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Press Releases
NY’s Delaware Valley Opera Kicks Off 24th Season with Lee Hoiby & Mozart
Lee Hoiby’s A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY: Glorious music, elegant people and a nasty secret. DVO’s composer in residence, the world renowned Lee Hoiby’s exciting opera based on Turgenev’s tragic-comedy was first performed at the New York City Opera and called “a wonderful new opera, a loveliness steeped in sadness and, at once, lightness.” The New York Times was “engrossed by it, and by the opera's psychological insight and grateful vocal writing, both equally rare.” Sung in English, the opera will be presented in a reduced orchestration especially conceived for the Tusten Theater in Narrowsburg and conducted by Artistic Director Kenneth Hamrick. Maestro Hamrick is an award-winning harpsichordist, fortepianist and organist and has distinguished himself as a conductor in a range of repertory from contemporary to baroque. The bold new staging is by New York director, Brent Buell, whose dazzling theatrical productions have received critics' praise from New York to Las Vegas. Set Design: Laura Jellinek; Lights: Dan Scully; Costumes: Melissa Schlachtmeyer, Production Manager: Joshua Scherr. Featured singers in this production include a leading international soprano, Patricia Johnson as Natalia Petrovna, a role originated by the legendary Patricia Neway, baritone David Trombley as Rakitin, Brittany Palmer as Vera, Christian Bowers as Belaev, Jeanne-Marie Lowell as Lisaveta, Julie Ziavras as Anna Semyonovna; Mariano Vidal as Arkady and Steven Utzig as the Doctor.
Seven performances: Saturday, July 31 at 7 pm Friday, August 6 at 8 pm Sunday, August 8 at 2 pm Thursday, August 12 at 2 pm Saturday, August 14 at 7 pm Friday, August 20 at 8 pm Sunday, August 22 at 2 pm.
Mozart’s COSI FAN TUTTE or The School for Lovers: “Everyone does it.” Mozart’s comic masterpiece of seduction and disguise involves two innocent young couples, manipulated for money and fun by two cynical friends, spun by Mozart’s genius into a succession of exquisite arias and ensembles with surprising results. This production is young and sexy and brought up to date by with stage direction by Sam Helfrich, the exciting young directorial talent whose stimulating reinterpretations have appeared at the Spoleto Festival, Opera Boston, and Glimmerglass. This production will be sung in Italian with English surtitles and orchestra conducted by Artistic Director Kenneth Hamrick. Maestro Hamrick is an award-winning harpsichordist, fortepianist and organist and has distinguished himself as a conductor in a range of repertory from contemporary to baroque. Jennifer Marshall and Jennifer Caruana will sing the roles of the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, Christine Heath the scheming maid Despina, Victor Khodadad, Ferrando, Thomas Lehman, Gugliemo and Eric Barsness will appear as Don Alfonso whose machinations set the plot in motion.
Seven performances: Saturday, July 24 at 2 pm Sunday, August 1 at 2 pm Saturday, August 7 at 7 pm Friday, August 13 at 8 pm Sunday, August 15 at 2 pm Thursday, August 19 at 2 pm Saturday, August 21 at 7 pm
Tickets $75 for Opening Night Gala receptions and performances July 24 & 31. All other performances $25/$22 (seniors and students.) For further information visit www.dv-opera.org, email: info@dv-opera.org or call 845-252-3136.
Lee Hoiby, born 1926 in Wisconsin, is one of the most notable living composers of classical vocal music. Hoiby's first opera, The Scarf, a chamber opera in one act, was recognized by TIME and the Italian press as the hit of the first Spoleto Festival in 1957. His next opera was Natalia Petrovna (New York City Opera, 1964), now known in its revised version as A Month in the Country, based on a play by Ivan Turgenev. Hoiby's setting of Tennessee Williams's Summer and Smoke (with libretto by Lanford Wilson), perhaps his best known opera, was declared "the finest American opera to date" by Harriet Johnson of The New York Post. It was premiered in 1971 by St Paul Opera, Minnesota, and performed at the New York City Opera the following season under conductor Julius Rudel. Among Hoiby's other operatic works are the one-act opera buffa Something New for the Zoo (1979); the musical monologue The Italian Lesson (1981, text by Ruth Draper) which was produced off-Broadway and nationally toured in 1989 with Jean Stapleton along with the Julia Child curtain-raiser Bon Appetit!; a three-act setting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1986), and a one-act chamber opera, This Is the Rill Speaking (1992), text by Lanford Wilson. Hoiby's most recent opera is a setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which awaits its world premiere.
Hoiby is also recognized as a notable song composer. From 1964 until her retirement in 1996, soprano Leontyne Price introduced many of his best known poem settings and arias to the public, including “The Serpent” of Roethke, “Be Not Afeard” (from The Tempest), the Dickinson songs, the “Evening” of Wallace Stevens, “Lady of the Harbor” and “Where the Music Comes From.” Of note among his larger compositions for the voice are his 1991 setting of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream for baritone and orchestra, which has had memorable performances by baritone William Stone and bass-baritone Simon Estes, and the orchestral song The Tides of Sleep on a text of Thomas Wolfe.
Though many of his works involve vocalists, Hoiby has also written some instrumental works, most recently Summer Suite for Wind Ensemble. He has also made significant contributions to the piano repertory (in addition to his demanding song accompaniments), including two piano concertos and a volume of solo piano works published by G. Schirmer. He has written chamber music in numerous combinations, including sonatas for violin, ‘cello, a concerto for flute and chamber orchestra (Pastoral Dances), and the piano quartet Dark Rosaleen (Rhapsody on a theme by James Joyce). Most recently he has written a work called Also for the Verdehr Trio of violin, clarinet and piano.
