American Symphony Orchestra to Bring THE LONG CHRISTMAS DINNER to Alice Tully Hall, 12/19

American Symphony Orchestra presents the play and the opera THE LONG CHRISTMAS DINNER at Alice Tully Hall on December 19, 2014. This will be the first time that Thornton Wilder's one-act play and Paul Hindemith's one-act opera will be performed together in the United States.

While Citizen Kane is often cited among the greatest films of the twentieth century, Orson Welles always attributed its famous breakfast scene to The Long Christmas Dinner, Thornton's Wilder's brilliant one-act play in which 90 years of one family's history are staged as one continuous Christmas meal. The composer Paul Hindemith was also deeply inspired by Wilder, and set the play as an opera (to the playwright's own libretto) that premiered at the Juilliard School in 1963. Now, both the play and the opera versions will be presented as a double-bill at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall by the American Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director Leon Botstein.

Wilder only permitted two of his plays to be adapted as operas. The Long Christmas Dinner is one of them. The opera performance will be captured as the first recording of the work's original English-language libretto.

PROGRAM:
Thornton Wilder - The Long Christmas Dinner (one-act play)
Paul Hindemith - The Long Christmas Dinner (one-act opera, libretto by Thornton Wilder, sung in English)

Cast of the Play:
Lucia/Lucia 2: Hannah Mitchell
Roderick/Samuel: Lars Berge
Mother Bayard/Cousin Ermengarde/Nurse: Claire Moodey
Cousin Brandon/Roderick 2: Ryan-James Hatanaka
Charles: Michael E. Salinas
Genevieve: Arielle Goldman
Leonora Banning: Libby Matthews

Cast of the Opera:
Lucia/Lucia II: Camille Zamora, soprano
Mother Bayard/Ermengarde: Sara Murphy, mezzo-soprano
Roderick/Sam: Jarrett Ott, baritone
Brandon: Josh Quinn, bass-baritone
Charles: Glenn Seven Allen, tenor
Genevieve: Catherine Martin, mezzo-soprano
Leonora: Kathryn Guthrie, soprano
Roderick II: Scott Murphree, tenor

Creative Team:
Jonathan Rosenberg, director
Zane Pihlstrom, scenic designer
Olivera Gajic, costume designer
Peter West, lighting designer
Thurmond Smithgall, producer
Emily Cuk, stage manager

American Symphony Orchestra
Leon Botstein, conductor

All seats $25. Tickets are available at americansymphony.org and by phone at 212-868-9276. Tickets are also available at lincolncenter.org, at the Alice Tully Hall box office or via CenterCharge at 212-721-6500.

About Leon Botstein - Leon Botstein is now in his 23rd year as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra. He is renowned for his visionary zeal, often creating concert programs that give audiences a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear live performances of works that are ignored in the standard repertory, and inviting music lovers to listen in their own way to create a personal experience. At the same time he brings his distinctive style to core repertory works. He is also co-Artistic Director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, which take place at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where he has been President since 1975. He is Conductor Laureate as well of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as Music Director from 2003-2011.

Botstein leads an active schedule as a guest conductor all over the world, and can be heard on numerous recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra (including their Grammy-nominated recording of Popov's First Symphony), the London Philharmonic, NDR-Hamburg, and the Jerusalem Symphony. Many of his live performances with the American Symphony Orchestra are available online, where they have cumulatively sold more than a quarter of a million downloads. Recent and upcoming engagements include the Royal Philharmonic, the Russian National Orchestra, and the Taipei Symphony. Last season's guest-conducting included the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and the Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas in Venezuela and Japan, the first non-Venezuelan conductor invited by El Sistema to conduct on a tour.

Highly regarded as a music historian, Mr. Botstein's most recent book is Von Beethoven zu Berg: Das Gedächtnis der Moderne (2013). He is the editor of The Musical Quarterly and the author of numerous articles and books. He is currently working on a sequel to Jefferson's Children, about the American education system. For his contributions to music he has received the award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Harvard University's prestigious Centennial Award, as well as the Cross of Honor, First Class from the government of Austria. Other recent awards include the Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Prize, the highest award given by the University of Alabama; the Bruckner Society's Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor for his interpretations of that composer's music; the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society; and Carnegie Foundation's Academic Leadership Award. In 2011 he was inducted into the American Philosophical Society.

About American Symphony Orchestra - Now in its 53rd season, the American Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski, with a mission of making orchestral music accessible and affordable for everyone. Music Director Leon Botstein expanded that mission when he joined the ASO in 1992, creating thematic concerts that explore music from the perspective of the visual arts, literature, religion, and history, and reviving rarely-performed works those audiences would otherwise never have a chance to hear performed live. The Orchestra's Vanguard Series, which includes these themed programs as well as an opera-in-concert and a celebration of an American composer, consists of six concerts annually at Carnegie Hall. ASO goes in-depth with three familiar symphonies each season in the popular series Classics Declassified at Peter Norton Symphony Space, and has an upstate home at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where it performs in an annual subscription series as well as Bard's SummerScape Festival and the Bard Music Festival. The Orchestra has made several tours of Asia and Europe, and performed in countless benefits for organizations including the Jerusalem Foundation. Many of the world's most accomplished soloists have performed with the ASO, including Yo-Yo Ma, Deborah Voigt, and Sarah Chang. The Orchestra has released several recordings on the Telarc, New World, Bridge, Koch, and Vanguard labels, and numerous live performances are also available for digital download. In many cases, these are the only existing recordings of some of the rare works that have been rediscovered in ASO performances. More information is available at americansymphony.org.

Need more Off-Off-Broadway Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...