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Jake Heggie

Heggie’s 23/24 Season is Packed with Premieres

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Dead Man Walking Opens Metropolitan Opera Season

Simulcast Worldwide to Cinemas Live in HD

September 26 – October 21, 2023

World Premiere Intelligence Opens Houston Grand Opera Season

October 20 – November 3, 2023

World Premiere & Global Tour of Joshua Bell Commission The Elements

Hamburg, Hong Kong, New York in September 2023
Chicago, Seattle in June 2024

World Premiere & U.S. Tour of Before It All Goes Dark

Music of Remembrance in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago in May 2024

DEAD MAN WALKING

Recognized by the Wall Street Journal as “arguably the world’s most popular 21st-century opera and art song composer,” Jake Heggie is set to deliver a 2023/24 season filled with high-profile premieres and top-tier artistic collaborations. From a pair of opening night galas at the Metropolitan Opera and Houston Grand Opera to orchestral premieres with superstar violinist Joshua Bell in Hamburg, Hong Kong, and New York, Heggie’s works will offer audiences a wide range of perspectives and possibilities.

INTELLIGENCE

Created with director/choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and librettist Gene Scheer, Intelligence is based on the little-known true story of two women who infiltrated the Confederate White House during the American Civil War. The work receives its world premiere on opening night of Houston Grand Opera’s 23/24 season, conducted by Kwamé Ryan and starring Jamie Barton, Janai Brugger, and J’Nai Bridges. Brooklyn-based dance troupe Urban Bush Women infuses African ancestral dance, an art form rarely experienced in grand opera, in five performances through November 3, 2023.

THE ELEMENTS

Grammy Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell commissioned five renowned American composers – Jake Heggie, Jennifer Higdon, Edgar Meyer, Jessie Montgomery,and Kevin Puts – to dedicate themselves to the five Elements that form the basis of Aristotle’s Greek philosophy and traditional Chinese medicine: Fire, Air, Water, Ether, and Earth, respectively. Each composer has contributed one movement to this suite, which will tour major orchestras around the globe. The Elements receives its world premiere with Alan Gilbert conducting the opening night of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra season in Hamburg on September 1-2, 2023; the Asian premiere takes place September 8-9, 2023, with opening night of the Hong Kong Philharmonic season conducted by Jaap van Zweden; and the U.S. premiere will be given by the New York Philharmonic, also led by van Zweden. Subsequent performances include the Midwest premiere with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Juraj Valčuha, June 13-15, 2024, and the West Coast premiere with Seattle Symphony, led by Marin Alsop on June 20 and 22, 2024.

BEFORE IT ALL GOES DARK

Based on a compelling true story first reported by Howard Reich in the Chicago Tribune, this one-act opera follows Mac, a disabled Vietnam veteran who learns that he is the heir to a priceless art collection, stolen by the Nazis from an ancestor he didn’t know he had. Before It All Goes Dark is Music of Remembrance’s fifth commission of Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer. The duo’s artistic partnership with MOR began in 2007 with For a Look or a Touch, believed to be the first major musical work to explore the Third Reich’s persecution of gay people. Before It All Goes Dark receives its world premiere at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall on May 19, 2024, starring bass-baritone Ryan McKinny and mezzo Megan Marino, with members of the Seattle Symphony under the baton of Joseph Mechavich. The Erich Parce production travels to San Francisco’s Presidio Theatre on May 22, 2024, and concludes with two performances at Chicago’s Studebaker Theater, presented in collaboration with Chicago Opera Theater May 25-26, 2024.

“I’m overjoyed – and a bit overwhelmed – by the extraordinary convergence of so many special projects this season,” said composer Jake Heggie. “These works feature some of my favorite colleagues, as well as remarkable new collaborators. I’m especially moved that my first opera, Dead Man Walking, will open the Metropolitan Opera season, while my most recent opera, Intelligence, will open the Houston Grand Opera season. It’s genuinely beyond what I could’ve imagined, and I’m so grateful to be able to share these important stories with audiences around the world.”

Dead Man Walking at The Met

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The Metropolitan opera has announced their 2023-4 season, which will feature Jake Heggie’s and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking. Since its premiere in 2000, the opera has had over 70 productions throughout the world, and we are thrilled that the Met will be producing it.

With a cast that includes Joyce DiDonato as Sister Helen, Ivo van Hove directing and Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducting, this production will be a must see next season!

