Mission | Premieres | Repertory | Staff
Mission
The CCO is a performing arts organization devoted to the development and production of new opera and music theater works and, working with a community of artists and a committed public, to the development and encouragement of a new operatic and music-theater culture in this country.
Premieres
“Alice” on the Surreal Side, with all the Bells and Whistles
Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times, June 2006
In a dramatically fantastical and musically modernistic adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic, “Alice in Wonderland” is a work in progress…The cast provided an instrumental backdrop by playing an inventive array of bird whistles, drums, tambourines, chimes and various contraptions to produce sound effects…Moreover, during each scene whatever singers were not portraying characters became part of a background chorus, singing eerie music of long sustained and pungently atonal harmonies, mostly in high-lying registers…the impressive cast threw itself into this work…enacting scenes and even providing effects like creating images of rushing water.
CAUGHT UNDER THE SPELL OF MANN’S MUSICAL MAGICIAN
Opera Review by Jeremy Eichler, The New York Times, May 2, 2005
“[Francis] Thorne and his librettist, J.D. McClatchy, have deftly transferred the dark and, yes, mesmerizing essence of this story to the operatic stage without losing its subtlety and innuendo. Their work is true to most of the original details, and the few liberties taken (Italian Black Shirts have been added to the crowd) do not get in the way. Mr. Thorne’s score is full of pungent harmony, fidgety rhythms and teeming counterpoint that course beneath the purposefully naïve lyricism of the townspeople…the music provides an effective sense of restless motion, like unconscious forces swirling beneath a calm facade.
The staging by Jason Jacobs allowed the audience in the hall on Saturday night to feel as if we, too, were among Cipolla’s ensnared spectators…Richard Cassell was a vocally robust Cipolla with ample charisma and self-possession. Justin Vickers had a sweet and mellow tenor as Mario, and Larry Small sang Herr Dorn with a rich baritone. Richard Marshall conducted the orchestra [of] this dense and demanding score.
(New York Premiere, 1999)
(U.S. Premiere 2002)
Repertory
| Argento | Christopher Sly, New York Premiere |
| Barab (Dostoevski) | Phillip Marshall, World Premiere |
| Barab (Giraudoux) | Ondine, World Premiere |
| Beeson (Saroyan) | My Heart’s in the Highlands, Stage Premiere |
| Beeson | Practice in the Art of Elocution |
| Beeson (Fletcher) | Sorry, Wrong Number, World Premiere 1999 |
| Blitzstein (Malamud) | Idiots First, Premiere with Orchestra |
| Bond, Victoria (Isaiah Sheffer) | A More Perfect Union (World Premiere 2004) |
| Britten | Noyes Fludde |
| Britten | The Burning Fiery Furnace |
| Britten | Curlew River |
| Britten | The Prodigal Son |
| Bucci (Enright) | Tale for a Deaf Ear |
| Cipullo | Glory Denied (Staged reading) |
| Dellaira (Yankowitz) | Chéri |
| Eyerly (Hawthorne) | The House of the Seven Gables (Commissioned by the Center) |
| Floyd, Carlisle | Markheim |
| Hagen (Muldoon) | Vera of Las Vegas (World Premiere) |
| Johnson | The Four Note Opera |
| Kalmanoff/ Allen (Capek) | INSECT COMEDY: The World We Live In, World Premiere |
| Kalmanoff (Chekhov) | The Harmfulness of Tobacco |
| Kalmanoff (Ionesco) | The Bald Soprano, First Performance with Orchestra. A television production, which won a national Telly Award, is available on video from the Cinema Guild. |
| Kurka | The Good Soldier Schweik |
| Lackey | Wild Woody Thornton, New York Premiere (a spoof about Oliver North) |
| Lehrman (Malamud) | Karla, First Performance with Orchestra |
| Lehrman | Super Spy |
| Mayer | Brief Candle (Also performed with the Brooklyn Philharmonic on the Meet the Modern series) |
| Menotti | The Medium |
| Menotti | The Telephone |
| Mollicone | The Face on the Barroom Floor |
| Paulus (Stephen)/Thorne (Joan Vail) | Summer, New York Premiere |
| Paulus/Graham (Cain) | The Postman Always Rings Twice, New York Premiere |
| Rorem (Stein) | Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters |
| Rudenstein | Faustus, World Premiere |
| Salzman/Rostain | La Priere du Loupe |
| Salzman, Eric (Valeria Vasilevski) | The True Last Words of Dutch Schultz (U.S. premiere) |
| Schickele | The Stoned Guest (with apologies to Mozart and DaPonte) |
| Siegmeister (Malamud) | Angel Levine |
| Sullivan | Josephine, World Premiere |
| Sullivan | Tomorrow and Tomorrow, World Premiere |
| Sullivan (Strindbergh) | Dream Play, U.S. Premiere |
| Susa (Sexton) | Transformations |
| Spivack | Cathedral, World Premiere |
| Thorne/McClatchy | Mario and the Magician, Professional Premiere |
|
Walden |
KAFKA: Letter to My Father |
| Walden (Stein) | Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, U.S. Premiere |
| Weill (Brecht) | Der Jasager |
| Weill | Mahagonny Songspiel |
| Westergaard, Peter | Alice in Wonderland (Staged reading) |
| Wolosoff, Bruce | Madimi (Staged reading) |
Staff
Jim Schaeffer, General Director
js@conopera.org
347-265-8943
Eric Salzman, Artistic Director
es@ericsalzman.com
Michael Dellaira, Composer-in-residence
mrd@michaeldellaira.com
Richard Marshall, Founding General Director
JRichardMarshall@gmail.com
Dan Dutcher, Media Relations
ddutcher@cohndutcher.com
Cohn Dutcher Associates
71 West 47th Street, Suite 1605
New York, NY 10036
917-339-7157
Susan Atherton, Development
Renee Heitmann, Company Manager
reneemh9@hotmail.com
Elise Gaugert, Intern
elisegaugert@gmail.com
Board of Directors
Durwood Littlefield, President
Stephanie Winston, Secretary
Loretta Buckman, Treasurer
Janel Allison Glaser
Darcie Hazelton
Robert Howard
Ginger Karren
Hadasah Markson
Nancy Manocherian
Zadee Parkinson
John Sutherland