ABOUT NEW YORK GRAND OPERA

Between 10,000 and 20,000 people have been crowding into New York's Central Park on four nights each summer for the past twenty-two years to enjoy fully staged productions of the great operatic masterpieces presented by New York Grand Opera under the direction of Vincent La Selva, an American born and American-trained maestro who has been likened by many critics to the legendary Toscanini and is often singled out as the best conductor of Verdi and Puccini based in the United States today.

New York City's third permanent opera company, New York Grand, founded by La Selva, who conducts all its performances, has thus far given over 150 Performances of more than forty operas for audiences, in Central Park alone. The New York Grand Opera company has performed for close to 2 million people (more than half believed to have had their first experience with grand opera under these auspices) since it made its bow with a performance of La Boh�me on May 23, 1973 in the grand ballroom of the Riverside Plaza Hotel on Manhattan's West 73rd Street. These operas have included not only the standards like Aida, Rigoletto, Tosca, Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci, but such rarities as an unfamiliar La Boheme by Leoncavallo and Verdi's little-known Stiffelio in their American premieres; the first staged performance in die United States of Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco; the first staged performance in New York of Aroldo; the first New York staged performance in 127 years of Verdi's I Masnadieri; the first New York performance with orchestra of the earliest Verdi opera, Oberto; and the first professional staged performance in fifty years of La Juive by Haldvy. With the
exception of comic operas, which are sung in English, performances by New York Grand Opera Company are in the original language. In addition to its annual summer series in Central Park, New York Grand Opera has played throughout the metropolitan area in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, the Beacon Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Temple B'nai Jeshurun, Bronx Botanical Gardens, Cunningham Park in Queens, Snug Harbor on Staten Island, Co-Op City in the Bronx, the Flushing Center for the Arts, and Brookdale Park in Montclair, New Jersey. The company also gives a number of performances each year for students in elementary through high schools throughout the City as part of an expanding educational program.

What makes this company truly unique is that, while other companies present free opera performances during the summer, only the New York Grand Opera presents these works fully staged. Stage directors have included James Lucas (who has staged productions for New York's Metropolitan Opera), Franco Gentilesca (a disciple of Roman Polanski and Visconti), Albert Bergeret (founder and Artistic Director of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players) and Massimo Dante.

When this company was formed, it was felt that New York needed a professional opera company which would fall somewhere between the Met and the New York City Opera. La Selva wanted to build audiences, to give people a chance to hear and see opera who might not be able to afford the other companies. And, of course, he wanted to give qualified singers a chance. Thus, while Metropolitan Opera singers like Lucine Amara, Gabriella
Tucci, Enrico di Giuseppe, Frank Guarrera, Isola Jones, Theodore Lambrinos and others have appeared as guests with New York Grand over the years, the company's casts consist mainly of talented artists not yet known to the general public, many of whom have been given their first boost up the ladder to later prominence and success.