Jake Heggie News

As a playwright you always hope that your script gets a first class production at a top theatre. Today's subject, Heather McDonald, is currently living her theatre life on a high as her world premiere play Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity is receiving such royal treatment. Featuring the likes of performers Holly Twyford, Felicia Curry, and Yesenia Iglesias, the production plays through April 7th in Signature Theatre's ARK space.

Chicago Opera Theater (COT) caps its 2018/2019 season with the Chicago premiere of "Moby-Dick," an epic adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 classic "Moby-Dick; or, The Whale" at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance (205 E. Randolph Street) Thursday, April 25 and Sunday, April 28. The production is co-produced by Utah Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, San Jose Opera and Gran Teatre del Liceu.

Mezzo soprano Frederica von Stade starred in the San Diego Opera's staging of Three Decembers. One of several works written with her in mind by her close friend Jake Heggie, it' s a chamber opera for three singers and 11 musicians. In a recent Interview Von Stade said, 'I've done three productions, the original in Houston, a new production in Chicago, and this one, which is my favorite.' The libretto by Gene Scheer is based on a play by Terrence McNally. Von Stade portrays Madeline Mitchell, a self-centered Broadway star who has devoted so much time to her career that her children have come to resent her. She owns the role she premiered in 2008 with acting that makes the character believable, and a voice that remains attractive and compelling, if no longer as versatile as it was earlier in her career.

The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, America's longest running festival of new orchestral music, celebrates its 57th season, July 28 - August 11, 2019, with a remarkable women-centric season, featuring a series of relevant and forward-looking commissioned works. 

Chicago Opera Theater (COT) today announced that the company has been awarded both a $30,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a $15,000 Civic Practice Grant from OPERA America's Opera Fund for fiscal year 2019. The Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts supports the production and programming of Jake Heggie's "Moby-Dick," which will make its Chicago premiere at the Harris Theater (205 E. Randolph) Thursday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 28 at 3 p.m. Art Works, the Arts Endowment's principal grantmaking program, received 1,605 applications for this round of grantmaking, and awarded 972 grants in this category.

The famous mezzo soprano Fredericka von Stade is in San Diego this week rehearsing Three Decembers, one of several works written with her in mind by her close friend Jake Heggie. The chamber opera for three singers and 11 musicians will be performed three times next weekend at the 500-seat Patrick Henry PHAME Theatre. Von Stade recognized Heggie's talent long before he wrote his first opera and has been an influential champion ever since. Their friendship and collaboration have benefitted both. In my interview with her in a San Diego Opera rehearsal room she said, 'He's given me a second career with parts in Dead Man Walking and Great Scott, and a lot of song cycles. He's my guy.'

San Francisco's acclaimed Merola Opera Program, one of the most prestigious and selective opera training programs in the world, launches its 62nd season offering audiences a look at the opera stars of tomorrow. The 2019 Merola Summer Festival announces this year's 29 Merola artists, selected from more than 800 international applicants from as far away as Brazil, South Korea, New Zealand, and Colombia, as well as across the U.S. Along with the announced world premiere of If I Were You (August 1-6) by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, the singers will perform in the Schwabacher Summer Concert (July 11 & 13) and Merola Grand Finale (August 17). The 2019 Merola Summer Festival includes performances in San Francisco at various locations. Individual event tickets and information available at www.merola.org or 415-864-3330.

OPERA America, the national service organization for opera and the nation's leading champion for American opera, is pleased to announce the recipients of its first-ever Civic Practice Grants, supported by OPERA America's Opera Fund endowment.

Falstaff, Verdi's exuberant final opera, returns to the Met for performances February 22-March 16, 2019. Robert Carsen's acclaimed production moves the action from Shakespeare's era to 1950s England. Fresh off his much-lauded performance as Michonnet in the Met's Adriana Lecouvreur, Ambrogio Maestri stars as the notorious glutton Falstaff, reprising his celebrated betrayal in this production's premiere run in the 2013-14 season. The ensemble cast of merry wives and noblemen also includes Ailyn Perez as Alice Ford, Golda Schultz as Nannetta, Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Mistress Quickly, Jennifer Johnson Cano as Meg Page, Francesco Demuro as Fenton, and Juan Jesus Rodriguez as Ford. Conductor Richard Farnes, the former longtime music director of Opera North, makes his Met debut on the podium.

