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Tale 2 Cities of
New Chicago Opera Theater general manager Andreas Mitisek plans a robust collaboration with Long Beach Opera (which he also leads) in a sistership expected to boost artistic and budgetary strength for both innovative houses.
By MYRON SILBERSTEIN
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For nearly 40 years, Chicago Opera Theater has earned a well-deserved reputation as one of the most innovative opera companies in the United States. From its timely 1976 production of The Mother of Us All, Virgil Thomson’s bio-opera of Susan B. Anthony, to its Chicago-premiere presentation this past April of Shostakovich’s satirical Moscow, Cheryomuski, the company has consistently offered Chicagoans fresh, topical opera of the highest artistic order. The past five seasons at Chicago Opera Theater has seen Chicago premieres of works as diverse as Jake Heggie’s recent Three Decembers and Charpentier’s 1694 opera Medee. In perhaps the most stunning recent example of its motto, "Opera Less Ordinary," Chicago Opera Theater hosted the United States premiere of Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers, featuring robot performers and technologicallygenerated soundscapes. Similarly, California’s Long Beach Opera is also at the vanguard of the Los Angeles-area opera scene. Originally founded in 1979 as a traditional grand opera company, former artistic director Michael Milenski launched Long Beach Opera's departure from the mainstream with groundbreaking productions of Britten’s Death in Venice and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea in its 198384 season. Long Beach has presented several United States premieres by visionary composers such as Szymanowski and Schoenberg as well as ground-breaking productions of standard repertoire works. Given the similarities in the two companies’ vi-
42•CNCJAAutumn 2012
Andreas Mitisek, general manager of the Chicago Opera Theater.