In Friday’s (4/19) Crain’s Cleveland Business, Scott Suttell reports, “The Cleveland Orchestra announced it has received a $2.5 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support ‘artistically ambitious programming,’ with a special emphasis on opera and ballet, as well as collaborations with guest artists. The gift is the largest to the Cleveland Orchestra in the Mellon Foundation’s history. It supports ‘the type of programming and partnerships that … help distinguish the orchestra from its peers,’ according to a news release announcing the grant. … The Mellon Foundation award will support opera performances in the next three seasons at Severance Hall, including semi-staged performances of Janác̆ek’s ‘Cunning Little Vixen’—performed by The Cleveland Orchestra for the first time in the orchestra’s history—in the 2013-14 season. Under the leadership of music director Franz Welser-Möst, the orchestra has presented annual concert performances of opera. In 2009, for instance, the orchestra reintroduced fully staged opera performances at Severance Hall with a cycle of the Mozart/Da Ponte productions from Zurich Opera. In 2012, Mr. Welser-Möst and the orchestra staged performances of Strauss’s ‘Salome’ at Severance Hall and at Carnegie Hall in New York.”
Posted April 19, 2013
