga's Festival Highlights Pass provides priority seating and 20% off ticketsto Sweeney Todd, Sky on Swings, and The Barber of Seville. Pass holders can then customize their Highlights Pass by adding tickets to concerts of their choice, with a 10% discount off any additional tickets purchased. With the purchase of either Festival Pass, there is no need to deal with multiple box offices for ticket purchases, and free exchanges are available. Festival Pass holders also save on handling fees: there is a single $10 fee per order when purchasing Festival Passes; whereas there is a processing fee charged by each venue's box office on each ticket purchased that is not part of a Festival Pass.  SINGLE TICKETS: Tickets for individual events will be available online or by phone beginning March 21st, 2022through the SPAC, Proctors, and Egg Box Offices. SPAC is handling ticket sales for: Sweeney Todd (at SPAC); Stars of Tomorrow (at The Wood Theater); A Broadway Cabaret (at The Mansion of Saratoga); and performances of the Petite Messe Solennelle (at The Round Lake Auditorium). Proctors is handling tickets for: The Barber of Seville and A Juneteenth Celebration (both at Proctors); and tickets for Sky on Swings (at The Egg) will be available through The Egg.  For complete details on Festival Passes and Single Tickets, visit operasaratoga.org  Opera Saratoga's 2022 Summer Festival is made possible in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.  OPERA SARATOGA 2022 FESTIVAL PROGRAM AND CASTING STARS OF TOMORROW Thursday, May 26 @ 7pm Presented by Opera Saratoga in partnership with  The Charles R. Wood Theater, Glens Falls Start the season with our annual Stars of Tomorrow concert – featuring 22 singers from around the country who have been selected from over 1,000 applicants to be members of Opera Saratoga's prestigious Young Artist Program. One of the most popular concerts of the season, the program includes arias from over 20 different operas PETITE MESSE SOLENNELLE Thursday, June 2 @ 7:30pm  Friday, June 3 @ 7:30pm Presented by Opera Saratoga in partnership with  The Round Lake Auditorium, Round Lake Village Music by Gioachino Rossini Rossini is remembered primarily for his extraordinary contribution to the Italian operatic repertoire, but he also wrote important pieces of sacred music that are notable, among other things, for their overtly operatic style. The Petite Messe Solennelle, written near the end of Rossini's life, is scored for four soloists and a chamber chorus, with harmonium and piano accompaniment. It was not heard in public until 1869, the year after his death. The work's title is misleading, since the Petite Messe Solennelle is neither petite nor particularly solemn. The music ranges from hushed intensity to boisterous high spirits, and the memorable tunes and rhythmic vitality for which Rossini became justly famous are abundant throughout the work. Festival Artists from Opera Saratoga's nationally acclaimed Young Artist Program will be featured in these special performances, conducted by Laurie Rogers, at the Round Lake Auditorium. The centerpiece of the Auditorium is the historic, 1,900–pipe Ferris Tracker organ. Built in 1847, what was the second largest organ in New York City is now the oldest, largest and unaltered organ of its kind in the United States. In place of the traditionally used harmonium – a smaller scale pump organ – Opera Saratoga's performances of the Petite Messe Solennelle will feature the extraordinary Ferris Tracker organ, making these concerts a truly unique and not-to-be missed occasion. FEATURED ARTISTS  SOPRANO SOLOIST: Angela Yam MEZZO SOPRANO SOLOIST: Sable Strout TENOR SOLOIST: Morgan Mastrangelo BASS SOLOIST: Turner Staton CONDUCTOR: Laurie Rogers OPERA UNDER THE STARS – THE OPERA SARATOGA GALA Sunday, June 5 @ 4pm Gala Honoree: Martha Strohl Gala Chair: Steve Rosenblum Opera Saratoga returns to the Barn at French Mountain in Lake George Village for the 2022 Opera Gala – Opera Under the Stars. This wonderful venue allows us to host you outdoors in a covered tent for a cocktail reception, and to then move to their enormous open-sided barn for our seated dinner, auction, and of course - our entertainment featuring Opera Saratoga's Festival Artists.  