John Coolidge Adams is an American composer and conductor. Among the most regularly performed composers of contemporary classical music, he is particularly noted for his operas, many of which center around historical events. Apart from opera, his oeuvre includes orchestral, concertante, vocal, choral, chamber, electroacoustic, and piano music.
Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams's first opera, it was inspired by U.S. president Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with choreography by Mark Morris. When Sellars approached Adams with the idea for the opera in 1983, Adams was initially reluctant, but eventually decided that the work could be a study in how myths come to be, and accepted the project. Goodman's libretto was the result of considerable research into Nixon's visit, though she disregarded most sources published after the 1972 trip.
The Nose, Op. 15, is Dmitri Shostakovich's first opera, a satirical work completed in 1928 based on Nikolai Gogol's 1836 story of the same name.
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was an American mezzo-soprano. She was noted for her performances of both Baroque era and contemporary works. Her career path to becoming a singer was unconventional – formerly a professional violist, Lieberson did not shift her full-time focus to singing until she was in her thirties.
Satyagraha is a 1979 opera in three acts for orchestra, chorus and soloists, composed by Philip Glass, with a libretto by Glass and Constance DeJong.
The Death of Klinghoffer is an American opera, with music by John Adams to an English-language libretto by Alice Goodman. First produced in Brussels and New York in 1991, the opera is based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the hijackers' murder of a 69-year-old Jewish-American wheelchair-using passenger, Leon Klinghoffer.
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he teaches Art as Social Action and Art as Moral Action. He has been described as a key figure of theatre and opera for the last 50 years.
Peter Gelb is an American arts administrator. Since August 2006, he has been General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
El Niño is an opera-oratorio by the contemporary American composer John Adams. It was premiered on December 15, 2000, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris by soloists Dawn Upshaw, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and Willard White, the vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices, the London Voices, La Maîtrise de Paris, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, with Kent Nagano conducting. It has been performed on a number of occasions since, and has been broadcast on BBC Television.
Ainadamar is an "opera in three images" by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov to a libretto by American playwright David Henry Hwang translated from English into Spanish by Golijov. In a series of flashbacks, it tells the story of the famous spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca and his muse, the actress Margarita Xirgu, their opposition to the Falange, accusations of homosexuality against the playwright, and events leading to his execution by the Falange. Lorca is a breeches role sung by a mezzo-soprano. The opera was first performed at Tanglewood on 10 August 2003, substantially revised for a performance in Los Angeles on 29 February 2004 and adjusted further for its premiere at Santa Fe Opera on 30 July 2005, after which it was recorded.
L'Amour de loin is an opera in five acts with music by Kaija Saariaho and a French-language libretto by Amin Maalouf. The opera received its world premiere performance on 15 August 2000 at the Salzburg Festival.
The Holy Sonnets—also known as the Divine Meditations or Divine Sonnets—are a series of nineteen poems by the English poet John Donne (1572–1631). The sonnets were first published in 1633—two years after Donne's death. They are written predominantly in the style and form prescribed by Renaissance Italian poet Petrarch (1304–1374) in which the sonnet consisted of two quatrains and a sestet. However, several rhythmic and structural patterns as well as the inclusion of couplets are elements influenced by the sonnet form developed by English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616).
Eric Owens is an American operatic bass-baritone. He has performed both in new works and reinterpreted classic repertoire. In 1996 he won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Gerald Hunter Finley, is a Canadian bass-baritone opera singer.
Jessica Rivera is an American soprano of Peruvian-American ancestry.
Mark Grey is an American classical music composer, sound designer and sound engineer.
Kristine Kay Jepson was an American mezzo-soprano.
Penny Woolcock is an Argentine filmmaker, opera director, and screenwriter.
James Maddalena is an American baritone who is chiefly associated with contemporary American opera. He gained international recognition in 1987 when he originated the role of Richard Nixon at the premiere of John Adams's opera Nixon in China at Houston Grand Opera. He has since reprised the role on many occasions, and recorded it for the Nonesuch Records release of the opera in 1987. In addition to Maddelena's role as Nixon, he has originated two other Adams characters: the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic. He has also performed roles in the premieres of operas by Paul Moravec and Stewart Wallace among other American composers.
Girls of the Golden West is an opera in two acts with music by John Adams and a libretto by Peter Sellars. The San Francisco Opera commissioned the work jointly with Dallas Opera, the Dutch National Opera and Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The opera was premiered in San Francisco on November 21, 2017. The running time is 160 minutes.
