Opera Omnia
Wesley Chinn, General Manager and Artistic Director
Crystal Manich and Avi Stein, Artistic Directors
Opera Omnia aims to combine a deep knowledge of historical performance practice with a modern theatrical aesthetic to produce performances that are musically and dramatically satisfying to both the veteran classical concertgoer and to those new to the genre. We initially concentrate on musical-dramatic works of the early 17th century, performing them in English translation and modern staging. Our approach seeks to bring new audiences to these early opera masterworks while shedding new light on the works for those already familiar with them.
Our inaugural production, Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea, which played to sold-out houses at Le Poisson Rouge from August 20 to 27, 2008. If you missed the show (or saw it and are curious), you can read reviews in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Classics Today, Concertonet.com, Out in Jersey, and the Gay City News have to say about us.
Elsewhere on the internet, Mark Adamo and Roger Evans have to say, and check out Alex Ross‘s (also) excellent column in which we got a quick mention. There’s also the Times preview to which we probably owe both the sold-out houses and the attention, which you can read here.
About our Staff
Avi Stein (Music Director) is the music director at St. Matthew & St. Timothy Episcopal Church in New York and coach for baroque vocal repertoire at the Institute of Sacred Music of Yale University and for the Juilliard School. He is an active continuo accompanist who has played with many ensembles such as the Clarion Music Society, the Baroque Orchestras of Los Angeles, Seattle and Indianapolis and the Warsaw, Toulouse and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras as well as his own chamber groups La Monica and X579. Avi is currently finishing his doctoral studies in organ and harpsichord at Indiana University and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Southern California, and was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship for study in Toulouse. He has performed throughout the United States, in Europe, Canada, and Central America, and the New York Times described him as “a brilliant organ soloist” in his Carnegie Hall debut. Avi was previously the assistant organist and choirmaster at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Buffalo, New York. He has also conducted a variety of ensembles including a recent series called the 4x4 festival, during which he directed many of New York’s finest baroque musicians in four programs of 17th century music from four different countries over the span of four days.
Stage director Crystal Manich is thrilled to stage Giasone for Opera Omnia three years after the success of The Coronation of Poppea in 2008, which marked her directorial debut. Crystal recently directed a new production of Handel’s Rinaldo for Pittsburgh Opera in keeping with her interest of staging 17th and 18th century drama. She has also directed La Bohème for the Pittsburgh Opera main stage and will return in September to direct La Traviata. Passionate about the survival of opera, Crystal will direct the inaugural production for the newly formed Lyric Opera of Baltimore, La traviata, in November after the company’s almost two-year absence from the opera world. She will also direct L’elisir d’amore for Utah Opera in 2012. In 2010 she was praised for “the fabulous look of this updated staging” for La Bohème at Utah Opera. She was also recognized for her “supreme taste, deep knowledge of the work and conceptual clarity” along with “impacting visual pictures” for her production of Madama Butterfly for Buenos Aires Lírica in Argentina. She is co-founder and co-Artistic Director for Opera Omnia. Other directing credits: Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice for Pittsburgh Opera; the world premiere of Brooklyn Bones in a semi-staged performance in New York City; and Darkling in Concert at the German Consulate in New York City for American Opera Projects. Crystal toured with Cirque du Soleil in Brazil and has served as assistant director on several opera productions over the last six years with Pittsburgh Opera, Washington National Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Central City Opera, American Opera Projects, Virginia Opera, Long Beach Opera, and Opera Theater of Pittsburgh. Degrees: BFA in Drama and Master of Arts Management from Carnegie Mellon University. She has studied performance with Patsy Rodenburg. For more information, go to http://www.crystalmanich.com.
Producer Wesley Chinn has been involved with early music since taking up baroque violin in high school, and has been an arts administrator of one sort or another for nearly as long. As founder of the Harvard Early Music Society, he produced several early baroque operas in English translation. He also worked at the Boston Early Music Festival in a variety of capacities, including serving as Stage Manager for Ercole Amante in 2001. Wesley moved to New York to be Operations Manager and Artistic Coordinator of The New York Collegium, spent seven years at Carnegie Hall in the Marketing/Creative Services and Artistic Programming departments, was Artistic Administrator of The Little Orchestra Society, and currently devotes his non-Opera Omnia time to a life as a freelance musician, editor, and consultant for projects ranging from concert production to medical imaging software. As a conductor, he has directed children’s choirs at the Church Street Music School, PS 89 in Manhattan, and PS 315 in Brooklyn and waved a stick (actually empty hands) at singers and orchestra in Matthew Schickele’s Marymere and Yoav Gal’s Mosheh (for which he was assistant music director as well as singing the Voice of God). As a performer, he has been a regular member of the Trinity Choir for the past 9 years , and has performed around New York in a variety of genres as a violinist (baroque and modern), baritone, countertenor, and jowza (Iraqi spike fiddle) player.
What the press had to say about Opera Omnia’s Coronation of Poppea
“Virtually every aspect of this production leaves an audience desiring more from this young company whose ambition to specialize in seventeenth century opera will fill a vital gap in the city’s musical culture.”
–Classics Today
“a serious entry into the ranks of small-bore companies in New York”
–The New York Times
“…there was a lot to be said for its directness: in so small a theater, with a light accompaniment and consistently clear singing, you could take in the drama directly, without having to translate or read titles.”
–The New York Times
“Vocally, the company’s firepower was in the two main mezzo-soprano roles….Hai-Ting Chinn [gave her] vocal lines a seductively velvety tone…Cherry Duke sang the music of this top-drawer historical creep with a regal bearing.”
–The New York Times
“more gripping than one could ever imagine…this production was so compulsive that one could only feel awe, both for the young performers and the ageless composer.”
–Concertonet.com
“Opera Omnia has definitely targeted an underserved and neglected niche in the city’s musical landscape.”
–Gay City News
“The band, a crack seven-member ensemble of period-instrument players played eloquently….Text is central to 17th-century opera…and with the audience almost on top of the singers there were no barriers to comprehension….The audience of about 220 seemed riveted.
–The Wall Street Journal
“The company offers a refreshingly all-American mix of careful scholarship in musical realization and a vibrantly contemporary aesthetic for presenting early opera for a modern audience….The cast had no problem in communicating virtually every heart beat of Monteverdi’s work within the relaxed cabaret setting…bringing us far closer to the irreverent environment of the Venetian opera house of the 1640s than would be possible in any tradition-encrusted opera house, either in the US or Europe.”
–Classics Today
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