Minnesota Opera
Encyclopedia
The Minnesota Opera is a performance organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota
. It was founded in 1963 by the Walker Art Center
, and is known for premiering such diverse works as Where the Wild Things Are
by Maurice Sendak
and Frankenstein by Libby Larsen
. Its latest commissioned piece and world premiere, The Grapes of Wrath
– based on John Steinbeck's novel of the same name
, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon
and libretto by Michael Korie
– was presented in February 2007. The President and CEO is Kevin H. Smith. The artistic director for many years was Wesley Balk, who directed many theatrically striking productions.
A number of operas have also received their American premieres at the Minnesota Opera, including The Handmaid's Tale
, Postcard from Morocco, Armida
, The Elephant Man, and The Fortunes of King Croesus. The American premiere of Jonathan Dove
's Pinocchio was presented in February 2009.
Minnesota Opera's season typically runs from September through April, with five productions per season and five to seven performances of each production. Performances are given at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
in Saint Paul, Minnesota
. The Minnesota Opera claims to be the 15th largest opera company in the United States.
These include The Pearl Fishers; Casanova's Homecoming
by Argento
; and Roberto Devereux
by Donizetti
during the 2009/10 season; Pinocchio
by Dove
in the 2008/09 season; The Fortunes of King Croesus (Keiser
) and Rusalka
in 2007/08; Rossini's La donna del lago
and Offenbach
's The Tales of Hoffmann; and § † The Grapes of Wrath
by Ricky Ian Gordon
) plus Léo Delibes
's Lakmé
in 2006/07.
The 2005/06 season saw @ Orazi e Curiazi
by Saverio Mercadante
and @ Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man (Petitgirard), while in 2004/05 they presented Donizetti's Maria Padilla
and Nixon in China
by John Adams. Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia
and Passion
by Stephen Sondheim
appeared in 2003/04 while the previous season saw
@ The Handmaid's Tale
by Poul Ruders
). In 2001/02 Mozart's La clemenza di Tito
and Mark Adamo
's Little Women
provided a contrast. Early in the decade, Vincenzo Bellini
's
The Capulets and the Montagues
and Kurt Weill
's
Street Scene
were highlights of the 2000/01 season.
In 2011, Bernard Herrmann
's sole opera Wuthering Heights
will be presented. The full opera has yet to receive a staging, as the official world premiere by Portland Opera
in 1982 was abridged by some 30 minutes.
A complete list of earlier seasons' productions appears on the company's web site
§ World Premiere
@ American Premiere
† Commissioned by The Minnesota Opera or by The Minnesota Opera Midwest Tour
� Tour production
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
. It was founded in 1963 by the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
, and is known for premiering such diverse works as Where the Wild Things Are
Where The Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are is a 1963 children's picture book by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published by Harper & Row. The book has been adapted into other media several times, including an animated short in 1973 , a 1980 opera, and, in 2009, a live-action feature film...
by Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...
and Frankenstein by Libby Larsen
Libby Larsen
Libby Larsen is one of America’s most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over fifteen operas...
. Its latest commissioned piece and world premiere, The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath (opera)
The opera version of The Grapes of Wrath was composed by Ricky Ian Gordon to a libretto by Michael Korie based on John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel of the same title. The three-act opera was originally commissioned by the Minnesota Opera and co-produced with Utah Symphony & Opera...
– based on John Steinbeck's novel of the same name
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962....
, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon
Ricky Ian Gordon
Ricky Ian Gordon is an American composer of songs, stage musicals and opera. The death of his lover from AIDS inspired Dream True and Orpheus and Euridice...
and libretto by Michael Korie
Michael Korie
Michael Korie is an American librettist and lyricist. Korie's works include Grey Gardens , Harvey Milk and The Grapes of Wrath . He also wrote the lyrics to Doctor Zhivago Michael Korie (born Michael Cory Indick) is an American librettist and lyricist. Korie's works include Grey Gardens...
– was presented in February 2007. The President and CEO is Kevin H. Smith. The artistic director for many years was Wesley Balk, who directed many theatrically striking productions.
A number of operas have also received their American premieres at the Minnesota Opera, including The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid's Tale (opera)
The Handmaid's Tale is an opera composed by the Danish composer Poul Ruders, to a libretto by Paul Bentley based on the novel of the same name written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.-Synopsis:...
, Postcard from Morocco, Armida
Armida (Rossini)
Armida is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, based on scenes from Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso.-Performance history:...
, The Elephant Man, and The Fortunes of King Croesus. The American premiere of Jonathan Dove
Jonathan Dove
Jonathan Dove is a British composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. He has arranged a number of operas for English Touring Opera and the City of Birmingham Touring Opera , including in 1990 a famous 18-player two-evening adaptation of Wagner's Der Ring des...
's Pinocchio was presented in February 2009.
Minnesota Opera's season typically runs from September through April, with five productions per season and five to seven performances of each production. Performances are given at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts is located in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota and hosts a variety of performing arts, such as touring Broadway musicals, orchestra, opera, and cultural performers. It serves as a home to several local arts organizations, including the Minnesota Opera, The Saint...
in Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
. The Minnesota Opera claims to be the 15th largest opera company in the United States.
Non-standard repertoire
While much from the standard repertoire is performed, the company has distinguished itself with productions of some unusual and rare operas in the last decade.These include The Pearl Fishers; Casanova's Homecoming
Casanova's Homecoming
Casanova's Homecoming is an opera in three acts by Dominick Argento to an English libretto by the composer, based in part on Giacomo Casanova's memoirs. It was first performed by the Minnesota Opera in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1985....
by Argento
Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento is an American composer, best known as a leading composer of lyric opera and choral music...
