La Vie Parisienne! La Vie Masion Rose!

“It’s said that St-Jean is the prettiest of the countless pretty villages in the Perigord.  It’s also said, to our embarrassment, that Maison Rose is the most beautiful house in the village.  There’s some stiff competition for both of those titles.  All we know is that we feel unbelievably privileged to have found a house here, and to be able to share it with our friends.”  --Jim and Mary Oppel, owners of Maison Rose in Dordogne, France

(Photo by John Nation) - The back terrace; people who visit in the warm weather months say this is the best part of the house.

Kentucky Opera has printed just 30 raffle tickets and the lucky winner and five friends/family members will have a week in this beautiful home.  There are three bedrooms so go in with two other friends and the $500 ticket price is only $166 each.  What a wonderful vacation!  Those who have visited Maison Rose describe it as a gorgeous home in an equally gorgeous setting, convenient to many day trips and activities.

The second prize is a wonderful dinner for eight with French food and wine at the beautiful Cherokee Triangle home of Tanja Eikenboom and Rick Albrink here in Louisville.  Not quite Maison Rose in France, but a prize more than worth the price of a raffle ticket.

The winners of these two fabulous prizes will be drawn at Kentucky Opera’s black tie event--Carnevale. . .la vie parisienne! at the Louisville Marriott Downtown Hotel
at 10 pm on Saturday, January 21, 2012. 
The winners need not be present to win.  Airfare and ground transportation are not included.  Commonwealth of Kentucky Charitable Gaming License #0534.

To be one of the 30 entries in this raffle, contact Michael Miller at Kentucky Opera at 502.561.7934 or via email at Michael_Miller@KYOpera.org.

More information on Maison Rose can be found here.

Read a Wall Street Journal review here.

The Weddings were a Great Success!

We had sold out audiences for the Marriage of Figaro!

 

 Check out the review from Arts-Louisville.com - where reviewer J. Barret Cooper says, "All are strong in voice, showing that Kentucky Opera does not scrimp on getting the best available talent in Opera today."

Selena Frye of Louisville.com stated "All in all, I think the night was a success -- and something of an experiment for both artists and audience." You can read her full review here. 

We were overwhelmed with the great support from the community and our loyal subscribers who let us know they understand our situation by showing up! We received a lot of anecdotal feedback about the lack of an orchestra in the pit. Most of the patrons who spoke to Opera staff acknowledged the difficult decisions that had to be made. We heard multiple times, "I expected to not enjoy this performance, but by the beginning of the second half I was won over." Or “at a certain point I forgot the orchestra wasn’t there.”

We gave the opportunity for people put pen to paper to tell us how they felt. While only a small number actually wrote out their comments, the written responses were varied and honest for the most part. 

"A wonderful effort! It would have been superlative with an orchestra."

"A Mozart Opera without an orchestra despite the stellar performances of the cast, is simply an incomplete opera."

A surprising number of people seemed to think that Kentucky Opera has 
influence over the contract between the Louisville Orchestra and it's musicians with statements like:

“The LO is entitled to a contract”

“Pay the musicians and orchestra their due. Give them their unemployment benefits.”

"I wonder where are the 'benefactors' for our orchestra like Louisville has for its sports programs."

But the majority of our patrons made statements like:

"We were comforted by the beauty of the music, our laughter and the strength of the performances today."

“Mozart is probably somewhere applauding wildly! What a masterpiece - masterfully sung, staged, acted.”

“The piano & harpsichord seemed appropriate accompaniment for this particular opera.”

“We appreciate the hard decisions that must be made. - You have our full support.”

Did you see Marriage of Figaro?  What did you think?  Leave a comment here or email us at info@kyopera.org.

A Message From David Roth

With the announcement of the Louisville Orchesta’s cancelation of their September and October concerts, Kentucky Opera has been notified as well by management that the organization is not able to perform services for Kentucky Opera during those months. In spite of this setback in the negotiations between management and musicians of the Louisville Orchestra, Kentucky Opera would like to assure all patrons that there will be a live orchestra for the upcoming performances of Carmen, which opens the Brown-Forman 2011/12 Season on September 23 & 25.

General Director David Roth says. “Kentucky Opera is reaching out directly to officials of the American Federation of Musicians Local 11-637. We hope to quickly secure an agreement with them for contracting local members of the union to perform Carmen in September. While we regret the very difficult situation with the Louisville Orchestra, we have an absolute commitment to our patrons who passionately believe in the power of the live performance.” To fulfill the promise Kentucky Opera has made to these patrons during this period, it will work with the AFM Local 11-637 to secure the necessary musicians for each opera until a resolution is found and the Louisville Orchestra can resume its season.

***

Entering its 59th season of production, Kentucky Opera was founded in 1952 and designated the State Opera of Kentucky in 1982. The mission of Kentucky Opera is to entertain and educate a broad, diverse audience by producing opera of the highest quality.

The Brown-Forman 2011/12 Kentucky Opera Season
CARMEN
September 23, 25 & 30, 2011
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO
November 18 & 20, 2011
THE MERRY WIDOW
February 17 & 19, 2012

NEW YORK STORIES Makes House Calls

The Courier Journal's Katya Cengle had the distinct honor of joining the Patron's Circle for a night of guerrilla opera. Daron Hagen's New York Stories was a part of Kentucky Opera's Composer Workshop program and Opera America's National Opera Week celebration.


