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Our name may have changed but our commitment to the performing arts has remained steadfast. |
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The 2008/2009 season begins with Verdi's ever popular Rigoletto, the tragic story of the hunchback court jester, his beautiful daughter and a lecherous Duke colliding in this masterpiece of passion and vengeance. In January, Palm Beach Opera continues its tradition of presenting bel canto operas in splendid productions with Bellini's Norma, a haunting tale of a priestess driven to murderous jealousy by her lover's inconstancy. Next is Mozart's delightful Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), a lighthearted, poignant, and ultimately touching satire of aristocracy prior to the French Revolution. Finally we end the season with the timeless love story La Boheme, one of Puccini's most popular and emotionally powerful works.
History & Mission
Palm Beach Opera was founded in 1961 as Civic Opera of the Palm Beaches. Our name may have changed but our commitment to the performing arts has remained steadfast. Our season runs from December through April with mainstage performances held at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts.
Palm Beach Opera is proudly affiliated with:
Plato Karayanis first joined Palm Beach Opera in the fall of 2002 as an artistic consultant and became the interim general director in 2007. Prior to working with Palm Beach Opera, he was general director of The Dallas Opera from 1977 until 2000. During his tenure, he made clear his determination to accomplish purposeful planned growth within all the company’s major constituencies: its board, its staff, artists, audience, and donor community. Under his leadership, The Dallas Opera more than doubled its performances and became a leader in community programming with nationally recognized, award winning initiatives in education and adult minority partnerships. An important part of his vision included the performance of new American works along with earlier 20th century masterpieces in innovative stagings which have earned rave reviews from the international press. In commenting on The Dallas Opera’s leadership, Robert Miller of The Dallas Morning News wrote that Karayanis “combines the innovative with the traditional while constantly challenging his audiences to broaden their musical tastes.”
Along with his commitment to produce new works and older 20th century compositionsKarayanis began the process of assessing the company’s priorities and its relevance tonew audiences. This led to the adoption and implementation of a strategic plan toattract a broader spectrum of people of all ages and cultural backgrounds to the opera.The company has developed innovative arts-in-education programs which have earned the praise of local and national educators, and has formed successful minoritytask force initiatives that have attracted Hispanic, African-American, and Asian involvement with the company.
Karayanis also led the effort to strengthen The Dallas Opera’s financial base. With the successful completion of its two year $6.7 million Challenge to Greatness campaignin May 1990, The Dallas Opera achieved financial stability, balanced budgets and increased its endowment and cash reserve. In the summer of 1998, The Dallas Opera opened a $3 million state-of-the art Rehearsal / Production Center which provides much needed rehearsal space for the Opera and other performing arts organizations in Dallas. In February of 2000, the Center was renamed the Dorothy and Plato Karayanis Rehearsal and Production Center in honor of Karayanis and his wife.
Karayanis’ professional background includes a six-year career as a leading baritone in European opera houses before embarking on a career as an opera administrator for theSan Francisco Opera and The Metropolitan Opera National Company. Karayanis was executive vice president and treasurer of Affiliate Artists, Inc. He holds a B.F.A. degree from Carnegie Mellon University and an Artist’s Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music. He has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Opera America and is currently on the board of the Santa Fe Opera. In honor of his outstanding contributions to the performing arts in Dallas, Karayanis was awarded the Dallas Historical Society Award for Excellence in the Creative Arts and the 1998 TACA Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts.
Bruno Aprea began his musical career as a pianist after studying under his father, Tito Aprea, at the Conservatoire of S.Cecilia in Rome. He met with considerable success at a very young age, paving the way to a career on the international concert circuit. He played on numerous occasions with the Accademia di S.Cecilia Orchestra (Beethoven’s 2nd and 5th Concertos, Franck’s Symphonic Variations), with the RAI Orchestra of Rome, Milan and Turin (Schumann and Bartok’s 3rd Concerto) under the direction of C. Dutoit, P. Maag, etc. On his debut at the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin, under the direction of Otmar Suitner, the “Der Morgen” critic had this to say: “…a superb execution with which the young virtuoso Bruno Aprea introduced himself to Berliners. This Beethovian interpretation was so solid, innervated and distinct from the first to the last note that one’s mind naturally wandered to his fellow countryman, the great Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Seldom have we heard the Concerto in B flat so sparkling, vibrant, crystal-clear and totally free of forcing. The Berlin audience acclaimed the young talent with a deafening ovation”.
