Hanna Munitz, General Director of the Israeli Opera announced the 20110/12 season of the Israeli Opera, the 27th season of a company who now enjoys the support of over 18,000 subscribers.
The coming season features eight productions including a new production of Weill and Brecht's Aufsteig und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny.  The season will also feature new productions to the company of Orfeo ed Euridice, Jenufa, Lucia di Lammermoor, Cavalleria and Pagliacci as well as revivals of the company's Rigoletto and Madama Butterfly. The season also offers a revival the continuation of the Masada Opera Festival with a new production of Carmen and two gala concerts. The Israeli Opera will also tour once again to the Wiesbaden Opera Festival with tow productions – Tosca and The Child Dreams by Israeli composer Gil Shohat. 
Altogether around 100 performances are planned for a season spanning from November 2011 to July 2012 performed by leading international and Israeli opera artists. The Israeli Opera also continues its education, outreach and community activities as well as family and children performances. The season will also feature numerous other, non operatic, activities and events as well as the Israeli Opera's annual international dance series, classical music, jazz, world music and children performances series.
Details about all the Israeli Opera's activities can be found at the company's website –
www.israel-opera.co.il

The Opera Season
Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci (December 2011)
The verismo operatic twins are presented in Giancarlo del Monaco's powerful and realistic production featuring Gustavo Porta as Canio, Ira Bertman as Nedda, Scott Piper as Turiddu and Tatiana Anisimova as Santuzza. David Stern, the music director of the Israeli Opera, conducts.

Aufsteig und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (January 2012)
A new production conducted by David Stern and directed by Omri Nitzan, one of Israel's leading theatre directors who has created many productions for the Israeli Opera.

Jenufa (February 2012)
Barbara Haveman leads an Israeli and international cast in this Slavic masterpiece conducted by George Pehlivanian in a production by Nikolas Lehnhoff from the Glyndebourne Festival. 

Lucia di Lammermoor (March 2012)
Daniel Oren conducts Donizetti's masterpiece in Graham Vick's lush production featuring, among others, Jessica Pratt in the title role and Boaz Daniel as her brother Enrico.

Madama Butterfly (April 2012)
Stefano Ranzani makes his Israeli Opera debut conducting Mariusz Trelinsky's stylized and powerful production of the Puccini masterpiece with Israeli soprano Ira Bertman in the lead and Zoran Todorovic as Pinkerton.

Orfeo ed Euridice (May 2012)
David Stern conducts Mariusz Trelinsky's evocative modern production about the mythical poet who this time creates in our own time. Counter tenor Yaniv d'Or performs the role of Orfeo with Hila Baggio as Euridice. 
 
Rigoletto (July 2012)
David Pountney's powerful production of Rigoletto (designed by the late Stefano Lazaridis) returns to the stage conducted by Daniele Callegari in his company debut with Giuseppe Gipali as the Duke and Adriana Kucerova as Gilda. 

Carmen at Masada (June 2012)
The third opera festival at the Masada/Dead Sea area will feature a new production of Carmen conducted by Daniel Oren and directed by Giancarlo del Monaco. Hundreds of choristers, dancers and extras will be part of a larger than life production under a canopy of stars by the Dead Sea and the majestic Mt. of Masada.

Gala Concerts at Masada (June 2012)
Two gala concerts will be featured at the Masada Festival. Tenor Roberto Alagna will perform a gala opera concert with the opera orchestra, and pianist Fazil Say will perform with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London).

Tour to the Wiesbaden May Festival (May 2012)
The Israeli Opera was invited to perform at the Wiesbaden May Festival (Germany). The company will perform Hugo de Ana's most successful cinematic production of Tosca as well as The Child Dreams by Israeli composer Gil Shohat based on a play by Hanoch Levin. Music Director David Stern will conduct both productions.

Operas for the Entire Family (August-October 2012)
The Israeli Opera continues presenting its 70 minutes Hebrew fully staged productions of operas for children on its main stage with revivals of Mozart's The Magic flute and last summer's world premiere Alice in Wonderland (by David Sebba).

Getting Closer to Our Audience
The Israeli Opera presents a large number of extra curricular events in order to get closer to its audience and bring the audience closer to the world of opera and the people performing in it. Each Israeli Opera performance is preceded by a 30 minute introduction lecture at the auditorium. Opera Talkback sessions (with cast and production team members) take place at the end of several performances in each run, enabling members of the audience to meet, speak and ask questions about the production they just attended. Backstage tours, preview forums and other events are also part of the company's mandate to make the art form as accessible as possible to a wide audience.