Hoiby has written several large-scale choral works, including the Christmas cantata A Hymn of the Nativity (text by Richard Crashaw), the oratorio Galileo Galilei (libretto by Barrie Stavis), and an accrual of works for voice, chorus and orchestra on texts of Walt Whitman which have been gathered into a full evening’s program called A Whitman Service. His numerous choral anthems are heard regularly in churches throughout the US and Britain.
In 2006 Hoiby wrote “Last Letter Home” to the words of an American soldier who died in Iraq. This moving work can be seen and heard in several versions on YouTube. The version performed by baritone Andrew Garland went viral with over half a million views. Visit: www.leehoiby.com.
Seven performances: Saturday, July 31 at 7 pm Friday, August 6 at 8 pm Sunday, August 8 at 2 pm Thursday, August 12 at 2 pm Saturday, August 14 at 7 pm Friday, August 20 at 8 pm Sunday, August 22 at 2 pm.
Mozart’s COSI FAN TUTTE or The School for Lovers: “Everyone does it.” Mozart’s comic masterpiece of seduction and disguise involves two innocent young couples, manipulated for money and fun by two cynical friends, spun by Mozart’s genius into a succession of exquisite arias and ensembles with surprising results. This production is young and sexy and brought up to date by with stage direction by Sam Helfrich, the exciting young directorial talent whose stimulating reinterpretations have appeared at the Spoleto Festival, Opera Boston, and Glimmerglass. This production will be sung in Italian with English surtitles and orchestra conducted by Artistic Director Kenneth Hamrick. Maestro Hamrick is an award-winning harpsichordist, fortepianist and organist and has distinguished himself as a conductor in a range of repertory from contemporary to baroque. Jennifer Marshall and Jennifer Caruana will sing the roles of the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, Christine Heath the scheming maid Despina, Victor Khodadad, Ferrando, Thomas Lehman, Gugliemo and Eric Barsness will appear as Don Alfonso whose machinations set the plot in motion.
Seven performances: Saturday, July 24 at 2 pm Sunday, August 1 at 2 pm Saturday, August 7 at 7 pm Friday, August 13 at 8 pm Sunday, August 15 at 2 pm Thursday, August 19 at 2 pm Saturday, August 21 at 7 pm
Tickets $75 for Opening Night Gala receptions and performances July 24 & 31. All other performances $25/$22 (seniors and students.) For further information visit www.dv-opera.org, email: info@dv-opera.org or call 845-252-3136.
Lee Hoiby, born 1926 in Wisconsin, is one of the most notable living composers of classical vocal music. Hoiby's first opera, The Scarf, a chamber opera in one act, was recognized by TIME and the Italian press as the hit of the first Spoleto Festival in 1957. His next opera was Natalia Petrovna (New York City Opera, 1964), now known in its revised version as A Month in the Country, based on a play by Ivan Turgenev. Hoiby's setting of Tennessee Williams's Summer and Smoke (with libretto by Lanford Wilson), perhaps his best known opera, was declared "the finest American opera to date" by Harriet Johnson of The New York Post. It was premiered in 1971 by St Paul Opera, Minnesota, and performed at the New York City Opera the following season under conductor Julius Rudel. Among Hoiby's other operatic works are the one-act opera buffa Something New for the Zoo (1979); the musical monologue The Italian Lesson (1981, text by Ruth Draper) which was produced off-Broadway and nationally toured in 1989 with Jean Stapleton along with the Julia Child curtain-raiser Bon Appetit!; a three-act setting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1986), and a one-act chamber opera, This Is the Rill Speaking (1992), text by Lanford Wilson. Hoiby's most recent opera is a setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which awaits its world premiere.
Hoiby is also recognized as a notable song composer. From 1964 until her retirement in 1996, soprano Leontyne Price introduced many of his best known poem settings and arias to the public, including “The Serpent” of Roethke, “Be Not Afeard” (from The Tempest), the Dickinson songs, the “Evening” of Wallace Stevens, “Lady of the Harbor” and “Where the Music Comes From.” Of note among his larger compositions for the voice are his 1991 setting of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream for baritone and orchestra, which has had memorable performances by baritone William Stone and bass-baritone Simon Estes, and the orchestral song The Tides of Sleep on a text of Thomas Wolfe.
Though many of his works involve vocalists, Hoiby has also written some instrumental works, most recently Summer Suite for Wind Ensemble. He has also made significant contributions to the piano repertory (in addition to his demanding song accompaniments), including two piano concertos and a volume of solo piano works published by G. Schirmer. He has written chamber music in numerous combinations, including sonatas for violin, ‘cello, a concerto for flute and chamber orchestra (Pastoral Dances), and the piano quartet Dark Rosaleen (Rhapsody on a theme by James Joyce). Most recently he has written a work called Also for the Verdehr Trio of violin, clarinet and piano.
Hoiby has written several large-scale choral works, including the Christmas cantata A Hymn of the Nativity (text by Richard Crashaw), the oratorio Galileo Galilei (libretto by Barrie Stavis), and an accrual of works for voice, chorus and orchestra on texts of Walt Whitman which have been gathered into a full evening’s program called A Whitman Service. His numerous choral anthems are heard regularly in churches throughout the US and Britain.
In 2006 Hoiby wrote “Last Letter Home” to the words of an American soldier who died in Iraq. This moving work can be seen and heard in several versions on YouTube. The version performed by baritone Andrew Garland went viral with over half a million views. Visit: www.leehoiby.com.
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