A Night of Mark Adamo

American composer-librettist Mark Adamo prepared for the world-première performances in June 2013 of his third full-length opera, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, following a busy season of opera and chamber premières. In May 2012, Fort Worth Opera opened its first production of his second opera, Lysistrata; that September, the Constella Festival in Cincinnati opened their season with August Music, for flute duo and string quartet, commissioned by Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway: in December, Sasha Cooke and the New York Festival of Song introduced The Racer’s Widow, a cycle of five American poems for mezzo-soprano, cello, and piano; and, in April 2013, baritone Thomas Hampson and the Jupiter String Quartet introduced Aristotle, after the poem by Billy Collins, in concerts at the Mondavi Center in Davis, California before continuing to Boston and New York under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Adamo first attracted national attention with his uniquely celebrated début opera, Little Women, after the Alcott novel. Introduced by Houston Grand Opera in 1998 and revived there in 2000, Little Women is one of the most frequently performed American operas of the last fifteen years, with more than 80 national and international engagements in cities ranging from New York to Minneapolis, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Adelaide, Perth, Mexico City, Brugges, Banff, Calgary, and Tokyo, where it served as the official U.S. cultural entrant to the 2005 World Expo. The Houston Grand Opera revival (2000) was telecast by PBS/WNET on Great Performances in 2001 and released on CD by Ondine that same year; in fall 2010, Naxos released this performance on DVD and on Blu-ray. (Little Women was the first American opera recorded in high-definition television.) Comparable enthusiasm greeted the début of the larger-scaled Lysistrata, Adamo’s second opera, adapted from Aristophanes’ comedy but also including elements from Sophocles’ Antigone. Lysistrata was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera for its 50th anniversary and introduced in March 2005: its New York City Opera debut in March 2006 led to concert performances by Washington National Opera (May 2006) and Music at the Modern by the Van Cliburn Foundation (May 2007) before the new staging of the work at Fort Worth Opera in spring 2012, which was included on the best-of-2012 lists of both D Magazine and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

While Adamo’s principal work continues to be for the opera house, over the past 5 years he has ventured not only into chamber music but also into symphonic and choral composition. Adamo’s first concerto, Four Angels, forharp and orchestra, was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and debuted in June 2007: the Utah Symphony, led by their Music Director Emeritus, Keith Lockhart, presented Four Angels in January 2011. In May 2007, Washington’s Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, for which Adamo served as its first composer-in-residence, performed the revised version ofAdamo’s Late Victorians, a cantata for singing voice, speaking voice, and orchestra: Naxos released Late Victorians in 2009 on Eclipse’s all-Adamo CD, which also included Alcott Music, from Little Women, for strings, harp, celesta, and percussion; “Regina Coeli,” an arrangement of the slow movement of Four Angels for harp and strings alone; and the Overture to Lysistrata for medium orchestra. In April of 2010, Harold Rosenbaum’s New York Virtuoso Singers paired six of Adamo’s newly-published choral scores with the complete chamber-choral work of John Corigliano. This concert featured the New York premières of Cantate Domino (after Psalm 91,) Pied Beauty and God’s Grandeur (Gerard Manley Hopkins; commissioned by the Gregg Smith Singers,) Matewan Music (Appalachian folk-tune variations,) Supreme Virtue (Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Tao te Ching,) and The Poet Speaks of Praising (Rilke: commissioned and introduced by Chanticleer.)

Composer-in-residence at New York City Opera from 2001 through 2006, where he led the VOX: Showcasing American Composers program, Adamoalso served as Master Artist at Atlantic Center for the Arts in May 2003. Since 2007 he has served as the principal teacher of American Lyric Theatre’s Composer-Librettist Development Program in New York, in which he coaches teams of composers and librettists in developing their work for the stage.

Adamo began his education in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where, as a freshman in the Dramatic Writing Program, he received the Paulette Goddard Remarque Scholarship for outstanding undergraduate achievement in playwriting. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Music Degree cum laude in composition in 1990 from the Catholic University of America. His music is published exclusively by G. Schirmer, Inc.

Emilie-Anne Gendron and Alex Shiozaki, violins

Stephanie Griffin, viola; Michael Haas, cello

Momenta: the plural of momentum – four individuals in motion towards a common goal. This is the idea behind the Momenta Quartet, whose eclectic vision encompasses contemporary music of all aesthetic backgrounds alongside great music from the recent and distant past.  The New York City-based quartet has premiered over 150 works, collaborated with over 200 living composers and in the words of The New Yorker’s Alex Ross, “few American players assume Haydn’s idiom with such ease.” Momenta has performed at such prestigious venues as The Library of Congress and the International Cervantino Festival, and its debut album, Similar Motion, is available on Albany Records.

Praised by the New York Times for her “vocal warmth and rich character”, mezzo soprano Kara Dugan recently received her Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School, where she also earned her Bachelor of Music degree. Ms. Dugan has a passion for early music and recently performed at the Boston Early Music Festival, New York’s Alice Tully Hall, and throughout Holland singing as the Soprano 2 soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor, under the baton of Ton Koopman. She enjoys singing a variety of musical styles and sang in the world premiere of Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind with the New World Symphony, composed and conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. Performance highlights include Papagena in Mozart’sDie Zauberflöte, Cherubino in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and three international tours with Juilliard’s Historical Performance Department, Juilliard415.

Ms. Dugan has spent her summers performing with the Aspen Music Festival, Wolf Trap Opera, The Crested Butte Music Festival, pianoSonoma, The Rite of Summer Music Festival, Juilliard415, and as a soloist with the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego.

Ms. Dugan strongly believes in the importance of community outreach, and as a recipient of Juilliard’s Gluck Community Service Fellowship, she and her husband, pianist Peter Dugan, performed themed concerts at retirement residences and hospitals. She has performed educational programs for hundreds of elementary school students in her hometown of Temecula, California and also performs with OPERAtion superpower, a superhero opera for children. Ms. Dugan is a proud recipient of the Novick Career Advancement Grant.

A noted interpreter of Mozart and bel canto repertoire as well as Benjamin Britten and many of today’s living composers, Opera News has hailed Keith Phares “as an authentic contemporary-American-opera divo” with “an impressive gallery of finely-drawn character portraits”.

2017-18 engagements include Ned Spofford in the premiere of Eric Sawyer’s The Scarlet Professor, Roderick Usher and Hiram Otis in Gordon Getty’s SCARE PAIR: Usher House/Canterville Ghostwith the Center for Contemporary Opera and Los Angeles Opera, Ford in Falstaff with Opera Omaha, Viva Opera! – a concert of opera highlights with Florentine Opera, Gaspar in Donizetti’s Ritawith Chicago Opera Theater and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Maine.

Hailed by The New York Times as “a bass with an attitude and the goods to back it up,” Matt Boehler has been critically acclaimed both for his dramatic skill and his vocal ability. With Wolf Trap Opera Company, Mr. Boehler garnered much praise in the title role of Sweeney Todd, causing The Washington Post to proclaim, “He is, quite simply, a marvel.”

The current season features two opera and company premieres for Mr. Boehler: the role of Uncle in the world premiere of Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell’s Elizabeth Cree with Opera Philadelphia, and the role of the Director in the American premiere of Michael Gordon and Deborah Artman’s Acquanetta with the Prototype Festival in NYC. It includes returns to Minnesota Opera for Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro and Sparafucile in Rigoletto, as well as Madison Opera for Osmin inThe Abduction from the Seraglio. In concert, he can be heard in Mozart’s Requiem at the National Cathedral and with the Sacramento Choral Society.