Israeli Opera Community, Education and Outreach Activities
The Israeli Opera, with the generous assistance of private and public donors, devotes time, money and efforts in order to foster new audiences for opera and enlarge the awareness of opera in as many communities as possible around the country. 
The Opera's education program brings the magic of opera to school and kindergarten children of all ages all over Israel. Within these extended, at times year-round, interactive programs the children learn about the intricate world of opera on and off the stage and eventually attend productions at the Opera House. In average the Israeli Opera is involved with at least one educational/community, in or outside of the opera house, activity in each and every day of the year. In each Israeli Opera performance an average of 200 school children attend the performance.
Young audiences can also enjoy the Children Opera Hour at the foyer of the Opera House, a one hour opera weekly program for young children presented in piano accompanied fully staged productions with beautiful costumes (The Magic Flute, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Orfeo and Euridice, The Marriage of Figaro, The Snow Maiden and many others).
The annual open air park performance of the Israeli Opera has become a long awaited summer tradition with past successful productions of Rigoletto, Nabucco, Samson et Dalila, L'elisir d'amore, La traviata and Carmen. In July 2011 over 100,000 opera buffs are expected to attend the open air production of The Magic Flute. Admission for these park performances is free of charge.
The Israeli Opera's community productions enable an entire community in the periphery to take part in the year long preparations, construction of and the actual performance of an opera together with members of the Israeli Opera. In the past years the community production of L'elisir d'amore was presented in Kfar Shalem, Afula, Tiberias, Acco and also for the first time with a social community, that of handicapped people, as well as in Beit Shean. The new community production of Cinderella was already performed in Tirat Hacarmel and Sderot and future productions will take place in Kiryat Gat and Nahariya. In each community the stage is full with scores of local participants who become the opera stars of the moment.
The Opera Studio, the Israeli Opera's young artists program enables a select group of young Israeli opera singers to hone their craft and gain performance experience in order to prepare themselves for a career as opera singers.

Israeli Opera International Dance Series
The international dance series at the opera house features this season 10 dance companies from all over the world. Returning to the Opera House dance series are the Boris Eifman Ballet (Onegin and Don Quixote) and Momix (Botanica). Making their debut in the series are the Zurich Ballet, The Goteburg Ballet (The Sleeping Beauty and Bolero x 3), Cloud Gate from Taiwan, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Ballet Trockadero from Monte Carlo, Yasmin Vardimon (7734) and the Broadway success Forever Tango. The Project, the new initiative of the Israeli Opera and the Suzanne Dellal Centre of a repertory dance company performing works by leading contemporary choreographers, will present a new program within the dance series.

Israeli Opera Classical Music Series
The Israeli Opera presents several series of classical music with local orchestras and Israeli and international soloists, choirs and conductors. The popular Liturgical Series (with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and local and international soloists and choirs) will feature this coming season four programs including Mendelssohn's Walpurgis Nacht, Bloch's Sacred Service, Dvorak's Biblical Songs, Bach's Magnificat and Mozart's Great Mass. The Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, which regularly plays in Israeli Opera productions, continues with its Symphonic Series featuring the bread and butter of the classical symphonic repertoire led by its music director Dan Ettinger. Classic Rock features this season three programs with mostly young Israeli rock musicians (including Hadag Nahash) in symphonic concerts of their own hits. The Music of all Sorts series will bring the opera house international musicians such as Anonymous 4, Olli Mustonen and others. Two new series this season include a three concert Choral Series with the Israeli Opera Chorus and a romantic chamber music series hosted by Gil Shohat. And as usual there will be two series for young children, Children Opera Hour and Magical Sounds.

Israeli Opera International Jazz and World Music Series
The Israeli Opera Friday night Jazz Series features five concerts with leading international jazz artists. This season the series will feature, among others, pianists Kenny Baron, Stefano Bollani, Mirko Signorile, Omer Klein and Tony Pancella as well as guitarist Joshua Breakstone. The Friday night World Music series will feature internationally renowned performers such as Oumou Sangare (Mali), Ana Moura (Portugal) and Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares (Bulgaria).