The Wolf Trap Opera Company (sometimes abbreviated WTOC) [1] [2] was founded in 1971 as part of the program of the Wolf Trap Foundation located near the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Fairfax County, Virginia. The company is a residency and training program for aspiring opera professionals, with its major production being a summer opera festival. [3]
The company's mission is to discover and develop talent in the opera field and to serve young singers by giving them training and performance experience with opera productions, concerts and recitals each summer at the Filene Center and The Barns at Wolf Trap. [4] Productions also feature the work of rising directors, conductors, designers, coaches, stage managers, scenic artists, and technicians.
The company typically presents three operas at the Filene Center and/or The Barns at Wolf Trap. In addition, recitals and other performances take place. Wolf Trap Opera also regularly presents operatic rarities in full production.
Over 90% of recent Filene Young Artists are working as professional singers. Among notable alumni are Stephanie Blythe (1995 and 1996), Lawrence Brownlee (2001), Elizabeth Futral (1991), Denyce Graves (1989), Christine Goerke (1995), Nathan Gunn (1994 and 1995), Beverly Hoch (1980), Lisa Hopkins (2007), Michael Maniaci (2002), Simon O'Neill (2003), Dawn Upshaw (1985), Jennifer Larmore (1983), Mark Delavan (1988), Paul Austin Kelly (1987), James Maddalena (1975, 1976, and 1977), Mary Dunleavy (1993 and 1994), Robert Orth (1975, 1976, and 1979), Rockwell Blake (1974 and 1976), Richard Croft (1985), and Anna Christy (2000 and 2001).
In December 2009, the Company's 2007 live recording of John Musto's Volpone was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Opera Recording. [5]
Lee Anne Myslewski, vice-president for opera and classical programming at Wolf Trap, conceived of the UNTRAPPED series of programming in 2016 and has featured artistic partnerships with the Shakespeare Theatre, Taffety Punk, Halcyon, AMP at Strathmore, as well as ongoing partnerships with The Phillips Collection, the Library of Congress and the National Orchestral Institute + Festival. [6] [7] Under the direction of Myslewski, Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts has commissioned new works by living composers including Caroline Shaw, Derek Bermel, Edward W. Hardy, Jake Heggie, John Musto, Mark Campbell, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Samuel Adler. [8] [9]
Renée Lynn Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won five times. In June 2023, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Fleming would be one of the five artists recognized at the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors, which she received in December 2023. Other notable honors won by Fleming have included the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. Unusual among artists whose careers began in opera, Fleming has achieved name recognition beyond the classical music world. In May, 2023, Fleming was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health. On April 9, 2024, Penguin Random House published Fleming's anthology Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, a collection of essays about the health benefits of music and the arts, by scientists from leading research institutions, practitioners, educators, arts leaders, musicians, artists and writers.
Kathleen Deanna Battle is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone. Born in Portsmouth, Ohio, Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid-1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975. Battle expanded her repertoire into lyric soprano and coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s, until her eventual dismissal from the Metropolitan Opera in 1994. She later has focused on recording and the concert stage. After a 22-year absence from the Met, Battle performed a concert of spirituals at the Metropolitan Opera House in November 2016, and again in May 2024.
Jessye Mae Norman was an American opera singer and recitalist. She was able to perform dramatic soprano roles, but did not limit herself to that voice type. A commanding presence on operatic, concert and recital stages, Norman was associated with roles including Beethoven's Leonore, Wagner's Sieglinde and Kundry, Berlioz's Cassandre and Didon, and Bartók's Judith. The New York Times music critic Edward Rothstein described her voice as a "grand mansion of sound", and wrote that "it has enormous dimensions, reaching backward and upward. It opens onto unexpected vistas. It contains sunlit rooms, narrow passageways, cavernous halls."
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on 117 acres (47 ha) of national park land in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, near the town of Vienna. Through a partnership and collaboration of the National Park Service and the non-profit Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, the park offers both natural and cultural resources.
