About Us
Since its founding in 1943, New York City Opera has been recognized as one of America’s preeminent cultural institutions, celebrated for its adventurous programming and innovative, risk-taking production style. The company’s wide-ranging repertory of 273 works spans five centuries of music and includes 29 world premieres and 61 American and/or New York premieres of such notable works as Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shostakovich’s Katerina Ismailova, Busoni’s Doktor Faust, Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges and The Flaming Angel, Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten, Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, and Glass’ Akhnaten. The company has been a leading showcase for young artists, helping to launch the careers of more than 3,000 singers including José Carreras, Phyllis Curtin, David Daniels, Plácido Domingo, Lauren Flanigan, Renée Fleming, Elizabeth Futral, Jerry Hadley, Catherine Malfitano, Bejun Mehta, Sherrill Milnes, Samuel Ramey, Gianna Rolandi, Beverly Sills, Norman Treigle, Tatiana Troyanos, and Carol Vaness. In 1983 City Opera made operatic history when it became the first American company to use supertitles, an innovation that has revolutionized the way opera is produced and appreciated worldwide.
New York City Opera and New York City Ballet have undertaken a $200 million capital campaign—the first such joint venture in the companies’ histories—to enhance audience amenities and provide a state-of-the-art environment for productions at their shared home, the David H. Koch Theater, renamed in honor of Mr. David H. Koch’s $100 million lead gift to the joint capital campaign.
During the renovations, City Opera took to the road, bringing live music and provocative cultural conversation to more than 14 different venues across New York City. In addition to the concert presentations of Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra at Carnegie Hall, highlights of the year included a concert series of 20th-century vocal and orchestral music led by Music Director George Manahan, performed citywide. City Opera also celebrated opera’s enduring power as the ultimate multimedia art form with a new program of cultural connection entitled Opera Matters, curated by Dramaturg Cori Ellison and featuring partnerships with leading New York cultural institutions including the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Paley Center for Media, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The year also featured the continuation of the company’s acclaimed education programs, which introduced opera to more than 4,000 students with special performances of an abridged, English-language version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. In May, the company celebrated the 10th Anniversary of VOX: Showcasing American Opera.
In February 2009, George Steel, former Executive Director of Miller Theatre at Columbia University, began his tenure as the company’s new General Manager and Artistic Director. Building on the company’s core mission of artistic excellence and accessibility, Mr. Steel’s plans include broadening the company’s adventurous approach to repertory, supporting the careers of promising young singers, and continuing to develop the company’s acclaimed education and outreach programs.