; and Roberto Devereux
Roberto Devereux
Roberto Devereux is a tragedia lirica, or tragic opera, by Gaetano Donizetti...
by Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
during the 2009/10 season; Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio (opera)
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a 2007 opera in two acts by Jonathan Dove with a libretto by Alasdair Middleton based on the novel by Carlo Collodi...
by Dove
Jonathan Dove
Jonathan Dove is a British composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. He has arranged a number of operas for English Touring Opera and the City of Birmingham Touring Opera , including in 1990 a famous 18-player two-evening adaptation of Wagner's Der Ring des...
in the 2008/09 season; The Fortunes of King Croesus (Keiser
Reinhard Keiser
Reinhard Keiser was a popular German opera composer based in Hamburg. He wrote over a hundred operas, and in 1745 Johann Adolph Scheibe considered him an equal to Johann Kuhnau, George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann , but his work was largely forgotten for many...
) and Rusalka
Rusalka (opera)
Rusalka is an opera by Antonín Dvořák. The Czech libretto was written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil based on the fairy tales of Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová. Rusalka is one of the most successful Czech operas, and represents a cornerstone of the repertoire of Czech opera houses...
in 2007/08; Rossini's La donna del lago
La donna del lago
La donna del lago is an opera by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on The Lady of the Lake, a poem by Sir Walter Scott.This opera was the first to be based on Scott's romantic works...
and Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's The Tales of Hoffmann; and § † The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath (opera)
The opera version of The Grapes of Wrath was composed by Ricky Ian Gordon to a libretto by Michael Korie based on John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel of the same title. The three-act opera was originally commissioned by the Minnesota Opera and co-produced with Utah Symphony & Opera...
by Ricky Ian Gordon
Ricky Ian Gordon
Ricky Ian Gordon is an American composer of songs, stage musicals and opera. The death of his lover from AIDS inspired Dream True and Orpheus and Euridice...
) plus Léo Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
's Lakmé
Lakmé
Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille. Delibes wrote the score during 1881–82 with its first performance on 14 April 1883 at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Set in British India in the mid 19th century, Lakmé is based on the 1880 novel...
in 2006/07.
The 2005/06 season saw @ Orazi e Curiazi
Orazi e Curiazi
Orazi e Curiazi is an opera by the Italian composer Saverio Mercadante. It takes the form of a tragedia lirica in three acts. The libretto, by Salvadore Cammarano is based on the Roman legend of the fight between the Horatii and the Curiatii...
by Saverio Mercadante
Saverio Mercadante
Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as impressive a number of works as either; and his development of...
and @ Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man (Petitgirard), while in 2004/05 they presented Donizetti's Maria Padilla
Maria Padilla
Maria Padilla is a melodramma, or opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Gaetano Rossi and the composer wrote the Italian libretto after François Ancelot's play. It premiered on December 26, 1841 at La Scala, Milan...
and Nixon in China
Nixon in China (opera)
Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by the 1972 visit to China by US President Richard Nixon. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with...
by John Adams. Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia (opera)
Lucrezia Borgia is a melodramma, or opera, in a prologue and two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after the play by Victor Hugo, in its turn after the legend of Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia was first performed on 26 December 1833 at La Scala, Milan with...
and Passion
Passion (musical)
Passion is a musical adapted from Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore . The book is by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Central subjects include obsession, beauty, power, manipulation, passion, illness, and love...
by Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
appeared in 2003/04 while the previous season saw
@ The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid's Tale (opera)
The Handmaid's Tale is an opera composed by the Danish composer Poul Ruders, to a libretto by Paul Bentley based on the novel of the same name written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.-Synopsis:...
by Poul Ruders
Poul Ruders
Poul Ruders is a Danish composer.Ruders trained as an organist, and studied orchestration with Karl Aage Rasmussen. Ruders's first compositions date from the mid-1960s...
). In 2001/02 Mozart's La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...
and Mark Adamo
Mark Adamo
Mark Adamo 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:...
's Little Women
Little Women (opera)
Little Women is the first opera composed by American composer Mark Adamo to his own libretto after Louisa May Alcott's tale of growing up in New England after the American Civil War, Little Women. The opera also includes text by John Bunyan , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Little Women (1998) is the...
provided a contrast. Early in the decade, Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's
The Capulets and the Montagues
I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi is an Italian opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini.The libretto by Felice Romani was a reworking of the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare...
and Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
's
Street Scene
Street Scene (opera)
Street Scene is a Broadway musical or, more precisely, an "American opera" by Kurt Weill , Langston Hughes , and Elmer Rice...
were highlights of the 2000/01 season.
In 2011, Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
's sole opera Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights (Herrmann)
Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue...
will be presented. The full opera has yet to receive a staging, as the official world premiere by Portland Opera
Portland Opera
Portland Opera is an American opera company based at The Hampton Opera Center in Portland, Oregon. Its mainstage performances take place in the Keller Auditorium, while the Portland Opera Studio Theater at the Hampton center is used for performances of chamber operas...
in 1982 was abridged by some 30 minutes.
A complete list of earlier seasons' productions appears on the company's web site
§ World Premiere
@ American Premiere
† Commissioned by The Minnesota Opera or by The Minnesota Opera Midwest Tour
� Tour production