"We're definitely working on Opera Company of Philadelphia version 2.0," said OCP general director David Devan, who is also considering presenting such works as Philip Glass' Einstein on the Beach and Tod Machover's Death and the Powers outside the usual theatrical venues.
The Philadelphia Orchestra connection was a mini-bombshell dropped by Nézet-Séguin at a recent news conference announcing his first Philadelphia season. Devan, who has been replacing Driver by increments since arriving in 2006, met the Montrealer years back when the two Canadians worked in Victoria, British Columbia.
"We're thinking about doing things that we can't stage at the Academy because the orchestra pit has a limit of 68 musicians," said Devan. "Maybe Tristan und Isolde? But we won't be displacing any of our own product . . . . Also, our own orchestra is secure. Maestro Rovaris had worked hard to develop it. "
For now, though, the season at the Academy of Music has La Bohème (Sept. 28-Oct. 7) cast with solid, familiar singers, among them Norah Amsellem, Leah Partridge, and Bryan Hymel. The already-announced East Coast premiere of Silent Night by Kevin Puts (Feb. 8-17, 2013) has the oft-heard-here tenor William Burden as a World War I soldier on the Western Front. Mozart's The Magic Flute will be re-set in the rain forests of the Amazon (April 19-28, 2013).
The Aurora series at the Kimmel Center's smaller Perelman Theater will be a Curtis Opera Theatre collaboration on Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave (March 13-17, 2013), based on a Henry James story about pacifism vs. loyalty, and Adès' Powder Her Face (June 7-12, 2013), one of the most acclaimed operas of recent times but also among the raciest in its portrayal of a randy duchess.
