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Lisette Oropesa looked and moved like one of the dancers. Her sounds were liquid silver and she seemed to be an amazingly graceful creature from another world.
This important new production broke ground in our dedication to finding non-traditional ways to present world-class opera and to introduce our work to new audiences. LA Opera had presented Gluck’s masterpiece twice before in its original Italian version. This time, James Conlon conducted the company premiere of the composer’s greatly expanded French version, which includes extensive ballet sequences. John Neumeier, a living legend in the dance world, made his company debut wearing multiple hats—as director, choreographer and as designer of the scenery, costumes and lighting—resulting in a singularly unified new production. In order to do full justice to the extensive dance requirements, the cast included no less than 43 dancers from the Joffrey Ballet, one of the world’s premiere ballet companies.
Soprano Liv Redpath was a member of LA Opera's young artist program from 2016 through 2019.
During the 2018/19 season, she starred as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel and also performed the role of the Heavenly Voice in Don Carlo. Her appearances in the 2017/18 season included Amour in Orpheus and Eurydice, Frasquita in Carmen, Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto and the Messenger in Crossing.
Her 2016/2017 season at LA Opera was a significant one: aside from making her debut in the company’s season-opening production of Macbeth, she also stepped in for Diana Damrau in performances as Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann. She was a featured soloist in a gala celebration of the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program’s 10-year anniversary. Further work included a host of collaborative projects with LA Opera Artist-in-Residence Matthew Aucoin.
In the summer of 2018, she performed Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos in a return to Santa Fe Opera, where she had been a 2017 apprentice artist. Previous summers were spent singing Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Héro in Beatrice et Benedict at the Aspen Music Festival, and with Wolf Trap Opera.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Harvard and her Master of Music from the Juilliard School. With the latter institution, she had the eminent distinction of being a Kovner Fellow. Favorite roles at Juilliard include Thérèse in Les Mamelles de Tiresias, the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, and the Angel in Handel's La Resurrezione, which was under the baton of William Christie.
Ms. Redpath’s musical versatility is evidenced by her performances of pieces such as Matthew Aucoin’s Nosferatu (a world premiere performed in LA Opera’s Off Grand series), Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2 (with Juilliard’s ChamberFest), and Milton Babbitt’s Philomel (with the Focus! Festival). She has received awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Palm Springs Opera Guild, The Loren L. Zachary Society, and The Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation. She was awarded the Novick Career Advancement Grant and the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Juilliard School. (LivRedpath.com)
James Conlon has been LA Opera's Richard Seaver Music Director since 2006.
Since his debut that year with La Traviata, he has conducted 61 different operas and 403 performances to date with the company. Most recently, he conducted the 2020 company premiere of The Anonymous Lover (L'Amant Anonyme) by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
One of today’s most versatile and respected conductors, he has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire. He has conducted virtually every major American and European symphony orchestra since his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1974. He has conducted more than 270 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Through worldwide touring, an extensive discography and videography, numerous essays and commentaries, frequent television appearances and guest speaking engagements, Mr. Conlon is one of classical music’s most recognized interpreters.
In 2016, he became Principal Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of the RAI in Torino. He previously was Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, summer home of the Chicago Symphony (2005-2015), Principal Conductor of the Paris National Opera (1995-2004), General Music Director of the City of Cologne (1989-2002), Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (1983-91) and Music Director of the Cincinnati May Festival (1979-2016). He has won three Grammy Awards and was awarded France’s Légion d’Honneur.
Also in the U.S. this season, Mr. Conlon continues his commitment to working with young musicians, both at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach (with Pinchas Zukerman as soloist) and at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where he conducts Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.
Currently in his third season as Principal Conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Conlon focuses on 20th-century Italian composers Giuseppe Martucci, Leone Sinigaglia, and Ottorino Respighi, as well as works by Mahler, Martinů, Mozart, Mussorgsky, Wagner, and Zemlinsky. In addition, he leads the Verdi Requiem, and The Creation by Haydn. Mr. Conlon’s symphonic repertoire this season also includes three Shostakovich symphonies with three different orchestras: No. 7 (“Leningrad”), marking a return to the Gürzenich Orchester in Cologne; No. 9 with RAI National Symphony Orchestra; and No. 12 (“The Year of 1917”) with the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Galicia.
