Hubbard Hall is a Victorian opera house and cultural center in Cambridge, NY, United States. It is operated by the non-profit organization, Hubbard Hall Projects. [1]
Hubbard Hall is a Victorian opera house and cultural center in Cambridge, NY, United States. It is operated by the non-profit organization, Hubbard Hall Projects. [1]
Hubbard Hall was built in 1878, [2] as a Victorian opera house in what is now the Cambridge Historic District. In the 1920s it became disused, until 1977 when a group of local individuals purchased it and restored it as a concert hall. [3] [4] By 2000, it was functioning as a community arts center, hosting a variety of dance, theater [5] and visual arts activities. [6] In 2014, the Hubbard Hall Center for the Arts received a Culture & Heritage Project Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. [7] [8]
The Hubbard Hall Opera Theater is an opera company founded by its artistic director Alexina Jones in 2008. [9]
HHOT presents operatic performances of classically trained singers and instrumentalists in New England and upstate New York, [10] [11] and provides affordable cultural entertainment for rural audiences. HHOT casts young professional artists in key roles, as well as experienced professionals who are hired as mentoring artists. [12] The company also operates a conservatory program during the summer in which college and graduate level students perform cover or comprimario roles.
HHOT primarily operates in the summer, mounting two productions in August and organizing several smaller touring concerts throughout the rest of the year. Typically the August productions feature one full length performance with reduced orchestra and a shorter lesser known second-stage performance that varies in structure from year to year. Hubbard Hall Projects presents "pay what you will" events which apply to the final dress rehearsals and occasionally the second-stage productions. [2]
The Theatre Company at Hubbard Hall, founded in 1999 by Kevin McGuire, mounts productions of Shakespearian and other dramatic plays. [5] [13]
The Battenkill Chorale is a 100 person choral group which is based at Hubbard Hall. [14]
The Threepenny Opera is a German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much, if any, contribution Hauptmann might have made to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author.
Julie Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera, and film. Her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997 and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for her direction and costume design. Her 2002 film Frida, about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including a Best Original Song nomination for Taymor's composition "Burn It Blue." She also directed the 2007 jukebox musical film Across the Universe, based on the music of the Beatles.
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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. It was named in 1964 as a memorial to assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Opened on September 8, 1971, the center hosts many different genres of performance art, such as theater, dance, orchestras, jazz, pop, psychedelic, and folk music.
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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."
Mass is a musical theatre work composed by Leonard Bernstein with text by Bernstein and additional text and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy, it premiered on September 8, 1971, conducted by Maurice Peress and choreographed by Alvin Ailey. The production used costume designs by Frank Thompson. The performance was part of the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Mass premiered in Europe in 1973, with John Mauceri conducting the Yale Symphony Orchestra in Vienna.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. It is based on the 1970 play Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond. The character of Sweeney Todd first appeared in a Victorian penny dreadful titled The String of Pearls.
The Benedum Center for the Performing Arts is a theater and concert hall located at 237 7th Street in the Cultural District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Designed by the Philadelphia architectural firm Hoffman-Henon, it was built in 1928 as the Stanley Theatre. The former movie palace was renovated and reopened as the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts in 1987.
The Denver Performing Arts Complex in Denver, Colorado, is one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States. The DCPA is a four-block, 12-acre (49,000 m2) site containing ten performance spaces with over 10,000 seats connected by an 80-foot-tall (24 m) glass roof. It is home to a professional theater company and also hosts Broadway musical tours, contemporary dance and ballet, chorales, symphony orchestras, opera productions, and pop stars.
Kelli Christine O'Hara is an American actress and singer, most known for her work on the Broadway and opera stages.
Deborah Joy Voigt is an American dramatic soprano who has sung roles in operas by Wagner and Richard Strauss.
Rebecca Maria Hall Spector is an English actress and filmmaker. She made her first onscreen appearance at age 10 in the 1992 television adaptation of The Camomile Lawn, directed by her father, Sir Peter Hall. Her professional stage debut came in her father's 2002 production of Mrs. Warren's Profession, which earned her the Ian Charleson Award.
A concert performance or concert version is a performance of a musical theater or opera in concert form, without set design or costumes, and mostly without theatrical interaction between singers.
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Rites of Passage is a music theatre work written by the Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe in 1972–73. It is often categorised as an opera, but it does not conform to the traditional concept of opera. It is written for dancers depicting the ritual of initiation of the Aranda people, an indigenous tribe; double SATB chorus singing words from Boethius and others; three percussionists, two tubas, piano (echoed), six cellos and four double basses; but no parts for individual singers. Sculthorpe drew on the approach espoused by Jean-Baptiste Lully, in which dance, drama and music are not separated.
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