After making several tours of Italy, Germany and Holland, in 1968 he played at RAI in Rome under the direction of Sergiu Celibidache Mozart’s Concerto in E flat for two pianos and orchestra, in duo with his father Tito. This performance was released on record by Fonit Cetra.
At the end of the 1960s, in tandem with his concert schedule, he attended conducting courses under Franco Ferrara at the S.Cecilia Conservatoire in Rome and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. In 1970 he interrupted his piano concert schedule to make his conducting debut at the Two Worlds Festival in Spoleto, conducting The Medium, directed by the work’s author, Menotti. It was indeed Menotti that recommended Aprea as conductor for the Rigoletto staged in Amsterdam. This marked the beginning of his conducting activity, mainly in the symphonic sphere. Teodoro Celli, writing in “Il Messaggero”, wrote of his debut as conductor at the Accademia di S.Cecilia in 1971: “We experienced a similar emotion in 1948, listening to an unknown at La Scala: Guido Cantelli”, while Giulio Confalonieri, writing in “Il Giorno” after his Milan debut, stated: “He is a rising star in the conducting world”.
In 1977 at the Tanglewood Festival (US), he won the Koussevitsky Prize, awarded to him by a Panel including Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, becoming the second Italian conductor to win this prize, after Claudio Abbado in 1958. His work took him all over Europe, South America, South Africa and Israel. He conducted at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, in a Gala evening with Mirella Freni and in a number of concerts at the Opera of Monte Carlo, including one in aid of Unesco, broadcast in Eurovision in 1979. In Italy he conducted all the main symphonic orchestras: RAI of Rome, Milan, Turin and Naples, at the Fenice (Venice), Comunale (Bologna), etc. and numerous concerts at the Accademia di S. Cecilia in Rome. He toured in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania. In Israel, invited by Shlomo Mintz, he conducted the Israel Chamber Orchestra of Tel Aviv, in South Africa the SABC of Johannesburg, in Brazil, invited by Eleazar de Carvalho, the Orquestra Sinfonica of Sao Paolo. He also conducted the Philarmonia Hungarica, the Presidential Symphonic Orchestra of Ankara and the Bilbao Symphonic Orchestra.
He has worked with soloists such as: N. Magalof, A. Ciccolini, L. Berman, the Kontarsky brothers, D. Ciani, J.Achucarro, R. Orozco, Z. Kocsis, D. Ranki, J.Y. Thibaudet, F. Thiollier, W. Shnaideran, S. Gazzelloni, and so on. Up until the early 1980s his conducting work was chiefly symphonic in nature, making occasional forays into the operatic sphere. But after success at the Deutsche Opera of Berlin in 1983 with Madame Butterfly (the “Der Tagesspiegel” wrote: “The most profound impressions came from the orchestra”), this activity grew considerably. From 1985 to 1995 he became a regular guest of the Cape Town Opera, where he staged a large number of productions: Verdi’s Othello, with Jon Vickers, The Barber of Seville, Don Carlo, Turandot, Lucia di Lammermoor, Il Trovatore, Madame Butterfly. In the US he conducted operas in Philadelphia (Don Pasquale), Cincinnati (Il Trovatore and Lucia di Lammermoor), Baltimore (L’Elisir d’Amore, with Carlo Bergonzi making his last stage appearance), Denver (Don Giovanni), Palm Beach (Don Giovanni and Lucia di Lammermoor), Portland (Tosca, La Favorita, Don Carlo, La Traviata), Columbus (La Fanciulla del West and Rigoletto). He then went on to conduct in Tokyo in 1990 (Don Giovanni and Madame Butterfly), in the United Kingdom at Leeds and Manchester (La Bohème), in Ireland at the Wexford Festival, Mascagni’s Iris, in Ankara (Othello, Ballo in Maschera, La Bohème), in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1999 (Rigoletto, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci). In Italy he conducted at the Rome Opera (Don Pasquale and Cenerentola), at the Fenice of Venice (La Bohème), at the S.Carlo of Naples in 1999 (Cavalleria Rusticana), at the Petruzzelli of Bari (Elisir d’Amore, Nozze di Figaro, Verdi’s Othello in 1998), at the Festival of Ravenna (Fanciulla del West), at the Festival of Martina Franca (Il Bravo di Mercadante, Rossini’s La Pietra di Paragone, Puccini’s Le Villi), at the Bellini Festival of Catania (Capuleti e Montecchi and I Puritani), at Messina in 1998 (Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra), at Treviso and Rovigo (I Puritani, Lucia di Lammermoor, Werther, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, La Bohème), at the Teatro Sperimentale of Spoleto (Sonnambula, Cenerentola, La Traviata), at Novara (Madame Butterfly, Macbeth), at Cagliari (Norma), at Sassari (Il Turco in Italia), at the Festival of Lille and Teatro Piccinni of Bari (Paisiello’s Barber of Seville), at the Opera Giocosa of Savona (Tosca in 1997, Madame Butterfly in 1998, La Bohème in 1999, Cavalleria Rusicana and Zanetto by Mascagni 2003).