Grammy Nominations

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Congratulations to Jake Heggie, Laura Kaminsky, Robert Paterson and Kevin Puts for their Grammy Nominations. The recording of Heggie’s Great Scott (libretto Terrence McNally) was nominated for two awards: Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Producer of the Year (Blanton Alspaugh). Paterson’s Three Way (libretto David Cote) was also nominated for Producer of the Year (Blanton Alspaugh). And the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society’s Love Comes in at the Eye, (several Puts works) was nominated for Producer of the Year (Judith Sherman). Laura Kaminsky’s Undercurrents was also nominated for Producer of the Year (Judith Sherman).

You can see the full list of nominations here.

Danielpour and Heggie nominated for Grammy Awards

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The 60th Grammy Award nominations were announced this week, and we are delighted to receive nominations for recordings by Richard Danielpour and Jake Heggie.

Best Engineered Album, Classical

Danielpour Songs of Solitude & War Songs

Production, Classical

Heggie It’s a Wonderful Life

Best Contemporary Classical Composition

Danielpour Songs of Solitude

The awards will be telecast on Sunday, January 28.

The recordings are available on Amazon

Heggie It’s a Wonderful Life

Danielpour Songs of Solitude

Heggie/Scheer It’s a Wonderful Life

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bedford-falls2

Bedford Falls came to the opera stage last December in Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s new opera It’s a Wonderful Life, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera. Partially based on the classic Capra film, Heggie and Scheer bring their own unique perspective to the story, enriched by Heggie’s lyrical music.

Starring William Burden as George Bailey, Talise Trevigne as Clara, and Andrea Caroll as Mary, the cast is rounded out with operatic stalwarts Anthony Dean Griffey as Uncle Billy and Rod Gilfrey as Mr. Potter and Mr. Gowers. Patrick Summers conducted, and Leonard Foglia directed the production.

Co-commissioned by Indiana University and San Francisco Opera. (Nov.-Dec. 2018)

For additional information, please click here.

 

Heggie GREAT SCOTT debuts at Dallas Opera

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Great Scott

Opera star Arden Scott returns to her hometown to save the struggling company that launched her career. The opening night performance of the long-lost opera she discovered falls on the same night as the home team’s first National Championship game (Go, Grizzlies!). The fate of the company hangs in the balance as Arden discovers that greatness is truly a matter of heart.

Starring Joyce DiDonato • Ailyn Pérez • Frederica von Stade • Nathan Gunn • Anthony Roth Costanzo

Conductor Patrick Summers • Director Jack O’Brien
Set and Costume Design Bob Crowley • Lighting Design Brian MacDevitt • Projection Design Elaine J. McCarthy

With an original libretto by Terrence McNally, Great Scott is the sixth opera by Jake Heggie. To purchase tickets, please click here.

The San Diego Opera will give the west coast premiere in May of next year. To purchase tickets, please click here.

 

Washington Post’s Lovable New Operas

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The Washington Post lists contemporary operas that audiences responded to favorably (“Readers’ Guide to Lovable New Operas“), and several BHM operas were included:

Dead Man Walking

Moby-Dick

Silent Night

The Manchurian Candidate

As One

There are also 10 operas on this list that we’ve engraved in our production department.

Congrats to Jake Heggie, Kevin Puts, Terrence McNally, Laura Kaminsky, Kimberly Reed, and the indefatigable Mark Campbell who wrote 3 of these librettos.

Songs from an Unmade Bed celebrates its 10th Anniversary

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Bed

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this unique musical there will be a special one-night-only performance at Subculture on May 26. Featuring the original star, Michael Winther and Kimberly Grigsby on the piano, Peter Sachon on cello and Shane Shanahan on percussion. It promises to be a special night and will sell out quickly, so we recommend buying tickets in advance (click here.)

You can read more about the piece here.

 

Moby-Dick National Telecast on PBS Great Performances

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Jake Heggie/Gene Scheer’s MOBY-DICK will be broadcast nationally on PBS Great Performances. This is San Francisco Opera‘s production from last year, with a cast featuring Jay Hunter Morris (Ahab), Stephen Costello (Greenhorn/Ishmael), Morgan Smith (Starbuck), Jonathan Lemalu (Queequeg), Talise Trevigne (Pip), Robert Orth (Stubb), Matthew O’Neill (Flask), and Joo Won Kang (Gardiner); conducted by Patrick Summers and directed by Leonard Foglia in the Robert Brill production with projections by Elaine McCarthy. The opera was commissioned by The Dallas Opera with San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, State Opera of South Australia, and Calgary Opera.