This year, we honor Opera Saratoga's outgoing President, Martha Strohl. Martha has been a passionate advocate for Opera Saratoga for almost 20 years. Her philanthropic leadership has not only allowed Opera Saratoga to increase opportunities for emerging operatic artists to hone their talents, but has also helped to inspire greater support throughout the community; and her calm and steady hand throughout the pandemic has been a beacon of stability over the past two years. A HUNDRED YEARS OF BROADWAY – A BROADWAY CABARET Sunday, June 12 @ 2pm Sunday, June 12 @ 7pm Presented by Opera Saratoga in partnership with The Mansion of Saratoga, Rock City Falls  Opera Saratoga returns to The Mansion of Saratoga for A Hundred Years of Broadway, featuring musical theater favorites from the 1920s to present day. Under the musical direction of Broadway conductor Laura Bergquist, the program will also include a tribute to Stephen Sondheim, who passed away at the age of 91 in December. The Mansion of Saratoga features cabaret style table seating, with a delicious menu of Broadway inspired bistro food and drink available for purchase from Cordon Bleu trained Executive Chef Rick Bieber.   A JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION WITH SIDNEY OUTLAW Sunday, June 19 @ 2:30pm Presented by Opera Saratoga in Partnership with  Proctors GE Theatre, Schenectady Opera Saratoga's second annual Juneteenth concert features baritone Sidney Outlaw, who makes his opera debut with the company later in the season as Figaro in The Barber of Seville. Sidney was the Grand Prize winner of the Concurso Internacional de Canto Montserrat Caballé in 2010 and continues to delight audiences in the U.S. and abroad with his rich and versatile baritone and engaging stage presence. His recital debut with Opera Saratoga on Juneteenth will celebrate the legacy of Black composers and writers in American song, with a program including works by Langston Hughes, Robert Owens, Claude McKay, Dorothy Rudd Moore, and Frederick Douglass. SWEENEY TODD - THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET A MUSICAL THRILLER Wednesday, June 29 @ 7:30pm Thursday, June 30 @ 7:30pm Produced by Opera Saratoga in partnership with  Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim Book by Hugh Wheeler From an adaptation by Christopher Bond  Originally Directed On Broadway by Harold Prince Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick Originally Produced on Broadway by Richard Barr, Charles Woodward, Robert Fryer, Mary Lea Johnson, Martin Richards in Association with Dean and Judy Manos Sweeney Todd was first produced in 1979 on Broadway where it won eight Tony awards including Best Musical. Widely acknowledged as Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece, Sweeney Todd tells a dark tale of vengeance and murder, leavened with ghoulish humor, in Victorian London. Returning after being wrongly imprisoned, Sweeney vows revenge on the Judge who incarcerated him, and finds an unlikely ally in Mrs. Lovett, the owner of a struggling meat pie shop who finds a good use for Sweeney's victims.  Three-time Tony nominee and Drama Desk Award Winner Carolee Carmello takes the stage as Mrs. Lovett in her Opera Saratoga and SPAC debut, alongside internationally acclaimed bass baritone Craig Colclough as Sweeney Todd. Laura Bergquist, who made her debut on the SPAC stage last summer leading Opera Saratoga's critically acclaimed production of Man of La Mancha will conduct the staged concert performances, directed and choreographed by Kyle Lang. CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM   MRS. NELLIE LOVETT: Carolee Carmello SWEENEY TODD / BENJAMIN BARKER: Craig Colclough ANTHONY HOPE: Louis Tiemann JOHANNA BARKER: Angela Yam JUDGE TURPIN: Daniel Mobbs TOBIAS RAGG: Morgan Mastrangelo BEADLE BAMFORD: Arnold Livingston Geis BEGGAR WOMAN: Maria De Conzo ADOLFO PIRELLI: Brian Yeakley CONDUCTOR: Laura Bergquist DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHER: Kyle Lang COSTUME DESIGNER: Glenn Avery Breed LIGHTING DESIGNER: TBA WIG & MAKEUP DESIGNER: Sue Schaefer Sweeney Todd is presented through special arrangement with Music Theater International (MTI). All performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.mtishows.com  SKY ON SWINGS Thursday, July 7 @ 7:30pm Saturday, July 9 @ 2pm Produced by Opera Saratoga in Partnership with The Egg Performing Arts Center, Albany Music by Lembit Beecher Libretto by Hannah Moscovitch Sky on Swings is a riveting musical and theatrical exploration of what it feels like to live with Alzheimer's Disease, as seen through the eyes of two women at different stages in the progression of dementia: Martha, who is far gone in the disease; and Danny, who knows what is happening to her and is in frantic denial.  