Kentucky Opera Announces Next Three Seasons

The Kentucky Opera has announced its productions for the next three seasons. WFPL’s Elizabeth Kramer has more.Kentucky Opera general director David Roth says the move allows the opera to book singers and stage sets much earlier. It also enables the company to reserve the Kentucky Center’s Whitney Hall, which is often scheduled far in advance by other organizations.A new staple of each season will be a concert-version opera with the Louisville Orchestra offered in the spring and featuring notable singers. Roth says next March that concert will be Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” with Beethoven’s “Fidelio” scheduled for 2010."There are a couple of productions out there, but the productions are too big for us on our budget size. It’s a great opportunity for our audience, which has not heard 'Fidelio,' I think, in some 30 to 40 years, hear this incredible piece of music," Roth says.Roth says advanced schedules also give the public a better idea of the variety of works the company offers each season, from grand operas in Whitney Hall to operettas at the Brown Theatre.Roth says this year the company also is allowing audience members to vote on a production the opera will stage next year."Do they want the lighter, French farce in Offenbach’s 'La Périchole,' the classic opera, Italian bouffe in Donizetti's 'The Elixir of Love,' or finally 'The Turn of the Screw' by Benjamin Britten," Roth asks.The opera is requesting that people that vote donate a dollar with each vote.