There was a time not so long ago when Chicago Opera Theater, the city's spirited second opera company, couldn't tell if each season might be its last. And while it will never know the financial strength and security of the cross-Loop Lyric Opera of Chicago, COT's transformation under general director Brian Dickie and a small but heroic board of directors has reached the point where it can announce its full 2008 season before the curtain has even gone up on its first production of 2007. Less than three weeks before COT launches performances of Monteverdi's "The Return of Ulysses to His Homeland" at the Harris Theater, Dickie has unveiled a typically ambitious and varied season for next year: the first U.
S. fully staged production of John Adams' "A Flowering Tree" as well as beloved classics of Mozart and Handel in new stagings. Adams himself will conduct the first two performances in May 2008 of "A Flowering Tree," a work commissioned by the city of Vienna, Austria, to mark last year's 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth.
Mozart also is represented in COT's opening production: "Don Giovanni," conducted by Music of the Baroque music director and Mozart scholar Jane Glover, whom Dickie introduced to Chicago audiences in his first season seven years ago. Glover again will be paired with stage director Diane Paulus, who collaborated with the conductor for COT's previous productions of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" and "Cosi fan tutte." In addition, veteran British-born conductor Raymond Leppard will lead COT's first production of Handel's "Orlando" with the excellent young Australian director Justin Way.
In past years, COT has spread its three annual productions over a three- to four-month span. For its 2008 season, COT will consolidate the runs of the three operas into a six-week period from April 30 to June 8 at the Harris. "Don Giovanni" will be staged April 30 to May 11, 2008, with "Flowering Tree" from May 14-25 and "Orlando" from May 28 to June 8.
A temporary victim of his own success here is COT's resident conductor and music adviser Alexander Platt, whose leadership of works by Adams, Benjamin Britten and Robert Kurka have been among the company's major achievements. Adams was so impressed by Platt's conducting of the belated Chicago premiere of "Nixon in China" in 2006 that he decided to give COT the first full staging of his then-unseen new opera, "A Flowering Tree." But with this offer the company could not refuse came the codicil that Adams, a strong interpreter of his own works, wanted to conduct "Tree" here.
So he will lead the first two performances, and Joana Carneiro, assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and a close associate of Adams, will handle the remaining three. "Alexander Platt remains a key part of our work and our vision," Dickie said. "He'll be heading up the remarkable new work which we will premiere in 2009 by composer-inventor Tod Machover of the MIT Media Lab and another exciting project in 2010.
" Based on a southern Indian folk tale and inspired musically and thematically by Mozart's "The Magic Flute," the three-character, two-act "Tree" was a hit in Vienna last year and at its U.S. concert version debut in San Francisco earlier this month.
COT has cast soprano Natasha Joul and baritone Sanford Sylvan, with one role yet to be filled. Nicola Raab will direct the new production. Glover and Paulus are completing the trio of surviving Monteverdi operas they began in 2000 with this year's "Ulysses" and will do the same with the three Mozart operas written with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte with next season's production of "Don Giovanni.
" The young Ukrainian baritone Viktor Rud will make his company debut in the title role. Way, who breathed new and insightful life into last year's COT production of Mozart's "The Abduction From the Seraglio," will turn his attention next season to the love triangle of Handel's "Orlando." Full season subscriptions for all three operas range from $90 to $345.
COT also offers half-price student tickets in most seating sections. Tickets may be purchased online at chicagooperatheater.org and by phone at (312) 704-8414.
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