When Martha and Danny meet, they form an unexpected bond of love and support. Through their eyes - along with the experience of their children who struggle with how to best support their mothers - a deeply moving world of discovery is revealed in memories lost.  Two of the country's most distinguished artists, mezzo sopranos Marietta Simpson and Phyllis Pancella, make their Opera Saratoga debuts in the roles of Martha and Danny in this new production, directed by Artistic and General Director Lawrence Edelson and conducted by rising star Emily Senturia.  CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM   MARTHA: Marietta Simpson DANNY: Phyllis Pancella WINNIE: Helena Colindres IRA: Ryan Johnson OF MEMORY / ELDER 1: Chase Sanders OF MEMORY / ELDER 2: Raphaela Medina OF MEMORY / ELDER 3: Arieh Sacke OF MEMORY / ADMINISTRATOR: Spencer Reichman CONDUCTOR: Emily Senturia DIRECTOR: Lawrence Edelson SCENIC DESIGNER: Julia Noulin-Mérat COSTUME DESIGNER: Whitney Locher LIGHTING DESIGNER: Marcella Barbeau WIG & MAKEUP DESIGNER: Sue Schaefer This new production of Sky on Swings is a co-production with Opera Columbus. This production has been made possible with leadership support from OPERA America's Next Stage program, supported by Gene Kaufman, Terry Eder-Kaufman, and New Vision for Opera, with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  THE BARBER OF SEVILLE – IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA Friday, July 8 @ 7:30pm Sunday, July 10 @ 2pm Produced by Opera Saratoga in Partnership with Proctors, Schenectady  Music by Gioachino Rossini Libretto by Cesare Sterbini Sung in Italian with English supertitles  The Barber of Seville is the hilarious story of a love triangle involving Dr. Bartolo, Count Almaviva, and the charming Rosina. Figaro — the local barber who, in fact, does much more than cut hair — is the ultimate "wingman" for Count Almaviva, creating elaborate schemes, aliases, and disguises to help him fool Dr. Bartolo and get the girl. Rossini's madcap comedy is one of the most popular operas in the world and is guaranteed to send you out laughing and humming! Baritone Sidney Outlaw makes his Opera Saratoga debut as the beloved barber Figaro, alongside tenor Brian Yeakley – a distinguished alumnus of Opera Saratoga's Young Artist Program – as Count Almaviva, South African mezzo soprano Siphokazi Molteno in her role debut as Rosina, and bass baritone Daniel Mobbs as Dr. Bartolo. Dean Williamson conducts the production directed by Eve Summer, another remarkable alumna of Opera Saratoga's Young Artist Program. CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM   ROSINA: Siphokazi Molteno COUNT ALMAVIVA: Brian Yeakley FIGARO: Sidney Outlaw DR. BARTOLO: Daniel Mobbs BASILIO: Jeremy Harr BERTA: Whitney Robinson CONDUCTOR: Dean Williamson DIRECTOR: Eve Summer SET DESIGNER: Ken MacDonald COSTUME DESIGNER: Dana Osborne LIGHTING DESIGNER: TBA WIG & MAKEUP DESIGNER: Sue Schaefer The production and designs for The Barber of Seville were originally created by Pacific Opera Victoria for production in February 2016. Original stage director: Morris Panych. Original lighting designer: Kimberly Purtell. ABOUT OPERA SARATOGA Opera Saratoga, formerly known as Lake George Opera, began with a production of Die Fledermaus at the Diamond Point Theatre on July 5, 1962, playing to an audience of 230. The Company now calls Saratoga Springs home and performs for more than 25,000 people annually. Opera Saratoga serves the communities of Saratoga Springs, the Lower Adirondack and New York State Capital areas by providing access to world-class opera through the production of an annual Summer Festival, as well as year-round activities including extensive educational programs, therapeutic music programs, mentorship of emerging operatic artists, and unique opportunities for the public to experience opera in both theaters and non-traditional venues that leverage and embrace the unique cultural, historic, and natural resources of the area. To date, the company has performed 106 different fully staged works by 66 different composers, including 42 works by American composers and 14 premiere productions. In 2014, the Board of Directors appointed Lawrence Edelson Opera Saratoga's Artistic and General Director. Edelson's leadership has marked a new chapter in the company's history, with increased emphasis on community partnerships throughout the year, diversification of the company's repertoire, and a reaffirmed commitment to both the presentation of American opera and the mentorship of emerging artists as core activities in the company's programs each season.

