In honor of Black History Month, City Opera co-presents Black History at NYCO with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Beginning Wednesday, January 28, we celebrate the important African-American works and artists who have graced City Opera's stage in three commemorative programs featuring discussion, live performance, special guests, and historic slides and audio and video clips.

On the heels of City Opera's most successful VOX Showcase of American Composers, which was attended by more than 2,000 people last year, the company is thrilled to announce the 10th-Anniversary Showcase scheduled for May 2009, at which point City Opera will have presented 100 total new American operas. In addition to excerpts from new American operas featuring City Opera casts and orchestra, VOX will include panel discussions and a master class for singers in contemporary music. VOX 2009 submissions will be received June 1 through September 1, 2008. Details on selected works, composers and casting will be announced in 2009.

BIOS
City Opera Music Director George Manahan made his City Opera debut conducting Die tote Stadt in 1991. In his tenure at City Opera, he has conducted 53 different operas including two world premieres, four US stage premieres and forty-one new productions including but not limited to: Margaret Garner, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Cendrillon, Madama Butterfly, Falstaff, Candide, L'elisir d'amore, La donna del lago, Capriccio, Il viaggio a Reims, The Mines of Sulphur, Lysistrata, Il trittico, Little Women, Flavio, The Flying Dutchman, Xerxes, Intermezzo, The Cunning Little Vixen, Emmeline, Macbeth, La finta giardiniera, Mourning Becomes Electra, Ermione, Lizzie Borden, La bohème ("Live from Lincoln Center" telecasts). Elsewhere, he has conducted Rigoletto, Falstaff, and L'Italiana in Algeri at Glimmerglass Opera; premieres at Santa Fe Opera including Modern Painters and A Night at the Chinese Opera; productions at Seattle Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera Australia, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; concerts with San Francisco Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, National Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and Verona Filarmonica; recordings include Desire Under the Elms with London Symphony Orchesta (Grammy nomination).

Soprano Lauren Flanigan most recently sang the title role in Samuel Barber's Vanessa at City Opera. Originally from San Francisco, California, she made her City Opera debut as Musetta in La bohème in 1991. Since then, she has been a regular City Opera favorite singing lead roles in: Mourning Becomes Electra, Macbeth, Lilith, Central Park, The Mother of Us All, Intermezzo, Lizzie Borden, The Seven Deadly Sins, The Turn of the Screw, Mathis der Maler, Esther (world premiere), Roberto Devereux, and Die tote Stadt. Other performances at La Scala, Teatro San Carlo, Metropolitan Opera, Glyndebourne, San Francisco Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, American Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Brucknerhaus Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, and English National Opera; live recording of Richard Strauss' Die Liebe der Danae (Telarc), Howard Hanson's Merrymount, Symphony #6 by Philip Glass; DVD Opera Diva Death to Smoochy, Abigaille Nabucco. Winner of City Opera's Diva Award and Betty Allen prize.

New Zealand baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes makes his City Opera debut as Antony. Most recently, he sang the role of Ned Keene in Peter Grimes at the Metropolitan Opera in his debut. Other appearances include opera engagements in San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Washington, Munich, Hamburg, the Chatelet, Paris, Welsh National Opera and Scottish Opera to his credit . Future engagements include Count Almaviva in Cincinnati, Don Giovanni for Opera Australia, Henze's L'Upupa for Hamburg Opera, Lescaut in Leipzig, and Billy Budd in both Santa Fe and Sydney.

New Zealand Tenor Simon O'Neill made his City Opera debut in 2003 as First Armed Man in Die Zauberflöte. Most recently, he sang the role of Siegmund in Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Other credits include: title role of Parsifal in Rome at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. Future seasons see him in the title role of Lohengrin at Houston Grand Opera and Covent Garden, Siegmund in Die Walküre at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Coruna Festival and Hamburg State Opera, Parsifal at Barcelona's Teatro Liceu and in his Opera Australia debut as Sergei in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

Bass-baritone David Pittsinger made his City Opera debut in the title role in Don Giovanni in 2001. A native of Hartford, Connecticut, he returned to City Opera to sing the title role in Le nozze di Figaro and Zoroastro in Orlando. Other career highlights include Carlo V in Don Carlo, and Colline in La bohème at Metropolitan Opera; Count Almaviva at Los Angeles Opera; Cadmus/Somnus in Semele in Paris; title role in Don Quichotte at Vienna's Theater an der Wien; Olin Blitch in Susannah at Opera Company of Philadelphia; Mephistopheles in Faust for Geneva, L'Opéra de Montréal, Italy's Macerata Festival, Vancouver, Calgary; Nick Shadow in The Rake's Progress for Brussels, Lausanne, Hamburg, Paris, Bordeaux; Tiresias in Oedipus Rex at Teatro San Carlo, and Count Rodolfo in La Sonnambula for Palermo.

Sandra Piques Eddy, mezzo-soprano, originally hails from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She made her City Opera debut as Flora in La traviata in 2002. Most recent City Opera engagements have included Dorabella in Così fan tutte. Ramiro in La finta giardiniera, and Pitti-Sing in The Mikado.  Other career highlights include Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro with both Canadian Opera Company and Atlanta Opera; Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri with Vancouver Opera; Stephano in Roméo et Juliette with Hawaii Opera Theatre; the title role in La Cenerentola, and soloist in Beethoven’s Mass in C, both at Spoleto Festival (USA); and was engaged by the Metropolitan Opera for their performances of Le nozze di Figaro and War and Peace. In summer of 2008, she sings Romeo in I Capuleti ed i Montecchi at Glimmerglass Opera. Her 2008-09 season currently includes singing the role of Page in Salome and appearing as soloist in the Opening Night Gala for the Metropolitan Opera; the title role in La Tragédie de Carmen with Chicago Opera Theater; the title role in La Cenerentola with Austin Lyric Opera; and the roles of Juno and Ino in Semele with Florentine Opera.

Mezzo-soprano Laura Vlasak Nolen made her City Opera debut as Sélysette in Ariane et Barbe-bleue in 2005. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she returned to City Opera as Malcolm in La donna del lago.  Most recently, she returned to the Metropolitan Opera in 2007-08 as Waltraute in Die Walküre, and sang Tisbe in La Cenerentola at Spoleto Festival (USA). She performed Haydn’s Mass in Time of War with The Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center; Beethoven’s Mass in C with the Honolulu Symphony; Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with the Bel Canto Chorus and Orchestra; and appeared as Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri in gala concerts sponsored by UNESCO in Paris, France and New York City. In summer of 2008, Ms. Nolen will sing the title role in Giulio Cesare at Glimmerglass Opera. In 2008-09 she returns to the Metropolitan Opera to reprise the role of Waltraute in Die Walküre as well as to sing Inez in Il trovatore, appears as Dorotea in Pedrotti’s Tutti in maschera at Wexford Festival Opera, and as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly with Dallas Symphony Orchestra.