Mr. Conlon focuses on the works of Verdi this season, and conducts over 35 performances of seven works in the span of twelve months, including his 500th performance of the great Italian composer’s music. In addition to conducting Verdi in Los Angeles and Vienna, Mr. Conlon returns to the Wiener Staatsoper, after making his debut with the opera house conducting Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina in 2015, to lead performances of Falstaff in June 2018 and January 2019, and Macbeth in May 2019. He also leads the Teatro Real (Madrid) premiere of the composer’s Giovanna d’Arco in concert (with Plácido Domingo) and the Messa da Requiem with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra.
From: Alhambra, California. LA Opera: Resident Conductor since 2012, he made his LAO conducting debut with La Traviata (2009). He has conducted 15 productions to date including, most recently, The Magic Flute in December 2019.
He has additionally conducted LA Opera performances of Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato and Lee Holdridge's Dulce Rosa, as well as Madama Butterfly, Carmen, Florencia en el Amazonas, Gianni Schicchi, Wonderful Town, The Tales of Hoffmann, Tosca,The Pearl Fishers and Satyagraha.
Grant Gershon is hailed for his adventurous and bold artistic leadership and for eliciting technically precise and expressive performances from musicians. He has conducted Rigoletto, Tosca, La Bohème, La Traviata, Carmen and Madama Butterfly at Wolf Trap Opera with the National Symphony Orchestra; John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary at the San Francisco Symphony and Ravinia Festival; Vivaldi’s Griselda at Santa Fe Opera; and many concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The 2019/20 season marks his 19th season as the Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The Los Angeles Times has said the Master Chorale "has become the most exciting chorus in the country under Grant Gershon,” a reflection on both his programming and performances. During his tenure, he has led more than 200 Master Chorale performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall in programs encompassing choral music from the earliest writings and pillars of the repertoire through to contemporary compositions. He has led world premiere performances of major works by John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Lang, Louis Andriessen, Christopher Rouse, Steve Reich, Morten Lauridsen, Ricky Ian Gordon, Gabriela Lena Frank, Shawn Kirchner, Ellen Reid, and Chinary Ung, among many others.
Gershon and Adams have an enduring friendship and professional relationship which began 27 years ago in Los Angeles when Gershon played keyboards in the pit for Nixon in China at LA Opera. Since then, Gershon has led the world premiere performances of Adams’ theater piece I Was Looking At The Ceiling And Then I Saw The Sky, premiered his two-piano piece Hallelujah Junction (with Gloria Cheng), and has conducted performances of Harmonium, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, El Niño, The Chairman Dances, and choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer. In New York, Gershon has appeared at Carnegie Hall and at the historic Trinity Wall Street, as well as on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center and the Making Music series at Zankel Hall.
Other major appearances include performances at the Ravinia, Aspen, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Salzburg and Vienna Festivals, the South American premiere of Il Postino in Chile, and with the Baltimore Symphony and the Coro e Orchestra Del Teatro Regio Di Torino in Turin, Italy. He has worked closely with numerous conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Simon Rattle, and his mentor, Esa-Pekka Salonen. His discography includes two Grammy Award-nominated recordings: Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) and Ligeti’s Grand Macabre (Sony Classical); and six commercial CDs with the Master Chorale. He has also led the Master Chorale in performances for several major motion pictures soundtracks including Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the request of composer John Williams. Mr. Gershon was named Outstanding Alumnus of the Thornton School of Music in 2002 and received the USC Alumni Merit Award in 2017. He is a member of the Board of Councilors for the Thornton School and the Board of Directors of Chorus America.
New co-production by Lyric Opera of Chicago, LA Opera and Staatsoper Hamburg.
Production made possible by generous support from GRoW @ Annenberg — special tanks to Regina and Gregory Weingarten — and Ceil and Michael Pulitzer. Additional generous support from National Endowment for the Arts. Lisette Oropesa's appearance generously underwritten by a gift from the Piera Barbaglia Emerging Artist Program.
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