LA Opera Off Grand presents the West Coast premiere of 'the loser,' a new work by composer David Lang.

A season filled with unforgettable music, riveting stories, thrilling singers from around the world, and stirring productions goes on sale by subscription Friday, January 25, at 10am. Six new and new-to-Chicago productions including three Lyric premieres and three performances of the Ring cycle will engage and entertain audiences from late September 2019 through June 2020.

Lyric Opera announced its 2019/2020 season, and theater lovers (like myself) will find some particular highlights to enjoy in the upcoming season.

San Francisco Opera Center and Merola Opera Program present the 36th season of the Schwabacher Recital Series, opening on February 13 and continuing through April 24. The four-recital series offers music lovers an opportunity to hear opera's next generation of stars in the intimate and state-of-the-art Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced repertory and casting for the Company's 97th Season, opening Friday, September 6, 2019, with a gala performance of Charles Gounod's Romeo and Juliet (Rom o et Juliette) starring tenor Bryan Hymel and soprano Nadine Sierra in Op ra de Monte-Carlo Director Jean-Louis Grinda's production. In keeping with the Company's time-honored tradition, the new season will be inaugurated with San Francisco Opera Guild's elegant, signature benefit and celebration, Opera Ball 2019.

On February 9th, Opera San Jose's 35th season continues with Moby-Dick, by 2018 Grammy Nominated composer Jake Heggie (Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Great Scott) with a libretto by Gene Scheer.

This winter, The Atlanta Opera presents the company premiere of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally's Dead Man Walking in an original production "of the very highest level" (Opera News) from General & Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun. Georgia native Jamie Barton - winner of the Beverly Sills Artist Award, Richard Tucker Award, and BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition - makes her eagerly anticipated role debut as Sister Helen Prejean, and Michael Mayes reprises the iconic portrayal of condemned murderer Joseph De Rocher that the composer himself has called "definitive," anchoring an all-star cast that also features Maria Zifchak, Wayne Tigges, Kevin Burdette, and Jay Hunter Morris. Marking the second presentation in Atlanta's mainstage season, the opera will be mounted in four performances led by Kentucky Opera principal conductor Joseph Mechavich at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre (Feb 2-10).

A casting dispute has led director Gregory Mosher to depart a recently announced Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons, staring Annette Bening and Tracy Letts. 

The Spirit of This Place, authored by Houston Grand Opera Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers, is now available for sale on Amazon and through the Chicago University Press, the publisher of the work. The Spirit of This Place is described as "a moving credo elucidating Summers's belief that the arts, especially music, help us to understand our own humanity as intellectual, aesthetic, and ultimately spiritual."

Washington National Opera (WNO) presents the seventh season of its acclaimed American Opera Initiative (AOI) with four world premieres from January 11-13, 2019, in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. A comprehensive commissioning program that originates and develops new works, the American Opera Initiative provides rare opportunities for emerging composers and librettists to partner and write for the opera stage. The Initiative encourages and ensures the future of contemporary American opera through development, mentorship, and performance, with works based on American themes and stories. Since its inception, the annual program has commissioned 28 chamber operas, with some going on to future productions around the country; notables include this summer's successful production by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis of An American Soldier, an AOI commission in 2014, and Opera Omaha's and Miller Theater's recent productions of AOI's 2018 commission, Proving Up.

Haunting, gentle spirits from far-flung worlds meet in the pulsing sphere of dreams and lullabies that is Angel Heart, a music storybook. With an original tale by best-selling children's fantasy writer Cornelia Funke, Angel Heart weaves an evocative original score by Luna Pearl Woolf with beloved songs by Irving Berlin, Lennon-McCartney, Jake Heggie, Engelbert Humperdinck, Gordon Getty, and others. An affecting narration by Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons layers upon intoxicating performances by singers Frederica von Stade, Daniel Taylor, Lisa Delan, and Zheng Cao – all above a rich bed of cellos, Matt Haimovitz and his Grammy-nominated ensemble Uccello.