The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performs at the Newman Center on April 4. Photo: Paul Campbell
The Newman Center Presents series at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts celebrates the venue’s 10th anniversary with a mix of old and new. The 2012–13 season, announced Sunday, features a full slate of dance, music and opera.
The season kicks off Sept. 22 with Newman Center favorite Aspen Santa Fe Ballet; other dance performances on the schedule include José Limón Dance on March 21 and Australian choreographer’s Meryl Tankard’s The Oracle on Feb. 13. The latter piece is set to Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” which will be performed live by the Lamont Symphony Orchestra.
In the season’s most collaborative event, Central City Opera, the Colorado Symphony, Ballet Nouveau Colorado and the Mizel Arts & Culture Center team up to present the Colorado premiere of Der Kaiser von Atlantis on Jan. 16–17. Written by Victor Ullmann and Peter Kien while both were imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, the satiric opera was first performed in 1975, long after the two men died at Auschwitz. For the Colorado premiere, the co-producers have created a new preface that features traditional Eastern European klezmer music and an epilogue showcasing a new dance work.
The season’s musical offerings run the gamut from silly to serious, starting Oct. 6 with the Capitol Steps, the famed political satire group that should bring some levity to campus three days after DU hosts the first presidential debate of the 2012 campaign. Also on the lighter side, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain serves up a mix of classical pieces and pop favorites — performed with nothing but ukes and voices — on April 4.
The season also includes the debut of the Colorado Symphony Chamber Orchestra, which will perform three concerts: one featuring all American composers prior to the presidential debate; one featuring masters of the classics in February; and a baroque spectacular in early June.
For its Christmas concert, the Newman Center has invited male vocal ensemble Cantus — which appeared in the first season of Newman Center Presents — to reprise its All Is Calm concert on Dec. 6. The show is inspired by actual events during World War I, when enemy soldiers sang Christmas carols with one another across no man’s land. The concert is performed in the style of a radio musical drama and is followed by a set of traditional holiday fare.
Also on the Newman Center Presents 2012–13 schedule are Sphinx Virtuosi — a conductor-less chamber orchestra made up of alumni of the national Sphinx Competition for young black and Latino string players — on Oct. 18; French quartet Quatour Ébène on Nov. 10; “Strings on Fire” — featuring Brazilian guitarists Sérgio Assad and Odair Assad, with guitarist Mak Grgić and cellist Joshua Roman — on April 25, 2013; and New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players’ staging of The Mikado on May 3–4, 2013.
Visit www.newmancenterpresents.com for tickets and more information on the 2012–13 season