Gotham Chamber Opera Receives NEA Grant

Through it's grant-making to thousands of nonprofits each year, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) promotes opportunities for people in communities across America to experience the arts and exercise their creativity.

In the second major grant announcement of fiscal year 2015, the NEA will make a $20,000 award to Gotham Chamber Opera in support of their production of Stradella's San Giovanni Battista in the 2015/2016 season. The NEA will make 1,023 awards totaling $74.3 million nationwide in this funding round.

San Giovanni Battista (Saint John the Baptist)

Music by Alessandro Stradella, Libretto by Ansaldo Ansaldi

Neal Goren, Conductor; Timothy Nelson, Stage Director

With sopranos Maeve Höglund and Harolyn Blackwell, countertenor Timothy Mead, tenor Peter Tantsits, and bass Joseph Beutel

A co-production with the Netherlands Nationale ReisOpera

February 2016

For its second production, the company presents a rare staging of Alessandro Stradella's 1675 San Giovanni Battista (Saint John the Baptist), in a co-production with the Netherlands Nationale ReisOpera.This dramatic retelling of the famous biblical story of Princess Salome's jealousy and depraved love for the Jewish prophet is the composer's best-known work. Stradella is the missing operatic link between Monteverdi and Handel, who owned a copy of the manuscript. The role of Salome was a vehicle of the young Maria Callas. The piece will be directed by the young stage director Timothy Nelson, whom critics have lauded as "the future of opera." It will be conducted by Gotham's founding Artistic Director Neal Goren leading a baroque orchestra. Vivaldi's famous cantata Nisi Dominus will be interpolated for English countertenor Timothy Mead, who will be singing the title role. San Giovanni Battista was last heard in New York in 1986 in a concert presentation. Gotham Chamber Opera's production will be its U.S. stage premiere.

NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, "The NEA is committed to advancing learning, fueling creativity, and celebrating the arts in cities and towns across the United States. Funding these new projects like the one from Gotham Chamber Opera represents an investment in both local communities and our nation's creative vitality."

"The collaboration between the Nederlandse Reisopera and Gotham Chamber Opera has been exceptionally well received by stakeholders, both artistic and political. The current minister of culture, Mrs. Jet Bussemaker, regards international cultural relations as being of immense importance to Dutch cultural life. International collaborations mean sharing artists, knowledge and expertise, audiences, and above all differing and inspiring perspectives on the value of opera as a worldwide art form. Following the premiere and performances of San Giovanni Battista in the United States, this production will then be shipped to the Netherlands for performances on tour. We aim to perform in 13 theatres throughout the Netherlands, to between 10,000 and 13,000 people in total. The American opera director, Timothy Nelson, himself resident in Amsterdam, provides a binding link between our two cities." - Nicolas Mansfield, General and Artistic Director for Nederlandse Reisopera

"As stage director, I am extremely excited to be a partner in Gotham Chamber Opera's presentation of Stradella's San Giovanni Battista in the 2015-16 season. This is a work of absolute uniqueness and profound importance, from a composer whose works are too little known to American audiences, and whose music is of dynamic brilliance unlike anyone from his era. The project is also of unique significance in how it brings together a diverse group of collaborators from around the globe, and offers Gotham Chamber Opera the chance to be a focal point for creating new work on a global scale." - Timothy Nelson, Stage Director

"For many years, I have felt that one way to bolster Gotham Chamber Opera's reputation at home would be to develop an international presence for the company, though I have not known what form that would eventually take. Bolstering Gotham Chamber Opera's reputation also must be achieved by continuing to provide our audiences with the opportunity to see repertoire that they cannot see elsewhere in New York, presented with our customarily high musical and theatrical standards. I was amazed and delighted to discover how easily one production could satisfy so many of Gotham's needs." - Neal Goren, Artistic Director for Gotham Chamber Opera

To join the Twitter conversation about this announcement, please use #NEASpring2015. For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, go to arts.gov

Gotham Chamber Opera is the nation's leading opera company dedicated to vibrant, fully staged productions of works intended for intimate venues. Its high quality presentations of small-scale rarities from the Baroque era to the present have earned Gotham an international reputation and unanimous critical praise.

Founded by conductor and Artistic Director Neal Goren, Gotham debuted in 2001 with the American premiere of W.A. Mozart's Il sogno di Scipione. In subsequent seasons, the company has produced many more local and world premieres, including Bohuslav Martinu's Les Larmes du Couteau and Hlas Lesa (U.S. premiere 2002); Heinrich Sutermeister's Die schwarze Spinne (U.S. premiere 2004); G.F. Handel's Arianna in Creta (U.S. stage premiere 2005); Ottorino Respighi's La bella dormente nel bosco (U.S. premiere 2005); Ariadne Unhinged, with music by Claudio Monteverdi, Joseph Haydn, and Arnold Schoenberg (World premiere 2008); Hadyn's L'isola disabitata (New York stage premiere 2009); Xavier Montsalvatge's El Gato con Botas (U.S. stage premiere 2010); Nico Muhly's Dark Sisters (World premiere 2011); Lembit Beecher's I Have No Stories To Tell You (World premiere 2014); and Toshio Hosokawa's The Raven (U.S. premiere 2014), as part of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL.

Gotham has partnered with notable New York and national institutions, including Lincoln Center Festival and Spoleto USA (La bella dormente nel bosco) in 2005; the Morgan Library and Museum for Scenes of Gypsy Life (an evening of song cycles by Janá?ek and Dvo?ák) in 2008; the American Museum of Natural History and the American Repertory Theater for Hadyn's Il mondo della luna (2010); Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Broad Stage, Los Angeles for Daniel Catán's La hija de Rappaccini (Rappaccini's Daughter, 2013); Trinity Church Wall Street for Marc-Antoine Charpentier's La descente d'Orpheé aux enfers (2013); The Metropolitan Museum of Art for Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Beecher's I Have No Stories To Tell You (2014); and the New York Philharmonic for Hosokawa's The Raven (2014).

Gotham has earned a reputation for showcasing outstanding young singers alongside established directors and choreographers such as Mark Morris (the 2009 production of Hadyn's L'isola disabitata), David Parsons (the New York stage premiere of Astor Piazzola's tango opera, María di Buenos Aires), Karole Armitage (the world premiere of Ariadne Unhinged), Basil Twist (La bella dormente nel bosco), Robin Guarino (Gioachino Rossini's Il signor Bruschino and Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda/I Have No Stories to Tell You), Christopher Alden (Il sogno di Scipione and Arianna in Creta), Diane Paulus (Il mondo della luna), Moisés Kaufmann (El gato con botas), and Rebecca Taichman (Dark Sisters and La hija de Rappaccini.)

In recent years, Gotham Chamber Opera has been recognized as a pioneer in creating opera productions in alternative venues, beginning in 2010 with its production of Haydn's Il mondo della luna at the Hayden Planetarium, followed in 2013 with the U.S. professional stage premiere of Francesco Cavalli's Eliogabalo at New York's notorious late night club The Box, Catán's La hija de Rappaccini on the Cherry Esplanade of Brooklyn Botanic Garden and at the Greystone Manor in Beverly Hills, and the double-bill of Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Bloomberg Arms and Armor Gallery and Beecher's I Have No Stories to Tell You in the Medieval Court. The company's 2014/2015 season included Alexandre bis & Comedy on the Bridge, both by Bohuslav Martinu, a revival of the acclaimed El gato con botas at El Museo del Barrio, and the U.S. and World Stage Premieres of The Tempest Songbook, co-produced with the Martha Graham Dance Company.