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The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company was active from 1943 to 2013, before filing for bankruptcy. In order to revive the company, a nonprofit group named New York City Opera Renaissance made an offer to the opera company's board of directors which, along with the opera company's creditors, recommended that the US Bankruptcy Court approve it.〔()〕〔Jennifer Smith and Sara Randazzo, ("Investors Seek to Revive N.Y. City Opera" ), ''Wall Street Journal'', December 5, 2014〕〔()〕 The group will relaunch New York City Opera in 2015, with opera staples and niche works.〔()〕 The proposed new home for a revived NYCO is the modern 1,100-seat Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center.〔("The People’s Opera Plan to Land a New Home at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater" ), on the Opera Renaissance website]〕〔()〕 NYCO Renaissance is backed financially and chaired by Roy G. Niederhoffer, a hedge fund manager and amateur musician who had earlier served on the City Opera board, who pledged more than $1 million of his own money to the effort and raised at least $2.5 million.〔()〕〔()〕〔()〕〔()〕〔()〕〔()〕 NYCO Renaissance will mount Puccini’s “Tosca” on January 20 to January 24, 2015, at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, with tenor James Valenti.〔()〕 The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943. The company's stated purpose was to make opera accessible to a wide audience at a reasonable ticket price. It also sought to produce an innovative choice of repertory, and provide a home for American singers and composers. The company was originally housed at the New York City Center theater on West 55th Street. It later became part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at the New York State Theater from 1966 to 2010. During this time it produced autumn and spring seasons of opera in repertory and maintained extensive education and outreach programs, offering arts-in-education programs to 4,000 students in over thirty schools. In 2011, the company left Lincoln Center due to financial difficulties, moving its offices and archives to 75 Broad St. in Lower Manhattan. In the 2011/12 and 2012/13 seasons, NYCO performed four operas at various venues in New York City, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=2011–2012 Season and Tickets )〕 On October 1, 2013, following an unsuccessful emergency fund-raising campaign, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. During its nearly 70-year history, the NYCO helped launch the careers of many great opera singers including Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes, Plácido Domingo, Maralin Niska, Carol Vaness, José Carreras, Shirley Verrett, Tatiana Troyanos, Jerry Hadley, Catherine Malfitano, Samuel Ramey, and Gianna Rolandi. Sills later served as the company's director from 1979–1989.〔Tommasini, Anthony. ("Beverly Sills, All-American Diva With Brooklyn Roots, Is Dead at 78" ), ''The New York Times'', July 4, 2007. Retrieved November 6, 2007.〕 More recent acclaimed American singers who have called NYCO home include David Daniels, Mark Delavan, Mary Dunleavy, Lauren Flanigan, Elizabeth Futral, Bejun Mehta, Robert Brubaker and Carl Tanner. NYCO similarly championed the work of American composers; approximately one-third of its repertoire was traditionally American opera. The company's American repertoire ranged from established works (''e.g.'', Douglas Moore's ''The Ballad of Baby Doe'', Carlisle Floyd's ''Susannah'' and Leonard Bernstein's ''Candide'') to new works (''e.g.'', Thomas Pasatieri's ''Before Breakfast'' and Mark Adamo's ''Little Women''). NYCO's commitment to the future of American opera was demonstrated in its annual series, ''Vox, Contemporary Opera Lab'', in which operas-in-progress were showcased, giving composers a chance to hear their work performed by professional singers and orchestra. The company also occasionally produced musicals and operettas including works by Stephen Sondheim and Gilbert and Sullivan. ==The early years: 1943–1951== The NYCO was founded as the New York City Center Opera and originally made its home at the New York City Center on West 55th Street. Laszlo Halasz was the company's first director, serving in that position from 1943–1951. Given the company's goal to make opera accessible to the masses, Halasz believed that tickets should be inexpensive and that productions should be staged convincingly with singers who were both physically and vocally suited to their roles. To this end, ticket prices during the company's first