In the 2001-2002 season he met with great success conducting Mascagni’s Le Maschere to mark the centenary of its first staging during an extended Italian tour. At Jesi in 2001 he presented the first modern-day staging of Lauro Rossi’s Domino Nero, at the Todi Festival 2001 La Traviata, and in November 2002 L’Elisir d’amore at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste.
Bruno Aprea is dedicated to symphonic and opera music in equal measure. His symphonic repertoire ranges from Beethoven’s nine symphonies to Stravinsky’s Le Sacré du Printemps. From Haydn, Debussy and the historical vanguard of the 20th century to all the major compositions of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, etc. Always keen to include less well-known pieces, he has often conducted rarely played works including: Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberg, Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht, Bruckner’s Nullte Symphony, Tchaikowsky’s Manfred, and so on, or less well-known composers such as Janacek and Ives.
To celebrate Goffredo Petrassi’s (the leading living Italian composer) 80th birthday he conducted the 8th Concerto and Follia d’Orlando at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome. Ten years later, for the composer’s 90th birthday, Il Cordovano (Petrassi’s only opera) was staged at the Teatro Valli of Reggio Emilia, presented together with M. De Falla’s Retablo de Maese Pedro.
More recent symphonic activities include: Beethoven’s 9th symphony on tour with the Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia, Brahm’s Deutsches Requiem on the occasion of the commemoration of Gianandrea Gavazzeni, the concert based on Petrassi’s music conducted at the Quirinale in Rome attended by the President of the Italian Republic, Mahler’s 1st Symphony at the Mediterranean Festival, Villa Adriana, Tivoli, and at Villa Rufolo, Ravello, in the summer of 2002.
His operatic repertoire includes practically all the major operas of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Puccini and Mascagni and the major works of Mozart, Gluck and the French school. He has also recorded on CD a number of rare operas for Nuova Era, Bongiovanni and Kicco such as Mercadante’s Il Bravo, Lauro Rossi’s Il Domino Nero, Rossini’s La Pietra del Paragone, Puccini’s Le Villi, Mascagni’s Le Maschere and recently “Zanetto” by Mascagni has been released on DVD.
With a total of around 100 new productions he has worked with many famous directors and stage designers.
Since 1978 he has held the teaching post of Orchestra Conducting, which had been held by his maestro Franco Ferrara at the Conservatoire of S.Cecilia in Rome. Over the past 25 years many of Italy’s best modern-day conductors have studied there with him. He also gives Master Classes in Conducting at the Arts Academy of Rome, at the “Joven Orquestra Nacional de Espana” and at the “Fundacion Eutherpe” in Leon (Spain).
During the past years he has also been invited to conduct several productions with the “Simon Bolivar” Orchestra of Caracas. Since the beginning of 2005 he has been nominated principal conductor of the Symphonic Orchestra of Bari.
Support Palm Beach Opera
Donors can take great pride in knowing that their support helps Palm Beach Opera bring world-class opera to the stage and allows us to offer programs that enrich the lives of our entire community. Contributions set a leadership example which will greatly assist in continuing to build new audiences and help preserve the art of opera for future generations. We truly appreciate the role donors play in these endeavors!
Although ticket sales continue to improve each season, they can never cover more than one-third of the expenses of producing quality grand opera! We are dependent on the generosity of our patrons for financial support to maintain the level of excellence that Palm Beach Opera has become recognized for.
Donate to Palm Beach Opera!
Check out the links to the left tho see how you can help support Palm Beach Opera.
Overtures, Young Friends of Palm Beach Opera is a group for young professionals who enjoy or are curious about the art of opera. Special benefits of membership include networking events and discounted opera tickets.
For over 25 years, the Palm Beach Opera Guild has raised funds which contribute to the success of the Opera and its education and outreach programs. In addition, the Palm Beach Opera Guild Encouragement Awards were established to benefit young singers who take part in the Opera's Annual Vocal Competition. This year, the annual Guild Luncheon is February 7, 2008 at the Four Seasons Resort in Palm Beach. |
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