West Bay Opera

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West Bay Opera is an opera company located in Palo Alto, California. Established in 1955, West Bay Opera is the second oldest continuously running opera company in California (after San Francisco Opera).

Palo Alto, California City in California in the United States

Palo Alto is a charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Palo Alto means tall stick in Spanish; the city is named after a coastal redwood tree called El Palo Alto.

San Francisco Opera opera company based in San Francisco, United States, performing in the War Memorial Opera House

San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.

Contents

José Luis Moscovich is the current general director of West Bay Opera.

History

West Bay Opera was founded in 1955 by Henry Holt who had recently completed his training in piano performance and conducting at Vienna, and after a successful career in Europe where his final performance was as a soloist with Arturo Toscanini conducting the Vienna Philharmonics. The opera company was established first as an opera workshop named the "Little Opera Guild" with operatic works were performed with piano as the accompaniment. These workshops quickly evolved into full staged productions with major singers from the San Francisco Bay Area in the principal roles and local residents as the chorus.

Arturo Toscanini Italy-born American conductor

Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and of the 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his eidetic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the New York Philharmonic. Later in his career he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–54), and this led to his becoming a household name through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire.

Vienna Philharmonic symphonic orchestra

The Vienna Philharmonic, founded in 1842, is an orchestra considered to be one of the finest in the world.

After Henry Holt's passing in 1969, West Bay Opera was led by Henry's wife, Maria Holt, as the general director of the company until the late 1990s. During this time, West Bay Opera grew significantly with more major productions featuring world-class singers professional singers, directors, and artists, as well as the West Bay Opera Orchestra which was established in 1974. The opera company is housed at the Holt Building (in Palo Alto) which provides the company with its administrative offices as well as facilities for rehearsals, a consume shop, and set and properties storage.

Productions

West Bay Opera offers three productions per season, one each in October, February, and May. Its programming includes standard popular operas as well as known but less often performed masterpieces.

Recent major production accomplishments include Bellini's Norma, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (in the original Russian), Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer, and Verdi's La Forza del Destino . More recently, West Bay Opera has taken on productions that are often performed in Europe but are less frequent in the United States, such as Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and von Weber's Der Freischütz , both with formidable reviews.

Vincenzo Bellini Italian opera composer

Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named "the Swan of Catania". Many years later, in 1898, Giuseppe Verdi "praised the broad curves of Bellini's melody: 'there are extremely long melodies as no-one else had ever made before'."

<i>Norma</i> (opera) opera by Vincenzo Bellini

Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after the play Norma, ou L'infanticide by Alexandre Soumet. It was first produced at La Scala in Milan on 26 December 1831.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Russian composer

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was a Russian composer of the romantic period, whose works are among the most popular music in the classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States. He was honored in 1884 by Emperor Alexander III, and awarded a lifetime pension.

All productions include projected supertitles in English.

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