Grace Kelly, the Girl Next Door Exhibit highlights Kelly's film career, personal life and her life as the Princess of Monaco. Highlights are movie stills, posters, costumes, gowns, movie props, scripts, family pictures and her relationship with Jimmy Stewart.

The Performance Project at University Settlement and Music At The Anthology present the world premiere of Family Association, a unique, site-specific soundwalk, as part of AAPI Heritage Month in Manhattan's Chinatown on May 27-28, 2022 and June 1-3, 2022 at 6pm at Dr. Sun Yat Sen Plaza in Columbus Park. Reservations for soundwalk meet ups are free and available at gtlam.com/family-association. Participants will meet together with composer George Tsz-Kwan Lam, who will lead this series of free soundwalk meet ups. Listeners will gather in Chinatown to begin the soundwalk, and will meet together at the end of the piece to share their experience.

Listeners may also download the app and experience this site-specific work on their own by using their own smartphones and headphones. The Family Association iOS and web apps will launch on May 27, and will be available for download at gtlam.com/family-association. Building on Lam's oral history and musical placemaking project The Emigrants, Family Association is an innovative site-specific, geolocation-enabled musical piece that uses collected oral history recordings from five members of the Chinese-American community presented as an interactive soundwalk in Manhattan's Chinatown.

Throughout the work, listeners will freely explore the neighborhood while listening to the project on a smartphone app, hearing interviewees' memories of their extended families, how their families emigrated to the United States, and whom they imagine their ancestors to be – including those who left their homeland to seek a new future in the U.S. Using GPS technology, these audio recordings are embedded within sites of various family associations in Chinatown; such associations have created tight-knit, supportive, social, and imagined communities based on a common family name. These associations in the neighborhood serve as a way for the listener to interact with the stories that they hear. In Family Association, the listener will use a GPS-enabled smartphone app as they freely explore Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood. Listeners' real-time location will affect what they hear, with a mix of the recorded oral history and instrumental music derived from the recorded speech created by composer George Tsz-Kwan Lam. As the work begins, the speech is more fragmented, interspersed with musical gestures inspired by the rhythms and melodic contours of the recorded speech. When the listener approaches the site of a family association, the speech can be heard more clearly, recalling the way in which these micro-communities have helped generations of Chinese-Americans to both reconstruct and reconnect with their past. Over the course of the 15-minute experience, the recorded testimony gradually focuses on the interviewees' vision of their legacy for the next generation. Listeners will hear recorded interviews with Eugenie Chan, Jerllin Cheng, Frank Gee, Karen Liu, and Han Yu. The recorded musicians include Dorothy Chan (piano), Michael Compitello (percussion), Hannah Collins (cello), Zach Herchen (saxophone), and Patrick Yim (violin).

Family Association is co-commissioned and co-presented by The Performance Project at University Settlement and MATA Presents, and is made possible with support from Music At The Anthology, Inc. (MATA) and Hong Kong Baptist University. Family Association's app is developed with the open-source Roundware framework.

