Atlanta Opera Announces 2013-2014 Season

The Atlanta Opera, one of the nation's finest regional opera companies enriching lives through the power of opera, today announced its 2013-2014 season. The season opens with Tosca in October 2013, followed by Gounod's Faust in March 2014, and concludes with The Barber of Seville in April and May 2014. All performances will take place at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

Also announced were the 2013-2014 community engagement initiatives, including the High School Opera Institute, the fourth annual 24-Hour Opera Project , a Student Short of the opera Tosca; and the details of the 2013 Atlanta Opera Ball: Puccini's Palazzo, a fundraiser supporting and sustaining the exceptional artistic quality of The Atlanta Opera. The 2013-2014 season will be the first under the helm of the Atlanta Opera's new general director expected to be named in April 2013.Mainstage Productions at Cobb Energy Centre

The season leads off with Giacomo Puccini's Tosca (October 5, 8, 11, 13, 2013). A melodramma in three acts created after Victorien Sardou's play La Tosca which debuted in 1900, Tosca is an opera full of lies, lust, and corruption that turn a tale of love into a struggle for survival. Amid the bloodshed of revolutionary Rome, the diva Tosca becomes trapped between her allegiance to her rebel lover, Cavaradossi, and the scheming of a treacherous police chief, Scarpia, who will stop at nothing in his lust for her. Set to Puccini's intensely passionate music, this gripping melodrama is quintessential opera and presents the composer's most varied and interesting soprano role. Tosca will be performed in Italian with projectEd English translations.

Soprano Kara Shay Thomson will be making her debut with The Atlanta Opera as Floria Tosca, a role she has sung more than 75 times. The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote, "... Kara Shay Thomson was the most exciting debut of the season; she projected an alluring presence and a luxuriant lyric voice that remained smooth all the way to her powerhouse top notes." The tenor role of Mario Cavaradossi will be sung by Massimiliano Pisapia in his United States debut. Baritone Mark Delavan performs the role of Baron Scarpia, which he performed previously with The Atlanta Opera in 1997 at The Fox Theatre. Delavan has sung to great acclaim all three roles of Wotan in Wagner's Ring Cycle and will perform the role again this April with The Metropolitan Opera. Delavan has been seen on the Atlanta Opera stage as Amonasro in 2010's Aida and as The Dutchman in 2009's The Flying Dutchman. The conductor of Tosca is the Atlanta Opera's Carl and Sally Gable Music Director Arthur Fagen.
Tomer Zvulun will be returning to The Atlanta Opera as stage director for Tosca. Zvulun has previously directed The Flying Dutchman, The Magic Flute, and, most recently, Lucia di Lammermoor, on the Atlanta Opera stage. The New York Times praised one of his recent operas for its, "witty, fast-paced staging and the director's Felliniesque style."

In March, The Atlanta Opera will present Charles Gounod's Faust (March 8, 11, 14, 16, 2014). Faust is a grand opéra and first premiered in Paris in 1859. Gounod's operatic retelling of the famous legend, loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play of the same name, is a haunting tale of the struggle between good and evil. Set in 16th century in Germany, an elderly scholar sells his soul to the devil Méphistophélès for a chance to seduce the beautiful and innocent Marguerite. This opera has only been produced once before by The Atlanta Opera in 1995. Faust will be performed in French with projectEd English translations.