Mark Campbell News

Houston Grand Opera announced at its annual meeting today that its 2016-17 season closed on a strong financial footing despite recent pressures on the Houston economy.

OPERA America, the national service organization for opera and the nation's leading champion of American opera, is pleased to announce the first-ever recipients of Innovation Grants, generously funded by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

San Francisco Opera announces Opera for All Voices: Stories of Our Time, a new commissioning initiative committed to telling wide-ranging stories that resonate with all audiences, regardless of age or prior experience with opera.

Florida Grand Opera (FGO) is pleased to welcome the singers who will make up the company's 2017-18 Young Artist Program. Twelve performers in all, chosen from the nearly 550 who applied, will arrive in early October to become an integral part of the seventy-seventh season of Florida Grand Opera, the state's longest continuously running performing arts institution.

You don't have to be transgender, or even an opera-lover, to be moved and haunted by AS ONE, the chamber opera by Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed having its local debut June 2 at the New Orleans Opera. It's a work that will reach anyone who has come to terms with growing up, learning to live with themselves, dealing with the short-comings of others. In other words, all of us.

Since the dawn of theater, even in it's most nascent forms, audiences have marveled at spectacular moments brought to life on stage. Throughout their history, plays and musicals have utilized the talents of theater artists and professionals to do what may have seemed impossible. Today, modern technology makes it possible to dig even deeper into our imaginations and bring to life what's found there. Few shows have excited and fulfilled our collective imagination the way The Lion King has and the touring production currently playing at the Civic Center remains as spectacular as ever.

A new artistic collaboration between Seattle Opera and three partner organizations will result in a world-premiere inspired by the late Steve Jobs, visionary co-founder of Apple and Pixar. The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs will first play at Santa Fe Opera in July 2017 before coming to Seattle Opera for its west coast premiere during the 2018/19 season.

San Francisco Opera today announced its participation as a co-commissioner of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs—the first full-length opera written by Bay Area composer Mason Bates and set to a libretto by Mark Campbell—joining Santa Fe Opera and Seattle Opera, with support from Cal Performances. The new work is a co-production with Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music and will have its world premiere beginning July 22, 2017 at Santa Fe Opera. San Francisco Opera will present the Bay Area premiere of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs during the Company's 2019–20 repertory season at the War Memorial Opera House. Bates' electro-acoustic opera is composed in one act and is comprised of a prologue and 19 scenes.

Unison Media's acclaimed concert series continues its second season on May 31, with a special preview of Opera Philadelphia's hotly-anticipated new opera Elizabeth Cree, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning team of Puts and Campbell

Pittsburgh Opera is proud and privileged to present the world premiere of Daniel Sonenberg's opera, The Summer King, the story of baseball legend Josh Gibson.

BroadwayWorld has a first look at THE SUMMER KING from Pittsburgh Opera! Check out the photos below! Pittsburgh Opera is proud and privileged to present the world premiere of Daniel Sonenberg's opera, The Summer King, the story of baseball legend Josh Gibson. This very first world premiere in Pittsburgh Opera's distinguished 78 year history hits close to home as Josh went from the sandlots of Pittsburgh's North Side to the pinnacle of greatness in the Negro Leagues, before ultimately being enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Featuring AlFRed Walker in the title role, Denyce Graves, Sean Pannikar, Kenneth Kellogg, Norman Shankle, Jacqueline Echols and many more, led by Maestro AnTony Walker and directed by Sam Helfrich. Sonenberg collaborated on the libretto with Daniel Nester and Mark Campbell provided additional lyrics. The Summer King runs Saturday, April 29th (8pm), Tuesday, May 2nd (7pm), Friday, May 5th (7:30pm) and Sunday, May 7th (3pm) at the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts.

Casting has been announced for the Greenville engagement of Disney's The Lion King. Greenville's most eagerly awaited return will leap onto the Peace Center stage from Wednesday, May 31, to Sunday, June 25. The show's four-week premiere engagement in 2012 played a sold-out run at the Peace Center.

In an effort to broaden opportunities for women playwrights, Project Y Theatre Company has commissioned nine female playwrights in two separate productions, Great Again, an evening of plays by Crystal Skillman and Chiori Miyagawa, and The Hrosthvitha Project, 7 adaptations of the 10th century female-written play 'Dulcitius' written by playwrights Caridad Svich, Pia Wilson, Julienne Hairston, Michole Biancosino, Lia Romeo, Stacie Lents, and Erin Mallon.

On May 13, 20. & 21, 2017, Long Beach Opera (LBO) will present the highly anticipated Southern California premiere of As One, an inspiring story about identity, authenticity and compassion by composer Laura Kaminsky with librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed. 

Richard Tucker Music Foundation named soprano Nadine Sierra as winner of 2017 Richard Tucker Award; simultanously, it announced its roster of study and career grant recipients.

NYFOS Next at New York Festival of Song-concludes its season Wednesday, May 10 at 7:00 p.m. at National Sawdust with a theatrical evening from Lauren Worsham, Kyle Jarrow, and Sky-Pony.

On Sunday and Monday, April 9 and 10, 2017 at 7:30pm, Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents performance highlights and moderated discussion with Grammy-nominated American Composer Mason Bates on his first opera, The (Re)volution of Steve Jobs prior to its world premiere with Santa Fe Opera. 

Today, from the Robert Morris State Street Gallery, Chicago Opera Theater (COT) announced plans for the 2017/2018 season, including a modern opera, a world-premiere co-production from a Pulitzer Prize-winning duo and a groundbreaking double-bill. At the announcement, Andreas Mitisek, COT's Stefan Edlis & Gael Neeson Artistic Director together with Douglas Clayton, COT's Executive Director, detailed the intriguing season with all productions staged at the historic Studebaker Theater (410 S. Michigan).

Opera Philadelphia announced today that Lawrence Brownlee, whose lead performance in the 2015 world premiere of Charlie Parker's YARDBIRD kick started the company's “big commitment to new repertoire” (The Wall Street Journal), has joined the company as an Artistic Advisor.

Three Way, a trio of comic one-act operas for eight singers and chamber orchestra by Robert Paterson, with libretto by David Cote, has its New York premiere at BAM Fisher (Fishman Space) with a four-performance engagement June 15-18, 2017. Co-produced by Nashville Opera and American Opera Projects, the work had its world premiere January 27-29 in Nashville.