George Tsz-Kwan Lam is a composer who grew up in both Hong Kong and Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Music, Hong Kong Baptist University, and previously served as Assistant Professor of Music at York College, The City University of New York. He is a founding member of the artist-run new opera ensemble Rhymes With Opera, and for the 2021-22 season, he is serving as an Artist-In-Residence at University Settlement in New York City. In his work as a composer, Lam is primarily interested in the idea of musical placemaking, which is to create music that is intimately connected with the place where it is performed and heard. Such projects include a site-specific opera in 2011 inspired by former cigarette factories in Durham, North Carolina, as well as a concert band work in 2017 based on scenes from the town of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, performed by students who live in the town. Lam's musical placemaking project, titled The Emigrants, was commissioned by the cello-percussion duo New Morse Code. This work includes collected oral history recordings from various emigrant musicians living or working in Queens, New York City, one of the most ethnically diverse urban areas in the world. In these interviews, Lam focused on how the experience of leaving home has shaped the musicians' identities and why they have chosen to stay. The recorded speech is interwoven with instrumental music, blurring the lines between recorded reality and its musical representation. As a result, Lam explores how the absence of a visual record can create space for an aural and musical documentary form. The Emigrants was supported by grants from CUNY and the Queens Council on the Arts. The work was first performed at the Queens Museum in 2018, and was released as a digital recording in 2020. As the 2018 Composer-in-Residence for the Chautauqua Opera Company, Lam created two works for voice and piano (Sissieretta Jones, Carnegie Hall, 1902 / O patria mia on a poem by Tyehimba Jess; Such Sweet Sorrow on a poem by Allison Joseph) and a new work for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (Underwater Acoustics on a poem by Rajiv Mohabir). Lam's recent operas include the 2018 collaborative opera Rumpelstiltskin, created with co-composer Ruby Fulton and librettist John Clum, as well as the 2015 one-act opera Heartbreak Express also with a libretto by John Clum. Lam is also an alum of The American Opera Project's Composers & The Voice workshop. For more information, visit gtlam.com.

University Settlement partners with 40,000 New Yorkers on the Lower East Side and in Brooklyn every year to build on their strengths as they achieve healthy, stable, and remarkable lives. For 135 years, we've collaborated with our communities to pioneer highly effective programs that fight poverty and systemic inequality. Established in 1886 as the first Settlement House in the United States, we bring the values of that movement into the 21st century by meeting New Yorkers where they live, listening to their perspectives, recognizing their excellence, understanding them as complete individuals, and creating space for them to organize. Joining together with our neighbors to advocate for justice and equality, we help build community strength.    Since 2007, The Performance Project has been offering local young artists and professional emerging artists opportunities to connect, create and publicly present new work. We support artists who are interested in how live art can heal, empower and activate. https://www.universitysettlement.org/

Music at the Anthology (MATA) is an incubator for adventurous emerging artists experimenting with composition, multimedia, collaborative performance art, and every imaginable sound in between. We present, support, and commission the music of early-career composers, regardless of their stylistic views or aesthetic inclinations. Founded by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky, and Lisa Bielawa in 1996 as a way to address the lack of presentation opportunities for unaffiliated composers, MATA has since developed into the world's most sought-after performance opportunity for young and emerging composers. MATA presents an internationally-recognized festival each spring in New York City of new music by early-career composers selected from a free global call for submissions; MATA Presents, commissioned projects presented at venues and non-conventional spaces throughout New York; and MATA Jr., an evening of music by pre-college composers, mentored by emerging composers, and performed by top performers in new music.

New York City Opera will present a season of four free, live performances this summer as part of their Park Series in Bryant Park's Picnic Performances presented by Bank of America. Each performance features City Opera's brightest stars as well as members of the City Opera orchestra and will begin at 7pm on the Bryant Park Stage. The series of one-night-only operas accompanied by live music includes The Barber of Seville, La traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, and a special Pride in the Park performance. Entry is on a first-come, first-served basis. Performances are designed to be enjoyed casually - no tickets required - with ample seating available and free picnic blankets for audience members to borrow. For more information, visit bryantpark.org/picnics.
 
For anyone unable to attend in person, free livestream broadcasts of the performances will be available nationwide via Bryant Park's website and social media platforms.