The Glimmerglass Festival is an American opera company. Founded in 1975 by Peter Macris, the Glimmerglass Festival presents an annual season of operas at the Alice Busch Opera Theater on Otsego Lake eight miles (13 km) north of Cooperstown, New York, United States. The summer-only season usually consists of four productions performed in rotating repertory. Glimmerglass is well known for producing new, lesser-known, and rare works, many of which in years past have been co-produced with the New York City Opera. It is the second-largest summer opera festival in the United States, currently led by artistic and general director Robert Ainsley, who succeeded Francesca Zambello in 2022.
Volpone is a comedy play by English playwright Ben Jonson first produced in 1605–1606, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable. A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-performed play, and it is ranked among the finest Jacobean era comedies.
Catherine Filene Shouse was an American researcher and philanthropist. She graduated in 1918 from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She worked for the Women's Division of the U.S. Employment Service of the Department of Labor, and was the first woman appointed to the Democratic National Committee in 1925. She was also the editor of the Woman's National Democratic Committee's Bulletin (1929–32), and the first woman to chair the Federal Prison for Women Board.
Lisa Hopkins Seegmiller, credited as Lisa Hopkins until 2008, is an American classical singer and actress from Simi Valley, California. She holds a B.A. in Theater Studies and Acting from Yale University and a M.M. in Classical Voice from the Manhattan School of Music.
New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players is a professional repertory theatre company, based in New York City that has specialized in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan for over 40 years. It performs an annual season in New York City and tours extensively in North America.
The New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) presents an annual series of concerts in New York City dedicated to the art of song, classical, modern and popular. In addition, this organization commissions new works and recordings, including the Grammy Award-winning recording of Leonard Bernstein's Arias and Barcarolles (Koch), and the Grammy-nominated recording of Ned Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen.
Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.
Eric Cutler is an American tenor notable for his performances of bel canto repertoire and Mozart operas in particular. He is a native of Adel, Iowa, and a graduate of Luther College. Cutler is an alumnus of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1998. He won the Richard Tucker Award in 2005.
Jonathan Estabrooks is a Canadian baritone, record producer, filmmaker and graduate of the Juilliard School. He is active in the Canadian and American opera, concert and musical theatre worlds and on YouTube. He was executive producer and creator of Artists for the Arts, a charity single and music video in support of Americans for the Arts in their efforts to save the National Endowment for the Arts
John Musto is an American composer and pianist. As a composer, he is active in opera, orchestral and chamber music, song, vocal ensemble, and solo piano works. As a pianist, he performs frequently as a soloist, alone and with orchestra, as a chamber musician, and with singers.
Patrick Summers is an American conductor best known for his work with Houston Grand Opera (HGO), where he has been the artistic and music director since 2011, and with San Francisco Opera, where he served as principal guest conductor, 1999–2016.
Stanley Silverman is an American composer, arranger, conductor and guitarist.
Lidiya Yankovskaya is a Russian-American opera and symphonic conductor and the Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater.
Steven Blier is an American pianist, recital accompanist, musicologist, and, since 1992, a faculty member in the Department of Vocal Arts at The Juilliard School. in New York City. He is the artistic director and co-founder of the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) with former Chief Executive and General Director of Caramoor, Michael Barrett. Blier was also a casting adviser at the New York City Opera and a regular performer at Wolf Trap and Caramoor. He has been active in encouraging young recitalists at summer programs, including the Wolf Trap Opera Company, the Steans Music Institute at Ravinia, the Santa Fe Opera, and the San Francisco Opera Center. He has written articles for Opera News and The Yale Review.
Sara Jobin ['JOHBIHN] is an American conductor. She is currently the principal conductor of the Center for Contemporary Opera.
Mark Campbell is a New York-based librettist and lyricist whose operas have received both a Pulitzer Prize in Music and a GRAMMY Award. Mark began writing for the stage as a musical theatre lyricist, but turned to libretto-writing after he premiered Volpone, his first full-length opera in 2004 at Wolf Trap Opera Company.
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