USOperaWeb

Mark Adamo (born 1962) is an Italian American composer and librettist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While he has composed the symphonic cantata “Late Victorians, “Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra,” and six substantial choral works, the composer’s principal work has been for the opera house: the composer and librettist of the highly-regarded Little Women, he has served as composer-in-residence for New York City Opera from 2001 to 2006,, and the company gave the East Coast premiere of his new opera, Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess, in March-April 2006. Lysistrata, hailed as “a sumptuous love story, poised between comedy and heartbreak” by Alex Ross of The New Yorker, was David Gockley’s last commission for the Houston Grand Opera, which gave the world premiere in 4 March 2005. Since its 1998 premiere by Houston Grand Opera, “Little Women” has been heard in over sixty-five international engagements, including a telecast over the PBS series “Great Performances” in August 2001. The opera was given its Asian premiere in May 2005, when New York City Opera’s production of the piece was chosen as the U.S. exhibit for the World Expo in Tokyo and Nagoya; State Opera of South Australia gave the Australian premiere at the Adelaide Festival in May 2007, the International Vocal Arts Institute gave the Israeli premiere in Tel Aviv in July 2008, and Calgary Opera has announced the Canadian premiere for January 2010.

Adamo began his education at New York University, where he received the Paulette Goddard Remarque Scholarship for outstanding undergraduate achievement in playwriting. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Music Degree cum laude in composition in 1990 from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he was awarded the Theodore Presser prize for outstanding undergraduate achievement in composition. At New York City Opera, he curated the contemporary opera workshop series VOX: Showcasing American Composers. Adamo served as master artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in May 2003. He has directed productions of his Little Women in Cleveland and Milwaukee, both of which were cited as among the best classical-music events of the year by the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, respectively; and he has annotated programs for Stagebill, the Freer Gallery of Art, and most recently for BMG Classics. His criticism and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, Stagebill, Opera News, the Star-Ledger, and The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians; and the journal on his self-titled website was named among the Best Music Blogs by Arts Journal in January 2008.

Adamo, who is openly gay, has lived with his partner, composer John Corigliano in New York City.; the two were legally married in California by the conductor Marin Alsop in August 2008. In January 2009, San Francisco Opera announced it had commissioned Adamo to compose both score and libretto for an opera entitled “The Gospel of Mary Magdalene,” which, in the composers’ words, “will draw on the Canonical Gospels, the Gnostic Gospels, and fifty years of scholarship to reimagine the New Testament through the eyes of its lone substantial female character.” San Francisco Opera plans a premiere in June 2013.

Opera

• Little Women (1998)
• Avow, a 10-minute chamber opera (1999)
• Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess (2005)

For over fifty years the Jackie Gleason Theater Miami of the Performing Arts has been South Florida’s home for the best in Broadway, music and opera! Theater offers a diverse, year-round season of cutting edge and traditional programming that includes comedy, concerts, ballet, Broadway, television productions, opera and much, much more!

The Jackie Gleason Theater has 2,705 seats using an orchestra and mezzanine seating plan with a flexible hydraulic orchestra pit.

The Jackie Gleason Theater has hosted such event: Opera: Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti

Hugo Weisgall

Hugo David Weisgall (October 13, 1912 – March 11, 1997) was an American composer and conductor , known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions. He was born in Eibenschitz (now Ivančice), Moravia (then part of Austria-Hungary, later in his childhood Czechoslovakia) and moved to the United States at the age of eight.

Weisgall studied at the Peabody Institute, privately with Roger Sessions, and at the Curtis Institute of Music with conductor Fritz Reiner and composer Rosario Scalero. He later earned a Ph.D. in German literature at Johns Hopkins University. During World War II he was an aide-de-camp to General George S. Patton. After the war he became a professor, and taught at Queens College, the Juilliard School, and the Jewish Theological Seminary, all in New York City. His notable students include composers Dominick Argento, Bruce Saylor and the accordionist/composer William Schimmel.

Weisgall came from a family of several generations of cantors, and maintained a lifelong interest in both sacred and secular Jewish music. In 1992 he was commissioned by the Friends of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary to write a song cycle, Psalm of the Distant Dove, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Other major works include his most ambitious opera, Athaliah (libretto: Richard Frank Goldman, after Jean Racine), and his often-performed Six Characters in Search of an Author (libretto: Denis Johnston, after Luigi Pirandello).

Hugo Weisgall died at the age of 84 in Long Island, New York.

Operas

• Night (1932, not performed). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: after the play by Sholem Asch
• Lilith (1934, not performed). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: after the play by L. Elman
• The Tenor (1948-1950). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: Karl Shapiro and Ernst Lert (after the play by Frank Wedekind). World Premiere: 11/02/1952 Baltimore (Peabody Opera Company; conductor: Hugo Weisgall)
• The Stronger (1952). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: Richard Henry Hart (after the play Den Starkare by August Strindberg). WP (piano version): 09/08/1952 Westport, Connecticut (White Barn Theatre; Hilltop Opera Company). WP (orchestral version): 1955 New York (Columbia University)
• Six Characters in Search of an Author (1953-1956). Opera in 3 acts. Libretto: Denis Johnston (after the play by Luigi Pirandello). WP: 26/04/1959 New York (New York City Opera; with Beverly Sills [Coloratura])
• Purgatory (1958). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: after the play by William Butler Yeats. WP: 17/02/1961 Washington (Library of Congress)
• The Gardens of Adonis (1959, revised 1977-1981). Opera in 3 scenes. Libretto: Jon Olon-Scrymgeour (after the play Venus and Adonis by André Obey, based on the eponymous poem by William Shakespeare). WP: 12/09/1992 Omaha, Nebraska (Witherspoon Concert Hall)
• Athaliah (1960-1963). Opera in 2 parts. Libretto: Richard Frank Goldman (after the play Athalie [1691] by Jean Racine). WP: 17/02/1964 New York (concert performance)
• Nine Rivers from Jordan (1964-1968). Opera in a prologue and 3 acts. Libretto: Denis Johnston. WP: 09/10/1968 New York (New York City Opera)
• Jenny, or The Hundred Nights (1975/76). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: John Hollander (after a [Noh] play by Yukio Mishima). WP: 22/04/1976 (Juilliard School, American Opera Center)
• Will You Marry Me? (1989). Opera in 1 act. Libretto: Charles Kondek (after the play A Marriage Has Been Arranged by Alfred Sutro). WP: 08/03/1989 New York (Opera Ensemble of New York)
• Esther (1990-1993). Opera in 3 acts. Libretto: Charles Kondek (after the Bible). WP: 08/10/1993 New York (New York City Opera)