LA Opera unveils schedule for new season

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01/08/2008 Reported By: Senaxis News Services Source: AP

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Opera's upcoming season will feature several productions directed by famed filmmakers including Woody Allen, David Cronenberg and William Friedkin.

Allen, making his operatic debut, is scheduled to direct "Gianni Schicchi," part of Puccini's "Il Trittico," a trio of one-act operas. "Gianni Schicchi," set in medieval Florence, is Puccini's only comedy.

The two other operas, "Il Tabarro" and "Suor Angelica," will be directed by William Friedkin.

"I'm tremendously excited about our 2008-09 season because it is full of adventure," Placido Domingo, the Los Angeles Opera's general director, said Monday. "The kind of musical and theatrical exploration which appeals not only to established opera lovers but might be the right kind of lure for potentially new audiences."

The season, which will run from Sept. 6 to June 21, 2009, features 67 performances of a total of nine productions, seven of which are new.

Cronenberg is set to direct the U.S. premiere of Howard Shore's "The Fly."

The new season will also feature the first two installments of Wagner's epic "Der Ring des Nibelungen," with new productions of "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walkure," directed and designed by Achim Freyer; a revival of Puccini's "Madama Butterfly"; and a revival of Bizet's "Carmen."

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