Mission | Premieres | Repertory | Staff

Founded in 1982, The Center for Contemporary Opera is the leading proponent of new opera in the United States. Based in New York City, the company focuses on producing and developing new opera and music theater works and reviving rarely seen American operas written after the second World War. The Center for Contemporary Opera has staged the premieres of over seventy works and released four commercial recordings. In addition to its productions, an important part of its work is the  development of new operas. Works are presented at all stages from libretto readings, ateliers, concert versions, to full productions. In line with its mission to promote an interest in new operatic and music-theater culture among the American public, the company presents colloquia and publishes a bi-annual newsletter Opera Today and the magazine New Music Connoisseur which is one of the very few periodicals in the world devoted to contemporary classical music. The Center for Contemporary Opera has recently expanded its reach and toured in Austria, Hungary, France, and Latvia.

“No company, large or small has a better track record of service to American opera”-The New York Times

“invaluable”- The New Yorker

“an easy enterprise to applaud”-The Financial Times

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.

Repertory

Board of Directors

Staff

Jim Schaeffer, General and Artistic Director
js@conopera.org
646-481-8110

Eric Salzman, Composer in Residence
es@ericsalzman.com

Sara Jobin, Music Director

sarajobin@juno.com

Michael Dellaira, Advisor
mrd@michaeldellaira.com

Richard Marshall, Founding General Director

JRichardMarshall@gmail.com

Jami Leonard, Company Manager

jl@conopera.org

Jessica Thompson, Company Manager

jt@conopera.org