New York City Opera was famously dubbed "The People's Opera" by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia at its founding in 1943. More than 75 years later, City Opera continues its historic mission to inspire audiences with innovative and theatrically compelling opera, nurture the work of promising American artists, and build new audiences through affordable ticket prices and extensive outreach and education programs.​ Picnic Performances continues the tradition of opera in Bryant Park.

Performance Details:
The Barber of Seville 
May 27, 2022 at 7pm
Gioachino Rossini's sparkling music animates the hijinks of Figaro, opera's most famous barber. Amy Maude Helfer, Dimitrie Lazich, and WooYoung Yoon star in this crowd-pleasing production directed by Helena Binder and featuring members of the New York City Opera Orchestra conducted by Carmine Aufiero. 

Pride in the Park 
June 17, 2022 at 7pm
New York City Opera's annual LGBTQ Pride concert will feature a diverse program of selections from opera and musical theater sung by stars from City Opera's Pride Series.

La traviata
August 12, 2022 at 7pm
An abridged adaptation of Verdi's classic that inspired Moulin Rouge, with instantly recognizable tunes famously featured in Pretty Woman. Soprano Ekaterina Siurina and renowned tenor Charles Castronovo appear with Michael Chioldi, baritone and star of last summer's Rigoletto (a role he recently stepped into at the Metropolitan Opera for a series of critically acclaimed performances), with City Opera Music Director Maestro Constantine Orbelian at the helm.

Lucia di Lammermoor
September 2, 2022 at 7pm
Think Romeo and Juliet, but set in Scotland. Donizetti's brilliant score is the height of drama and the pinnacle of the Bel Canto style in this abridged version starring world-renowned soprano Sarah Coburn and the captivating tenor Nathan Granner, and conducted by Constantine Orbelian. 

Attendees may bring their own food or purchase from on-site food and beverage vendors near the Lawn. At most performances, attendees can purchase food from a rotating line-up of local NYC vendors curated by Hester Street Fair. At all performances, Stout NYC offers cheese and charcuterie boards as well as a selection of beer, wine, frosé, and non-alcoholic beverages for purchase. COVID-19 vaccinations and masks are not currently required but Bryant Park will continue to monitor and follow updated New York City and New York State COVID-19 guidelines throughout the summer as necessary.

About New York City Opera
Since its founding in 1943 by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia as "The People's Opera," New York City Opera (NYCO) has been a critical part of the city's cultural life. During its history, New York City Opera launched the careers of dozens of major artists and presented engaging productions of both mainstream and unusual operas alongside commissions and regional premieres. The result was a uniquely American opera company of international stature. For more than seven decades, New York City Opera has maintained a distinct identity, adhering to its unique mission: affordable ticket prices, a devotion to American works, English-language performances, the promotion of up-and-coming American singers, and seasons of accessible, vibrant and compelling productions intended to introduce new audiences to the art form. Stars who launched their careers at New York City Opera include Plácido Domingo, Catherine Malfitano, Sherrill Milnes, Samuel Ramey, Beverly Sills, Tatiana Troyanos, Carol Vaness, and Shirley Verrett, among dozens of other great artists. New York City Opera has a long history of inclusion and diversity. It was the first major opera company to feature African American singers in leading roles (Todd Duncan as Tonio in Pagliacci, 1945; Camilla Williams in the title role in Madama Butterfly, 1946); the first to produce a new work by an African-American composer (William Grant Still, Troubled Island, 1949); and the first to have an African-American conductor lead its orchestra (Everett Lee, 1955). A revitalized City Opera re-opened in January 2016 with Tosca, the opera that originally launched the company in 1944. Outstanding productions during the four years since then include: the world premieres of Iain Bell and Mark Campbell's Stonewall, which NYCO commissioned and developed, legendary director Harold Prince's new production of Bernstein's Candide; Puccini's beloved La Fanciulla del West; and the New York premiere of Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas — the first in its Ópera en Español series. Subsequent Ópera en Español productions include the New York premiere of the world's first mariachi opera, José "Pepe" Martinez's Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, Literes's Los Elementos, and Piazzolla's María de Buenos Aires. In addition to the world premiere of Stonewall, the productions in NYCO's Pride Initiative, which produces an LGBTQ-themed work each June during Pride Month, include the New York premiere of Péter Eötvös's Angels in America and the American premiere of Charles Wuorinen's Brokeback Mountain. New York City Opera has presented such talents as Anna Caterina Antonacci and Aprile Millo in concert, as well as its own 75th Anniversary Concert in Bryant Park, one in a series of the many concerts and staged productions that it presents each year as part of the Park's summer performance series. City Opera's acclaimed summer series in Bryant Park brings free performances to thousands of New Yorkers and visitors every year. New York City Opera continues its legacy with main stage performances at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater and with revitalized outreach and education programs at venues throughout the city, designed to welcome and inspire a new generation of opera audiences. City Opera's acclaimed summer series in Bryant Park brings free performances to thousands of New Yorkers and visitors every year.

