New York City Opera is proud to announce Angels in America has received the Austrian Musical Theater Award for Best Contemporary Musical Theater Production for its co-production with The Salzburger Landestheater. The eleventh annual Austrian Music Theater Awards ceremony took place in Vienna City Hall, honoring exceptional works of music, theater, and musical theater, from across Austria.
Based on the play by Tony Kushner, Péter Eötvös’s Angels in America is an operatic adaptation of the groundbreaking, Pulitzer Prize-winning drama that, since its 2004 premiere at Châtelet, has been performed all over the United States and internationally. “Mr. Eötvös’s success outstrips that of most American composers in his ability to fit music to the flow of American English,” the New York Times said of the contemporary opera. In 2017, Angels in America debuted with New York City Opera at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, where it was directed by Sam Helfrich directs, with Pacien Mazzagatti conducting.
Most recently, Angels in America was a part of the Salzburg Landestheater the 2021/2022 season in co-production with the New York City Opera, with music director Leslie Suganandarajah, Sam Helfrich returning as director, and John Farrell as set designer and director of production.
About New York City Opera
Since its founding in 1943 by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia as “The People’s Opera,” New York City Opera (NYCO) has been a critical part of the city’s cultural life. During its history, New York City Opera launched the careers of dozens of major artists and presented engaging productions of both mainstream and unusual operas alongside commissions and regional premieres. The result was a uniquely American opera company of international stature.
For more than seven decades, New York City Opera has maintained a distinct identity, adhering to its unique mission: affordable ticket prices, a devotion to American works, English-language performances, the promotion of up-and-coming American singers, and seasons of accessible, vibrant and compelling productions intended to introduce new audiences to the art form. Stars who launched their careers at New York City Opera include Plácido Domingo, Catherine Malfitano, Sherrill Milnes, Samuel Ramey, Beverly Sills, Tatiana Troyanos, Carol Vaness, and Shirley Verrett, among dozens of other great artists. New York City Opera has a long history of inclusion and diversity. It was the first major opera company to feature Black singers in leading roles (Todd Duncan as Tonio in Pagliacci, 1945; Camilla Williams in the title role of Madama Butterfly, 1946); the first to produce an opera by a Black composer (William Grant Still, Troubled Island, 1949); and the first to have a Black conductor lead its orchestra (Everett Lee, 1955).
A revitalized City Opera re-opened in January 2016 with Tosca, the opera that originally launched the company in 1944. Outstanding productions since then include: the world premiere of Iain Bell and Mark Campbell’s Stonewall, which NYCO commissioned and developed; legendary director Harold Prince’s new production of Bernstein’s Candide; Puccini’s beloved La Fanciulla del West; and the New York premiere of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas — the first in its Ópera en Español series. Subsequent Ópera en Español productions include the New York premiere of the world’s first mariachi opera, José “Pepe” Martinez’s Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, Literes’s Los Elementos, and Piazzolla’s María de Buenos Aires. In addition to the world premiere of Stonewall, the productions in NYCO’s Pride Series, which produces an LGBTQ-themed work each June during Pride Month, include the New York premiere of Péter Eötvös’s Angels in America and the American premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s Brokeback Mountain. New York City Opera has presented such talents as Anna Caterina Antonacci and Aprile Millo in concert, as well as its own 75th Anniversary Concert in Bryant Park, one in a series of the many concerts and staged productions that it presents each year as part of the Park’s summer Picnic Performance series. City Opera’s acclaimed summer series in Bryant Park brings free performances to thousands of New Yorkers and visitors every year.
New York City Opera continues its legacy with main stage performances at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater and with revitalized outreach and education programs at venues throughout the city, designed to welcome and inspire a new generation of opera audiences.