season were priced at just 75 cents to $2, and the company operated on a budget of $30,463 during its first season. At such prices the company was unable to afford the star billing enjoyed by the Metropolitan Opera. Halasz, however, was able to turn this fact into a virtue by making the company an important platform for young singers, particularly American opera singers. The company's first season opened in February 1944, and included productions of Giacomo Puccini's ''Tosca'', Friedrich von Flotow's ''Martha'' and Georges Bizet's ''Carmen'', all of them conducted by Halasz. Several notable singers performed with the company in the first season, including Jennie Tourel, Martha Lipton, and Hugh Thompson, who were all immediately poached by the Met after their NYCO debuts. Other notable singers Halasz brought to the NYCO included Frances Bible, Adelaide Bishop, Débria Brown, Mack Harrell, Thomas Hayward, Dorothy Kirsten, Brenda Lewis, Eva Likova, Leon Lishner, Regina Resnik, Norman Scott, Ramón Vinay, and Frances Yeend among others. In 1945, the company became the first major opera company to have an African American performer. This was in the production of Leoncavallo's ''Pagliacci'' with Todd Duncan's performance as Tonio.〔 Lawrence Winters and Robert McFerrin were other notable African American opera pioneers to sing with the company during this period. The first African American woman to sing with the company was soprano Camilla Williams as the title heroine in ''Madama Butterfly'' in 1946.〔Southern, 417〕 Winters and Williams later went on to sing the title roles in the most complete recording made up to that time of Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'', for Columbia Masterworks Records in 1951. Halasz had a somewhat tumultuous relationship with the company's board of directors, given his strong opinions about what the NYCO should be. For one, he supported the idea of performing foreign language works in English to make opera more accessible to American audiences. He insisted on offering at least one production in English every season. The area that brought the most tension between Halasz and the board was Halasz's commitment to staging new works by American composers and rarely heard operas at the opera house. The first New York City premiere presented by the company was Richard Strauss's ''Ariadne auf Naxos'' on October 10, 1946 with Ella Flesch in the title role, Vasso Argyris as Bacchus, Virginia MacWatters as Zerbinetta, Polyna Stoska as the composer and James Pease as the music master. The production was described by the contemporary press as "record breaking",〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Strauss Created New Orchestra in Writing His Operad ''Ariadne'' )〕 and it put the company "on the map". The NYCO subsequently toured ''Ariadne'' to His Majesty's Theatre, Montreal, so giving the opera's Canadian premiere.〔 The first world premiere at the house was William Grant Still's ''Troubled Island'' in 1949. It was notably the first grand opera composed by an African-American to be produced in a major opera house.〔 In the fall of 1949, the NYCO revived Prokofiev's comic opera ''The Love for Three Oranges'', which had not been seen in America since its unsuccessful Chicago premiere in 1921. The new production, directed by Vladimir Rosing, turned into a smash hit and was brought back for two additional seasons.〔"''The Love for Three Oranges'': A Slaphappy Fairy Tale Makes a Smash-Hit Opera", ''Life Magazine'', November 1949.〕 Also in 1949, Halasz scheduled the world premiere of David Tamkin's ''The Dybbuk'' to be performed by the NYCO in 1950. However, the NYCO board opposed the decision and ultimately the production was postponed for financial reasons. Halasz, however, rescheduled the work for inclusion in the 1951–1952 season. Uneasy with Halasz's bold repertoire choices, the NYCO board insisted in 1951 that Halasz submit his repertory plans for their approval. As a result, he resigned, along with several members of his conducting staff, including Jean Morel, Thomas Martin and two of his eventual successors, Joseph Rosenstock and Julius Rudel. Faced with the resignations of most of their creative staff, the board reluctantly backed down and ''The Dybbuk'' was given its world premiere at the NYCO on October 4, 1951. But tensions remained high between Halasz and the board and they fired him in late 1951 when Halasz became involved in union disputes.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「New York City Opera」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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