New York City Opera: 
www.nycopera.com
Instagram: @nycopera 
facebook.com/NewYorkCityOpera
Twitter: @nycityopera

About Bryant Park 
Bryant Park Corporation (BPC), a private not-for-profit company, was founded in 1980 to renovate, finance and operate Bryant Park in New York City. BPC is funded by income from events, concessions, and corporate sponsors, as well as an assessment on neighboring properties, and does not accept government or philanthropic monies. In addition to providing security, sanitation, and horticultural services, BPC offers restaurants, food kiosks, world-class restrooms, and a wide range of free events throughout the year. The Midtown Manhattan park is visited by more than 12 million people each year and is one of the busiest public spaces in the world. BPC's website, bryantpark.org, offers more detailed information and a schedule of upcoming events.

Grace Kelly, the Girl Next Door Exhibit highlights Kelly's film career, personal life and her life as the Princess of Monaco. Highlights are movie stills, posters, costumes, gowns, movie props, scripts, family pictures and her relationship with Jimmy Stewart.

The Performance Project at University Settlement and Music At The Anthology present the world premiere of Family Association, a unique, site-specific soundwalk, as part of AAPI Heritage Month in Manhattan's Chinatown on May 27-28, 2022 and June 1-3, 2022 at 6pm at Dr. Sun Yat Sen Plaza in Columbus Park. Reservations for soundwalk meet ups are free and available at gtlam.com/family-association. Participants will meet together with composer George Tsz-Kwan Lam, who will lead this series of free soundwalk meet ups. Listeners will gather in Chinatown to begin the soundwalk, and will meet together at the end of the piece to share their experience.

Listeners may also download the app and experience this site-specific work on their own by using their own smartphones and headphones. The Family Association iOS and web apps will launch on May 27, and will be available for download at gtlam.com/family-association. Building on Lam's oral history and musical placemaking project The Emigrants, Family Association is an innovative site-specific, geolocation-enabled musical piece that uses collected oral history recordings from five members of the Chinese-American community presented as an interactive soundwalk in Manhattan's Chinatown.

Throughout the work, listeners will freely explore the neighborhood while listening to the project on a smartphone app, hearing interviewees' memories of their extended families, how their families emigrated to the United States, and whom they imagine their ancestors to be – including those who left their homeland to seek a new future in the U.S. Using GPS technology, these audio recordings are embedded within sites of various family associations in Chinatown; such associations have created tight-knit, supportive, social, and imagined communities based on a common family name. These associations in the neighborhood serve as a way for the listener to interact with the stories that they hear. In Family Association, the listener will use a GPS-enabled smartphone app as they freely explore Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood. Listeners' real-time location will affect what they hear, with a mix of the recorded oral history and instrumental music derived from the recorded speech created by composer George Tsz-Kwan Lam. As the work begins, the speech is more fragmented, interspersed with musical gestures inspired by the rhythms and melodic contours of the recorded speech. When the listener approaches the site of a family association, the speech can be heard more clearly, recalling the way in which these micro-communities have helped generations of Chinese-Americans to both reconstruct and reconnect with their past. Over the course of the 15-minute experience, the recorded testimony gradually focuses on the interviewees' vision of their legacy for the next generation. Listeners will hear recorded interviews with Eugenie Chan, Jerllin Cheng, Frank Gee, Karen Liu, and Han Yu. The recorded musicians include Dorothy Chan (piano), Michael Compitello (percussion), Hannah Collins (cello), Zach Herchen (saxophone), and Patrick Yim (violin).

