Portland Opera
Encyclopedia
Portland Opera is an American opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 company based at The Hampton Opera Center in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

. Its mainstage performances take place in the Keller Auditorium
Keller Auditorium
Keller Auditorium, formerly known as the Portland Municipal Auditorium, the Portland Public Auditorium, and the Portland Civic Auditorium, is a performing arts center located on Clay Street in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is part of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts...

, while the Portland Opera Studio Theater at the Hampton center is used for performances of chamber opera
Chamber opera
Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small...

s. Portland Opera was one of the first opera companies to introduce surtitles
Surtitles
Surtitles, also known as supertitles, are translated or transcribed lyrics/dialogue projected above a stage or displayed on a screen, commonly used in opera or other musical performances. The word "surtitle" comes from the French language "sur", meaning "over" or "on", and the English language word...

 in its productions, and has presented several world and US premieres.

History

Portland Opera was founded as the Portland Opera Association in 1964 by the conductor Henry Holt. Its first performance was Strauss
Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...

' Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...

, the only opera presented that season. Holt served as the company's General Director for the first two years of existence. The General Director post was next held by the Austrian conductor Herbert Weiskopf, who died of a heart attack in March 1970 after conducting a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....

. The conductor Stefan Minde then took over as General Director and served until 1984, followed by Robert Bailey, a stage director, and National Public Radio's first Director of Culture Programming, who served until 2003. As of 2009, the General Director is Christopher Mattaliano, stage director and former Artistic Director of the Pine Mountain Music Festival
Pine Mountain Music Festival
The Pine Mountain Music Festival is a music festival held in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan each summer. The festival's schedule varies each year, typically including at least one major opera, a night of scenes from famous operas, performances by several chamber music groups, a symphony,...

. He was appointed in 2003 and is Portland Opera's fifth General Director.

In 1994 the company began a separate subscription series of nationally touring Broadway musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 in an effort to broaden its audience base and increase the revenue available for its opera productions. The end of the 2008/2009 season marked the 11th straight year that the company ended its season with a budget surplus. The company's 2009/2010 opera season programmed four mainstage productions at the Keller Auditorium, La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...

, Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....

, The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...

, and Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...

' Orphée, as well as a studio production of Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

's Trouble in Tahiti
Trouble in Tahiti
Trouble in Tahiti is a one-act opera in seven scenes composed by Leonard Bernstein with an English libretto by the composer. The opera received its first performance on 12 June 1952 at Berstein's Festival of the Creative Arts on the campus of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts to an...

 at the Hampton Opera Center.

Artists who have appeared with the company include the conductors, Donato Cabrera
Donato Cabrera
This page has been created based on the information provided by .Donato Cabrera is an American conductor. He made his professional debut with the Reno Chamber Orchestra at the age of 24. Since his 1998 critically acclaimed European debut with the Zwei-Groschen Kammer Oper München, he has pursued...

, David Giménez Carreras
David Giménez Carreras
David Giménez Carreras is a Spanish conductor. He is the Music Director of the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès. and a principal guest conductor of the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra...

, and Christopher Larkin
Christopher Larkin
Christopher Larkin is an American conductor who is best known for his work within the field of opera. He was Associate Conductor of the Houston Grand Opera for a number of years where he notably conducted the world premieres of Mark Adamo's Little Women and Michael Daugherty’s Jackie O. He is also...

; and the singers Klara Barlow
Klara Barlow
Klara Barlow was an American opera singer who had an active international career from the mid 1960s through the 1990s. A dramatic soprano, Barlow particularly excelled in portraying Strauss and Wagnerian heroines...

, Gregory Reinhart
Gregory Reinhart
Gregory Reinhart is an American bass opera singer. He is noted for an extremely wide repertory which ranges from early music to the world premieres of several contemporary operas including Lowell Liebermann's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Philippe Manoury's K..., and Pascal Dusapin's Perelà, uomo di...

, Marcello Giordani
Marcello Giordani
Marcello Giordani is an Italian operatic tenor who has sung leading roles in opera houses throughout Europe and the United States. He has had a distinguished association with the New York Metropolitan Opera, where he has sung in over 170 performances since his debut there in 1993...

, Charles Castronovo
Charles Castronovo
Charles Castronovo , is an American tenor. He is currently in demand internationally as an opera singer. Castronovo was born to a Sicilian father and an Ecuadorian mother in Queens, New York but grew up in Southern California. He attended California State University, Fullerton for undergraduate...

, and Jozsef Gregor
Jozsef Gregor
József Gregor was a renowned Hungarian bass-baritone/basso buffo who enjoyed success first in Hungary, then in France, Belgium and Canada, and finally in the United States. József Gregor was born in Rákosliget, a small town that is now part of Budapest...

.

Premieres

Portland Opera's premiere performances include:
  • 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 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...

     (1982, world premiere of an abridged version)
  • Christopher Drobny's Lucy's Lapses (1990, world premiere)
  • Reynaldo Hahn
    Reynaldo Hahn
    Reynaldo Hahn was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie....

    's Le marchand de Venise
    Le marchand de Venise
    Le marchand de Venise is a French opera in three acts by Reynaldo Hahn. The libretto was by Miguel Zamacoïs, after Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice...

     (The Merchant of Venice) (1996, US premiere)
  • William Bolcom
    William Bolcom
    William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...

    's A View from the Bridge (2003, US West Coast
    West Coast of the United States
    West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...

     premiere)

Sources

  • Campbell, Ruth M., "Portland Opera's 'Lucy's Lapses' is Promising Despite Giddiness", Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...

    , May 3, 1990. Accessed 29 September 2009.
  • Campbell, Ruth M., "Portland Opera Goes Out on a Limb Presenting Merchant of Venice" Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 4, 1996. Accessed via subscription 29 September 2009.
  • Kellow, Brian, "Portland's Progress", Opera News
    Opera News
    Opera News is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City...

    , November 1996. Accessed via subscription 29 September 2009.
  • New York Times, "Herbert Weiskopf", March 23, 1970, p. 41.
  • Norberg, Eric, "An Inner Southeast “crown jewel” — the Portland Opera", Portland Bee, October 31, 2007. Accessed 29 September 2009.
  • Stabler, David, "Portland Opera ends season in the black", The Oregonian
    The Oregonian
    The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...

    , July 14, 2009. Accessed 29 September 2009.
  • Van Allen, Angela, "Portland Opera Set for Diverse new Season", The Columbian
    The Columbian
    The Columbian is a daily newspaper for Vancouver, Washington and Clark County in Washington State in the United States. The paper was published for its first decade as a four page daily that was meant as a counterweight to the local Republican newspaper The Independent. Printer Tom Carolan began...

    , January 17, 2002. Accessed via subscription 29 September 2009.
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