Lincoln Center Festival Announces Performance Lineups

Exciting news for dance, opera and theater fans in New York: Lincoln Center has just announced the lineup for the 2014 Lincoln Center Festival, slated to run from July 7 through August 16. 

The Festival will include performances by artists and ensembles from 11 countries across six venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus. These productions join the previously-announced Lincoln Center Festival and Park Avenue Armory co-presentation of Mieczysław Weinberg’s opera, The Passenger, performed by Houston Grand Opera, directed by David Pountney, and conducted by Patrick Summers.

This Festival will also mark an artistic premiere: For the first time in the company’s history, the combined forces of the Bolshoi Ballet, Opera, Orchestra, and Chorus will perform in New York with ballet and opera-in-concert in repertory. The Bolshoi Ballet (Sergei Filin, Artistic Director) plans to bring dancers Svetlana Zakharova, David Hallberg, Maria Alexandrova, Ekaterina Shipulina, Vladislav Lantratov, Olga Smirnova, Ekaterina Krysanova, Anna Nikulina, Maria Vinogradova, Mikhail Lobukhin, Ruslan Skvortsov, Artem Ovcharenko and Denis Rodkin for three evening-length ballets in the David H. Koch Theater: Alexei Fadeyechev’s 1999 production of Don Quixote, based on choreography by Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky; Yuri Grigorovich’s 2001 production of Swan Lake; and Grigorovich’s 1968 grand spectacle, Spartacus. The Bolshoi Ballet’s last Lincoln Center Festival appearance was in 2000.

In addition, the Bolshoi Opera, Orchestra and Chorus will perform for the first time in New York, giving two performances of a concert version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera rarity, The Tsar’s Bride, in Avery Fisher Hall. The ensemble includes singers Anna Aglatova, Dinara Alieva, Svetlana Shilova, Elena Manistina, Vyacheslav Pochapsky, Stanislav Trofimov, Elchin Azizov, Maksim Yasnopolsky, Oleg Tsybulko, Mikhail Gubsky, Boris Rudak, Stanislav Mostovoy, Marat Gali, Irina Udalova, Elena Novak, Pavel Valuzhin, Anna Matsey, and Sophia Kriklenko.

Last seen in New York in 2012 with its production of Uncle Vanya, Sydney Theatre Company returns to the Festival with international stage and screen stars Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert, joined by young newcomer Elizabeth Debicki in the U.S. premiere of Benedict Andrews’ production of Jean Genet’s The Maids, in a new translation by STC Artistic Director Andrew Upton and Benedict Andrews.

Japan’s leading Kabuki theater company, Heisei Nakamura-za, will be in town for its third Festival appearance with its production of a classic revenge tale, Kaidan Chibusa No Enoki (The Ghost Tale of the Wet Nurse Tree). The troupe made its sold-out North American debut with performances in a portable theater in Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center Festival 2004, and returned to the Festival in 2007, performing to enthusiastic audiences in Avery Fisher Hall. Dating back to the 17th century, the Nakamura family is the oldest lineage in Kabuki history, passing the 400-year-old performance traditions from father to son through 19 generations. 

Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the Brussels-based danced company, Rosas, founded by dancer/choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, makes its first appearance at Lincoln Center Festival in 15 years with four seminal works. De Keersmaeker, who is credited with establishing Belgium’s position as an important haven for modern dance, will perform in the company’s three earliest works: Fase (1982), Rosas danst Rosas (1983), and Elena’s Aria (1984). The fourth work is Bartók/Mikrokosmos (1987) to live music performed by members of Ictus.  Performances take place at Gerald W. Lynch Theater, John Jay College.

The New York premiere performances of the Houston Grand Opera production of The Passenger, Mieczysław Weinberg’s 1968 opera about the Holocaust, will include an enormous, multi-tiered set that takes full advantage of the scale of the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Prior to each performance of The Passenger, the ARC Ensemble from The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, will perform three chamber concerts featuring works by Mieczysław Weinberg in the newly-restored Board of Officers Room at Park Avenue Armory.