Family Association is co-commissioned and co-presented by The Performance Project at University Settlement and MATA Presents, and is made possible with support from Music At The Anthology, Inc. (MATA) and Hong Kong Baptist University. Family Association's app is developed with the open-source Roundware framework.

George Tsz-Kwan Lam is a composer who grew up in both Hong Kong and Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Music, Hong Kong Baptist University, and previously served as Assistant Professor of Music at York College, The City University of New York. He is a founding member of the artist-run new opera ensemble Rhymes With Opera, and for the 2021-22 season, he is serving as an Artist-In-Residence at University Settlement in New York City. In his work as a composer, Lam is primarily interested in the idea of musical placemaking, which is to create music that is intimately connected with the place where it is performed and heard. Such projects include a site-specific opera in 2011 inspired by former cigarette factories in Durham, North Carolina, as well as a concert band work in 2017 based on scenes from the town of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, performed by students who live in the town. Lam's musical placemaking project, titled The Emigrants, was commissioned by the cello-percussion duo New Morse Code. This work includes collected oral history recordings from various emigrant musicians living or working in Queens, New York City, one of the most ethnically diverse urban areas in the world. In these interviews, Lam focused on how the experience of leaving home has shaped the musicians' identities and why they have chosen to stay. The recorded speech is interwoven with instrumental music, blurring the lines between recorded reality and its musical representation. As a result, Lam explores how the absence of a visual record can create space for an aural and musical documentary form. The Emigrants was supported by grants from CUNY and the Queens Council on the Arts. The work was first performed at the Queens Museum in 2018, and was released as a digital recording in 2020. As the 2018 Composer-in-Residence for the Chautauqua Opera Company, Lam created two works for voice and piano (Sissieretta Jones, Carnegie Hall, 1902 / O patria mia on a poem by Tyehimba Jess; Such Sweet Sorrow on a poem by Allison Joseph) and a new work for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (Underwater Acoustics on a poem by Rajiv Mohabir). Lam's recent operas include the 2018 collaborative opera Rumpelstiltskin, created with co-composer Ruby Fulton and librettist John Clum, as well as the 2015 one-act opera Heartbreak Express also with a libretto by John Clum. Lam is also an alum of The American Opera Project's Composers & The Voice workshop. For more information, visit gtlam.com.

University Settlement partners with 40,000 New Yorkers on the Lower East Side and in Brooklyn every year to build on their strengths as they achieve healthy, stable, and remarkable lives. For 135 years, we've collaborated with our communities to pioneer highly effective programs that fight poverty and systemic inequality. Established in 1886 as the first Settlement House in the United States, we bring the values of that movement into the 21st century by meeting New Yorkers where they live, listening to their perspectives, recognizing their excellence, understanding them as complete individuals, and creating space for them to organize. Joining together with our neighbors to advocate for justice and equality, we help build community strength.    Since 2007, The Performance Project has been offering local young artists and professional emerging artists opportunities to connect, create and publicly present new work. We support artists who are interested in how live art can heal, empower and activate. https://www.universitysettlement.org/

Music at the Anthology (MATA) is an incubator for adventurous emerging artists experimenting with composition, multimedia, collaborative performance art, and every imaginable sound in between. We present, support, and commission the music of early-career composers, regardless of their stylistic views or aesthetic inclinations. Founded by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky, and Lisa Bielawa in 1996 as a way to address the lack of presentation opportunities for unaffiliated composers, MATA has since developed into the world's most sought-after performance opportunity for young and emerging composers. MATA presents an internationally-recognized festival each spring in New York City of new music by early-career composers selected from a free global call for submissions; MATA Presents, commissioned projects presented at venues and non-conventional spaces throughout New York; and MATA Jr., an evening of music by pre-college composers, mentored by emerging composers, and performed by top performers in new music.