Teatro Grattacielo Celebrates 15th Anniversary with North American Premiere of Pietro Mascagni's Il Piccolo Marat
Teatro Grattacielo, New York City's only professional opera company specializing in the Verismo style, celebrates its 15th Anniversary with the North American Premiere of Pietro Mascagni's Il Piccolo Marat, Monday, April 13, 2009, at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall.

NEW YORK, NY, February 25, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Music Director David Wroe will lead tenor Arnold Rawls in the title role, along with bass, Burak Bilgili, soprano Paula Delligatti, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Batton, and baritones Joshua Benaim, Nelson Martinez, and Stefanos Koroneos. Benjamin Bloomfield, Alfred Barclift, and Michael Ventura, bass-baritones;Christopher Herbert and Daniel Ihn-Kyu Lee, baritones; and tenor Huga Vera round out the cast.

Il Piccolo Marat also features the 100-plus voices of the combined Cantori New York Chorus and the Long Island University Chorus, under Director Mark Shapiro, and the Teatro Grattacielo Orchestra.

Il Piccolo Marat premiered at the Costanzi in Rome on May 2, 1921 and was at once a huge success, going on to many international tours and engagements. The libretto, by Giovacchino Forzano, with some additional passages by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, was based on the 1912 book Les Noyades de Nantes (The Drownings of Nantes) by G. Lenôtre, the pen name of French historian Theodore Gosselin (1855-1935). Elements of the story were taken from Victor Martin's Sous la terreur.

From November 1793 through January 1794, during the period of the French Revolution called The Terror, between 5,000 and 10,000 prisoners were systematically drowned in the Loire River at Nantes in southwest Brittany. The story of the opera centers around this horror, as young Prince Giancarlo de Fleury, disguised as a Sans Culottes, tries to rescue his mother from her awful fate. Find out more at http://www.grattacielo.org/marat.htm

Tickets are all on the Orchestra Level at $75, $50 and $25, with a special rate of $15 for students and seniors ¬- available at the Box Office, through CenterCharge at 212-721-6500, or online at http://lincolncenter.com/auto_choose_ba.asp?area=1797

Press Release Contact Information:

Duane Printz
Teatro Grattacielo
Artistic Director
2 Riverside Dr.
New York, NY
USA 10023
Voice: 212-595-7127
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