Our Studio Artists: Brandy Hawkins, Gabriel Preisser, Andrea Shokery, Daniel Anderson and Tomasz Paweł Sadownik were joined by UofL School of Music Students Erin Keesy and Ricky Case to perform his trillogy in three homes of downtown Louisville.
Click HERE to read the whole story.
In case you missed the previous post, which includes a video interview with the compser and an excerpt from one of the three operas, click HERE.

ELIXIR Patron's Circle party

It was a beautiful evening at the home of Ian and Roberta Henderson. The cast was in good form and each performed with great energy.
Here is a sample of the fun by baritone Chad Sloan who will sing the role of Belcore in Kentucky Opera's upcoming production of The Elixir Of Love.



Chad is a Kentucky native and a University of Louisville Alumni. He currently lives in New York and has been working with composer Ben Moore on a series of Song Cycles. The singer/composer relationship was developed through Kentucky Opera's collaborative program, The Composer Workshop where Kentucky Opera Studio Artists along with students from the University of Louisville School of Music and the Acadamy of Music at St. Francis in the Fields. More on this program very soon.

Tickets are still available for The Elixir of Love! Call 502.584.4500 or click here.

To learn more about the Patron's Circle and join the fun, call Kentucky Opera at 502.584.4500.

Composer comes to town!!

He is considered the Father of American Opera. Contemporary composers across the country and the globe admire him for his contributions to the craft. His works combine penetrating social commentary with acute psychological insight. In 2008 he became the first composer to receive the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honor award. And he's coming to Louisville.


Composer and librettist, Carlisle Floyd, will sit amongst the students of Louisville high schools and colleges on Wednesday night at the Brown Theater to watch the final dress rehearsal of one of his most successful operas, Of Mice and Men.


He has quite a busy schedule for the short time in town. Thursday morning he will chat with Jake Heggie (who came to town for the Kentucky Opera Composer Workshop last year) and Classical 90.5 FM's Daniel Gilliam. The entire conversation will be available later that afternoon online at WUOL.org.


He will also conduct master classes with Kentucky Opera studio artists and students from the University of Louisville School of Music. Very special patrons will be able to dine with him at the President's Council Dinner before he attends the Of Mice and Men opening night performance on Friday, October 30 at the Brown Theatre.


Join the composer for the performance on Friday at 8pm. Call 502.584.7777 for tickets.


If you missed it:
See the Lunch & Listen recorded at the WUOL performance studios on METRO TV (Insight channel 25).

Thursday, October 22 4:30 pm
Friday, October 23 12:00 pm & 11:00 pm
Saturday, October 24 4:00 am
Sunday, October 25 – 9:00 pm

The weekly Metro TV schedule is available on line here.

Introducing Sébastien Guèze

Monday evening, Gill Holland hosted Kentucky Opera's Patrons' Circle party at the Green Building.

One of the highlights of the evening was the introduction of Sébastien Guèze who will make his U.S. premiere when he sings the role of Alfredo in Kentucky Opera's upcoming production of La Traviata. He charmed the crowd with his amazing voice and dashing good looks.

Here is a sample, as he sings "De' miei bollenti spiriti."

There are still select seats available for the Friday, September 25 Grand Gala opening of La Traviata but they are going fast. Call the Opera (our online forms are not working at the moment) 502-584-4500.


In attendance were arts leaders from the entire city including Robert Birman, CEO of the Louisville Orchestra; Jennifer Bielstein from Actors Theatre; Dwight Hutton and Bruce Simpson from the Louisville Ballet and Barbara Sexton Smith from the Fund for the Arts to name a few. We were also pleased with a number of season sponsors who were able to join us such as Edward O'Brien from Atlas Brown and Jim Allen from Hilliard Lyons. Kentucky Opera board member, Matt Hammel from Brown-Forman was able to stop in for a little bit as well.



It was a lovely evening, and there were more performances captured on video that I will post eventually. We must share this amazing talent!

Mayor Cuts Arts Funding in Half

Mayor cuts City budget, arts funding cut in half!

David Roth's statement:

While we are shocked at the severity of the cutback in this fiscal year from Metro Louisville, we at Kentucky Opera have anticipated this inevitable drop in external funding from Metro Louisville and possibly the Kentucky Arts Council since each started to announce a month ago their estimated revenue shortfalls from the current economic slowdown. We, like other businesses, must prepare to weather this economic storm with noticeable changes in staffing and programming for this year and the next. Because we have in recent seasons developed a very lean business model, any further changes will require structural changes to programming on our subscription series and our educational outreach.

We are thankful that Brown-Forman has already confirmed their season sponsorship for our Fall 2009 season.

We encourage all Kentucky Opera patrons, subscribers and even single ticket buyers to participate in the Subscriber Appreciation Receptions so we can get your feed back on this and other issues facing your opera company.

Please call us 502.584.4500 and let us know when you would like to attend (dates and times below). There are two morning breakfast opportunities, two afternoon lunch opportunities and two after work opportunities. The receptions will take place at ArtSpace located at 323 West Broadway.

Wednesday, December 10 at 9:30 am

Thursday, December 11 at 9:30 am

Tuesday, January 6 at 12:30 or 6pm

Monday January 12 at 12:30 or 6pm