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Repertoire History

For its 2010-2011 Season, the Opera Company of Philadelphia presents three grand scale productions at the Academy of Music, and also in a contemporary new home at the Kimmel Center’s intimate Perelman Theater, plus collaborative presentations with other institutions as well as award-winning education and community outreach programs.

Formed in 1975, the Opera Company of Philadelphia has always been and remains committed to delivering outstanding productions of traditional and new repertoire. Through its in-house Production Center, established in 1993, the Opera Company builds new and innovative productions—including 2007's larger-than-life Rigoletto—in its facility located at the Arsenal Business center in the Tacony section of Philadelphia. In addition to creating new productions, the Opera Company of Philadelphia searches all over the world to bring the best of the international opera scene here to Philadelphia. The imaginative production of Cinderella in November 2006 by the acclaimed Italian team of director Davide Livermore and set and costume designer Santi Centineo, had The Philadelphia Inquirer lauding it as “easily among OCP’s most theatrically sophisticated accomplishments.”

With a commitment to creating new American works, the Opera Company saw one of its biggest highlights of recent seasons in February 2006 with the long-awaited East Coast Premiere of Margaret Garner, hailed by The Inquirer as “…arguably the biggest cultural event ever to hit Philadelphia.” The Company teamed with partners at Michigan Opera Theatre and Cincinnati Opera to commission this groundbreaking new work, which brought together Grammy–winning composer Richard Danielpour and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. The 2007–2008 Season featured another new American opera, Cyrano, which received its East Coast Premiere in 2008. Co-produced with Michigan Opera Theatre and Florida Grand Opera, composer David DiChiera and librettist Bernard Uzan gave a lush, romantic operatic voice to one of the great works of literature in a stunning new production by John Pascoe. The Opera Company continues to seek out new, groundbreaking works that appeal to a socially and culturally diverse audience.

Since the Company’s founding, OCP has a long tradition of identifying and cultivating rising young talent and casting these future stars alongside internationally acclaimed singers. In 1980 the Company began a long-standing relationship with Luciano Pavarotti, establishing the Opera Company of Philadelphia/Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, giving aspiring young singers an opportunity to showcase their talent. The Company produced four Competition cycles, with the last ending in November 1992. The Opera Company continues to seek out and audition young singers from all over the world for its casts each season. In the 2007-2008 Season OCP entered into a groundbreaking collaboration with Curtis Opera Theatre—one of the nation’s most prestigious training grounds for new operatic talent—and with Kimmel Center Presents to present one of the year’s most-talked about contemporary works in its Philadelphia Premiere: Osvaldo Golijov’s Grammy–winning opera Ainadamar. The collaboration continued in the 2008-2009 Season with Alban Berg's Wozzeck, and in the 2009-2010 Season with Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra to commemorate the year when the composer - and Curtis Institute alumnus - would have turned 100.

Committed to ensuring opera’s future through both artistic innovation and audience development, the Opera Company is devoted to creating educational programs geared to introducing the rich heritage of opera to the curriculum of public and private schools, as well as sponsoring programs that appeal to both longtime and new opera audiences. The Company’s award-winning Sounds of Learning™ program, which has brought opera to more than 120,000 area students, is currently in its 18th season. This literacy-based program uses opera libretti as a literacy tool and as a starting point for the integration of visual and performing arts into the framework of a core curriculum. The Sounds of Learning™ program continues to grow and bring opera to more and more students each year. This last season brought an additional 23 schools to the program and increased the number of students by 35%. In February 2007, OCP reached an even broader audience with Hip H’Opera, a program that celebrated the urban experience within a classical music setting, in collaboration with the Art Sanctuary’s North Stars after-school program and the New Freedom Theatre’s Performing Arts Training Program. Hip H’Opera fused the hip-hop poems of students from the North Stars program with the music of classically trained area composers in an event that had over 800 attendees and substantial television coverage.

In recognition of opera’s ever-changing adult audiences, the Opera Company also continues to grow its outreach and enrichment programs, including the A Taste of Opera lecture series, Opera Overtures pre-performance lectures, the annual Academy of Music Open House Tour, and many more. In 2006, to introduce the region to the new opera Margaret Garner, the Company crafted an extensive communitywide outreach program in order to connect the city to the work’s powerful themes. The program received Opera America’s first ever Diversity Award in May 2006, honoring the Company for the creation of an innovative project that advances diversity in the field of opera.

For 35 years the Opera Company of Philadelphia has brought audiences outstanding production quality, artistry and educational opportunities. A strong blend of traditional and innovative programming will continue to ensure the vitality and excitement of opera in Philadelphia.