Sarasota Opera's 2012-13 season features world premiere of 'Little Nemo in Slumberland'

The Sarasota Opera announced today that its fall season will include the world premiere of Daron Hagen and J.D. McClathcy’s "Little Nemo in Slumberland."

The 2013 Winter Festival will feature the Sarasota Opera premiere Giacomo Puccini’s "Turandot," Giuseppe Verdi’s "A King for a Day (Un giorno di regno)" and Carlisle Floyd’s "Of Mice and Men."

This year's fall Sarasota Opera Season opens with Verdi’s "Rigoletto," which is based on Victor Hugo’s play “Le Roi s’Amuse.” It was the opera chosen to be the first performed in the opera house when it re-opened in 2008.  "Rigoletto" will open on Oct. 26 and run through Nov. 12.


"Little Nemo in Slumberland" will be a co-production with the University of Kentucky Opera Theater, implementing the new theater technology, SCRIBE (Self-Contained Rapidly Integratable Background Environment). This technology has been successfully used in productions at the University of Kentucky Opera Theater and The Atlanta Opera. There will be two performances on Nov. 10 and 11.

The 2013 Sarasota Opera Winter Festival will open with the Sarasota Opera premiere of Puccini’s "Turandot," which features some of the composers most famous music including the tenor aria “Nessum Dorma (None shall sleep)."


Following "Turandot" will be Georges Bizet’s "The Pearl Fishers (Les Pêcheurs de perles)," last seen in Sarasota in 2003.

Sarasota Opera will present the world premiere of a new critical edition (transcribed directly from Verdi’s manuscript) of Verdi’s second opera "A King for a Day." Verdi’s first comic opera (his only other comedy was his final opera "Falstaff"), "A King for a Day" is based on the play "Le faux Stanislas" by Alexandre Vincent Pineu-Duval. It will be the 29th installment in the company’s continuing Verdi Cycle.

The Sarasota Opera will present Floyd’s "Of Mice and Men" as a continuation of its American Classics Series. Premiered in 1969 at Seattle Opera, Floyd adapted the opera from the novella by John Steinbeck and wrote both the music and libretto himself. As was done with the first two American Classics Series Operas, the 2011 production of "The Crucible" and the 2012 production of "Vanessa," Sarasota Opera will design a series of education events around this production "Of Mice and Men."

The four productions will run in rotation from February 9 through March 24, 2013.

Subscriptions and single tickets are on sale by calling 941-328-1300 or visiting www.sarasotaopera.org.

—Photo: Little Nemo as drawn by Winsor McCay.