THE REMAKING OF LOWELL HOUSE OPERA: THE ONLY PROFESSIONALLY LED OPERA COMPANY IN RESIDENCE AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY REFINES ITS MISSION AND VISION, HIRES A NEW EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Lowell House Opera, New England’s oldest opera company, has remade itself for a new era, refining its identity as the only professionally led opera company in residence at Harvard University. At the center of this new vision is the invaluable learning experience Lowell House Opera provides both Harvard College students and young professional singers as they work together as peers to create a professional-level production. Lowell House Opera is one of the only companies in the country that consistently combines exceptionally talented undergraduate students with emerging professional musicians in an artistically rigorous, collaborative environment. In addition, the company’s new visual branding and wider marketing reach will enable it to have a broader impact on the community and on the Greater Boston arts landscape.
To lead the company in this new mission and vision, the company has engaged opera production professional Adrienne Boris in the newly created position of Executive Producer:
“When I began with Lowell House Opera as Stage Director in the 2019 season, I was struck by the immense talent of Harvard undergraduate students interested in opera and saw an opportunity to involve them more intentionally, to refine the company’s mission, and to set Lowell House Opera apart from other campus groups by promoting professionalism and consistently high expectations. In my new role, I am working closely with two phenomenal Pechet Fellow student producers to dramatically increase student involvement, make Lowell House Opera a more integral part of Lowell House and Harvard life, and update our technology platforms and social media image for this new era. Our new tagline —‘Feel at home in opera’— speaks not only to our unique performance venue inside a residential House in the heart of our community, but also to our hope that creative constituents and audience members alike will feel welcome and comfortable at our productions and in the art form of opera as a whole.”
Ms. Boris brings a wealth of artistic administration, producing, and directing experience to the company, having served in artistic leadership roles at Opera Boston, OperaHub, Opera North, New Repertory Theatre, and Boston Opera Collaborative, among others. She earned her MFA in Directing from Boston University College of Fine Arts, School of Theatre in 2015 and has worked as a director of opera and theatre in New England and the greater New York City area for the past decade.
Lowell House Opera’s return to its permanent home coincides with the start of David Laibson and Nina Zipser’s tenure as the new Faculty Deans of Lowell House who commented, "We are honored to work with Lowell House Opera, one of Boston's and Harvard's extraordinary cultural treasures. Literally living with a renowned and reinvigorated opera company in our new home, is one of the out-of-this-world privileges of being Faculty Deans of Lowell House.”
From March 27 through April 4, 2020, the company will present Stephen Sondheim’s musical thriller Sweeney Todd as the inaugural production in its permanent home in the Lowell House Dining Hall after a two-year House renewal project. The cast is made up of 19 talented young performers, including 5 Harvard undergraduates and several students from the Musical Theatre division of Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
Sweeney Todd will be performed with full orchestra also comprised of Harvard students and young professionals alike. Joe Turbessi, longtime Lowell House Opera Assistant Music Director, will step into the role of Music Director this year. Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg, Harvard undergraduate and acclaimed countertenor/composer/conductor (the Metropolitan Opera, the Boston Pops) will continue to grow in his role as Assistant Music Director and conduct two performances.
Visit www.lowellhouseopera.com for more information on the company and its upcoming production of Sweeney Todd.
ABOUT LOWELL HOUSE OPERA
Lowell House Opera produces operas of the highest caliber for audiences from Harvard and greater Boston. The oldest opera company currently performing in New England, Lowell House Opera is the only professionally led company in residence at Harvard College and is grounded in a unique educational approach. Lowell House Opera casts some of Boston’s finest emerging professionals—many of whom are students at neighboring conservatories—alongside exceptional Harvard students, working as peers in a collaborative but rigorous environment. While the Harvard students benefit immensely from the transformative opportunity to perform in, manage, or design a professional-level production, the young professionals also grow, given the chance to take on challenging roles with full orchestra and develop as artistic leaders. Our performance venue, the historic Lowell House Dining Hall, located in the heart of Harvard’s campus, epitomizes Lowell House Opera’s commitment to enrich our community through high-quality opera that is accessible, engaging, and vital.
ABOUT ADRIENNE BORIS
Adrienne Boris is a director of opera and theatre with a special interest in new work, stories about women, and opera in non-traditional spaces. She co-produced and directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of DIVAS: A New Play with Opera Music with OperaHub, where she was Artistic Associate from 2015-2018. Other recent directing projects include La scuola degli amanti ossia: Cosi fan tutt(i), a feminist re-imagining of Mozart’s battle-of-the-sexes opera at Lowell House Opera; the New England premiere of Burst by Amy Leigh Horan, presented by The Longwood Players in association with the Brain Aneurysm Foundation; several short world premieres as part of Boston Opera Collaborative’s annual Opera Bites;La bohème with Long Island Lyric Opera (Rockville Center, NY) and La bohème with NEMPAC Opera Project; The Last Five Years and Next to Normal with Arts After Hours; and Liz Duffy Adams’s Or, a play based on the life of Aphra Behn, with Maiden Phoenix and Simple Machine Theatre Companies, which was nominated for three Elliot Norton Awards by the Boston Theatre Critics’ Association including Outstanding Fringe Production. Ms. Boris was the 2013 Young Artist Stage Director at Opera North where she directed the first all-Young Artist production of Mark Adamo’s Little Women. As the Artistic Administrator and Opera Boston Underground Stage Director at Opera Boston, she staged Brecht/Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins, Salieri’s First the Music then the Words, and Mozart’s Bastien and Bastienne in bars and cafes throughout the city. Her work with OBU was featured twice at First Night Boston. She has developed new plays at The Nora Theatre Company, New Repertory Theatre, Fresh Ink, Anthem Theatre Company, and The Boston Center for American Performance. As an assistant director, she has worked Off-Broadway on the world premiere play Ring Twice for Miranda at City Center Stage II and with Austin Pendleton on his new production of Fiddler on the Roof at New Repertory Theatre. Ms. Boris frequently coaches singers and actors at all levels on dramatic interpretation and has served on the faculty at Boston University College of Fine Arts, School of Theatre. She is currently the Executive Producer and Stage Director at Lowell House Opera in residence at Harvard University, where she will next direct Sweeney Todd. She earned an MFA in Directing from Boston University College of Fine Arts, School of Theatre, and a BA from Kenyon College. www.adrienneboris.com