In Monday’s (4/27) Washington Post, Anne Midgette reports, “The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the second crop of winners of the new NEA Opera Honors, established last year under then-NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. The five 2009 honorees are composer John Adams; stage director Frank Corsaro; mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne; stage director and former general manager of the San Francisco Opera Lotfi Mansouri; and conductor Julius Rudel. The honorees were to be officially announced today, but photographs of them were already posted on the NEA’s Web site over the past weekend. The awards—which include $25,000 grants—will be officially conferred at a ceremony at the Harman Center for the Arts [in Washington, DC] on Nov. 14. … The NEA awards also give a tacit nod to the New York City Opera, where Rudel for 22 years led an imaginative range of works, including, famously, an entire spring season devoted to contemporary American operas. … Adams, of course, remains at the forefront of American opera composition, particularly in the wake of the recent performances of ‘Doctor Atomic’ at the Metropolitan Opera this season.”
Posted April 28, 2009
