American Opera Projects
The American Opera Project (AOP) is a professional opera company based in Brooklyn, New York City, and is a member of Opera America, the Fort Greene Association, the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance, and the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./NY). The company's primary mission is to develop and present new operatic and music theatre works and has gained a reputation for the "rarefied range" of the projects it fosters (Opera News, Dec 2008). AOP was founded in 1988 by Grethe Barrett Holby who served as Artistic Director of AOP from 1988 until 2001, at which  point Charles Jarden became the company's Executive Director and Steven Osgood the company's Artistic Director. Steven Osgood left the post of Artistic Director in 2008 to pursue conducting full-time but remains the Artistic Director for AOP's "Composers & the Voice" program. AOP's year-long writing fellowship, "Composers & the Voice" was created in 2002 to bring emerging operatic composers and librettists together with singers, directors, and other artists to create a series of pieces exploring the potential of theatre and the voice. Past and present mentors for the program include Mark Adamo, Mark Campbell, John Corigliano, Tan  Dun, Daron Hagen, Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, John Musto, Tobias Picker, Kaija Saariaho, and Stephen Schwartz. Past participants include Clint Borzoni, David Claman, Conrad Cummings, Randall Eng, Renée Favand, Vivian Fung, Kristin Kuster, Hannah Lash, Gilda Lyons, Robert Paterson, Jack Perla, Zach Redler & Sara Cooper, and Daniel Sonenberg. Amongst the venues and festivals where AOP productions have appeared are the Lincoln Center Festival, BAM's Next Wave Festival, the Guggenheim Museum, Symphony Space, Irondale Center, Philadelphia's Annenberg Center, Pittsburgh Opera, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, London's Royal Opera House, Berlin's Stükke Theater, Aleksander Fredro Teatr in Poland , the Trondheim Chamber Music Festival in Norway, and the in Vienna. It has also given many out-of-doors performances sponsored by the City of New York Department of Parks and Recreation. AOP won a 2005 Encore award from the Arts & Business Council of New York for its innovative work. Operas and other works developed with AOP. World premieres. "As One" by Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell, and Kimberly Reed (BAM Fisher Center, Sept 4, 2014) "Beauty Intolerable" by Sheila Silver with texts by Edna St. Vincent Millay (Symphony Space, June 8, 2013) "Before Night Falls" by Jorge Martin and Dolores  M. Koch (Fort Worth Opera, May 29, 1010) "Brooklyn Bones" by Alvin Singleton and Patricia Hampl (Nov 15, 2008) "Brooklyn Cinderella" by Nkeiru Okoye (Dweck Auditorium, June 21, 2011) "Darkling" by Stefan Weisman and Anna Rabinowitz (East 13th Street Theater, Feb 26, 2006) "Fade" by Stefan Weisman and David Cote (NYC PREMIERE at Galapagos Art Space, July 17, 2009) "Fireworks" by Kitty Brazelton and Billy Aronson (July 2, 2002) "Flurry Tale" by Rusty Magee and Billy Aronson, with commissioned orchestrations by John Rinehimer (Clark Studio Theater, Dec 18, 1999) "Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom" by Nkeiru  Okoye (Irondale Center, Feb 21, 2014) "Heart of Darkness" by Tarik O'Regan and Tom Phillips (Covent Garden, Nov 1, 2011) "Judgment of Midas" by Kamran Ince and Miriam Seidel (Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Feb 12, 2013) "L'abbe Agathon" by Arvo Pärt and Tarik O'Regan (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Jan 11, 2009) "Love/Hate" by Jack Perla and Rob Bailis (San Francisco Opera Center, April 2012) "Marina: A Captive Spirit" by Deborah Drattell and Annie Finch (May 1, 2003) "Model Love" by J. David Jackson based on poems by Henry Normal (Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, Oct 2, 2011) "Nora, in the Great  Outdoors" by Daniel Felsenfeld and Will Eno (Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, Oct 2, 2011) "Out Cold" by Phil Kline (BAM Fisher, Oct 25, 2012) "Patience and Sarah" by Paula M. Kimper and Wende Persons (John Jay College Theater, July 8, 1998) "Paul's Case" by Gregory Spears and Kathryn Walat (Artisphere, Apr 20, 2013) "Romulus" by Louis Karchin (Guggenheim Museum, May 20, 2007) "Séance on a Wet Afternoon" by Stephen Schwartz (NYC PREMIERE at New York City Opera, Apr 19, 2011) "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" by Richard Peaslee and Kenneth Cavander (Oct 18, 2001) "The Blind" by Lera  Auerbach (Lincoln Center. July 9, 2013) "The Scarlet Ibis" by Stefan Weisman and David Cote (HERE Arts Center, Jan 15, 2015) "This is the Rill Speaking" by Lee Hoiby and Lanford Wilson (Purchase College Opera, Apr 26, 2008) "Tone Test" by Nick Brooke (Lincoln Center, July 22, 2004) "Windows" by Zach Redler and Sara Cooper (NYU, March 23, 2013) Works developed/in development. "1000 Splendid Suns" by Sheila Silver and Stephen Kitsakas "African Tales" by Nkeiru Okoye and Carman Moore "Alice in the Time of the Jabberwock" by Daniel Felsenfeld and Robert Coover "Companionship" by Rachel Peters "Decoration" by Mikael  Karlsson and David Floden "Eichmann in Jerusalem" by Mohammed Fairouz and David Shapiro "Heinrich Heine: Doppelganger" by Jacob Engel, Paula Kimper, and Nino Sandow "Henry's Wife" by Randall Eng and Alexis Bernier "Independence Eve" by Sidney Marquez Boquiren and Daniel Neer "Lost Childhood" by Janice Hamer and Mary Azrael (STAGED WORKSHOP PREMIERE at Tel Aviv-Yafo Music Center, July 29, 2007) "Marymere" by Matt Schickele "Memoirs of Uliana Rooney" by Vivian Fine and Sonya Friedman "Mila" by Andrea Clearfield, Jean Claude Vanitaille, and Lois Walden "Numinous City" by Pete M. Wyer and Melissa Salmons "Our Basic Nature" by John  Glover and Kelley Rourke "Prairie Dogs" by Rachel Peters and Royce Vavrek "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Herschel Garfein "Semmelweis" by Raymond J. Lustig and Matt Gray "Sharon's Grave" by Richard Wargo, based on the play be John B. Keane "Tesla in New York" by Phil Kline and Jim Jarmusch "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Paula M. Kimper "The Companion" by Robert Paterson and David Cote "The Family Room" by Thomas Pasatieri and Daphne Malfitano "The Golden Gate" by Conrad Cummings, based on novel by Vikram Seth "The Leopard" by Michael Dellaira and J.D. McClatchy "The  Summer King" by Daniel Sonenberg "The Walled-Up Wife" by Gilda Lyons "The Wanton Sublime", formerly "The Woven Child", by Tarik O'Regan and Anna Rabinowitz (NYC PREMIERE at Roulette, Apr 22, 2014) "The Weeping Camel" by Huang Ruo and Candace Chong "Three Way" by Robert Paterson and David Cote "Ugetsu" by Michael Rose and Emily Howard "Unruly Horses" based on the life and songs of Vladimir Vysotsky, conceived by Mina Yakim and Moni Yakim, with additional book by Peter Kellogg "Wolf-in-Skins", formerly "The Lost Lais of Albion", by Gregory Spears, choreographed by Christopher Williams American Opera Projects The