December 01, 2006 -

OTTAWA -- Patrick Summers, Music Director of the Houston Grand Opera, will conduct the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) at the tenth annual Black & White Opera Soiree on February 17 at 20:00 in Southam Hall of the National Arts Centre. He replaces Jack Everly, NACO Principal Pops Conductor. Themed Heroes and Heroines of the Stage, the Black & White Opera Soiree is a feast of memorable music, featuring glorious arias, duets, and choruses from centuries of opera repertoire -- performed by some of the most gorgeous voices and best musicians in the business.

Music Director of the Houston Grand Opera for the past six years, Patrick Summers has overseen the expansion and growth of the HGO Orchestra as well as appearing in major opera houses worldwide. He is best known for his extensive operatic experience, particularly his formidable grasp of diverse repertoire -- from period performances of Baroque, to bel canto, to grand opera of the late romantic period, to contemporary American works. A musicologist and teacher, Mr. Summers was music director of the San Francisco Opera Center from 1989 to 1994, and was closely associated with the company for nearly twenty years. Mr. Summers made his Metropolitan Opera debut in December 1998.

International superstar Harry Belafonte hosts this glamorous evening, and headliners include superb soprano Measha Bruegergosman and brilliant baritone Gaetan Laperriere. Chorus Master Laurence Ewashko returns to conduct the versatile Opera Lyra Ottawa Chorus. In March 2005, Patrick Summers conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra, as well as Measha Brueggergosman and tenor Richard Margison, in a sumptuous concert programme of Verdi and Beethoven arias and love duets.

The Black & White Opera Soiree is presented by Bell Canada, in association with Enbridge Gas Distribution and Casino du Lac-Leamy. Special thanks to the Trico Group, Biddle McGillvray Advertising, the Ottawa Citizen, Le Droit, CBC, Radio-Canada Television, and Couleur 97.1 FM.

The Black & White Opera Soiree is an annual winter benefit for the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Opera Lyra Ottawa, featuring some of the most glorious arias and duets of the opera repertoire. Accessible and entertaining, the evening is a tantalising mix of fine food, high fashion, and some of the most beautiful music ever written.

The Black & White Opera Soiree proudly showcases Canadian talent, with proceeds divided equally between the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Opera Lyra Ottawa. Since its inception in 1998, the Soiree has contributed more than $1.8 million to help foster Canada’s next generation of talented musical artists through training, mentoring, and showcasing.

The Black & White Opera Soiree takes place on Saturday, February 17, 2007 at the National Arts Centre.

Soiree tickets at $275 (which includes a cocktail reception, dinner, concert, and a post-concert party with the stars) and Concert-plus tickets at $175 (which includes the concert and post-concert party) are SOLD OUT.

Concert-only tickets are $75, $65, and $50.

Tickets are available at the NAC box office and the Opera Lyra Ottawa box office (in person) and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at (613) 755-1111; Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC’s web-site at www.nac-cna.ca. For more information on the event please visit the websites of the NAC or Opera Lyra Ottawa www.operalyra.ca.

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Information:
Gerald Morris, National Arts Centre
(613) 947-7000, x249
gmorris@nac-cna.ca

Karl Balisch, Opera Lyra Ottawa
(613) 233-9200, x229
marketing@operalyra.ca

PATRICK SUMMERS, Music Director of the Houston Grand Opera, appears in major opera houses worldwide. He is best known for his extensive operatic experience, particularly his formidable grasp of diverse repertoire, from period performances of Baroque, to bel canto, to grand opera of the late romantic period, to contemporary American works.

Mr. Summers made his acclaimed Houston Grand Opera (HGO) debut in 1998, conducting Verdi’s La Traviata with Patricia Racette. Since then he has led some twenty HGO productions, among them several world premieres, including Tod Machover’s Resurrection in 1999 (CD released by Albany, 2002), Carlisle Floyd’s Cold Sassy Tree in 2000, Jake Heggie’s The End of the Affair (both recorded for future CD release), and Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince.

In the 2004-2005 season, Mr. Summers’s productions in Houston included Puccini's Madama Butterfly, with Patricia Racette, Idomeneo with Susan Graham, Il Trovatore with Marcello Giordani, Falstaff with Bryn Terfel, and Houston Grand Opera's 50th Anniversary Gala Concert in April 2005. Last season Mr. Summers conducted HGO’s productions of Giulio Cesare starring David Daniels, Jake Heggie’s The End of the Affair, The Barber of Seville and Turandot. In the summer of 2004, Summers made his Cincinnati Opera debut leading the American premiere of Peter Bengsston’s The Maids, in a double bill with Nic Muni’s new production of The Emperor of Atlantis.

Mr. Summers began the 2004-05 Season at the San Francisco Opera, conducting Verdi’s La Traviata with Ruth Ann Swenson and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. In December he made his debut with the Oslo Philharmonic in a program of Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony and Saint-Saens’s 3rd Symphony. Later this season he will guest conduct symphonic programs with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. In summer 2005, he returns to Opera Australia, a company with which he has had a longtime association, to conduct a new production of Nabucco.

Mr. Summers assisted in the creation of André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire, based on the Tennessee Williams play, and shared conducting duties with the composer during the opera’s 1998 world premiere in San Francisco. He also led Streetcar’s European premiere for the Opéra-National-du-Rhin (Strasbourg). He made his United Kingdom debut conducting the Welsh National Opera’s Rigoletto, which toured Wales and England. Elsewhere in Europe, Mr. Summers led the European premiere of Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men at the Bregenz Festival with the Vienna Symphony, for which he received international critical acclaim. The production went on to be mounted in Houston in 2002, and was released by Albany records in 2003.

In his five years with the Houston Grand Opera, Mr. Summers has overseen the expansion and growth of the HGO Orchestra. He has conducted leading international opera stars, including Renée Fleming’s first Violetta in La Traviata (2003), Ramón Vargas and Ana Maria Martinez (L'Elisir d'Amore, 2000), Nabucco with Sergei Leiferkus, Maria Guleghina, and Samuel Ramey (2000), Don Carlo with Ramon Vargas, Samuel Ramey, and Patricia Racette (2001), Rigoletto with Laura Claycomb and Dmitri Hvorostovsky (2001), The Merry Widow with Susan Graham and Bo Skovhus, and The Abduction from the Seraglio with Elizabeth Futral and Eric Cutler (2002).

Formerly Principal Guest Conductor of the San Francisco Opera, Mr. Summers has been closely associated with the company for nearly twenty years, conducting a vast repertoire ranging from his own realization of Monteverdi's L’Incoronazione di Poppea to performances of André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire. He led the acclaimed world premiere of Jake Heggie’s and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking (2000), released by Erato in 2002. Mr. Summers’s other operas at SFO have included Guillaume Tell, La Cenerentola, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Otello (Rossini), Norma, Die Fledermaus, Tosca, Rigoletto, La Traviata, Faust, Così fan tutte, L'Elisir d'amore, La fille du Régiment, and the American premiere of Rossini’s Ermione.

Mr. Summers made his Metropolitan Opera debut in December 1998 conducting Die Fledermaus and has returned to conduct the Metropolitan’s Millennium Gala (1999), Così Fan Tutte (2001), Lucia di Lammermoor with Ruth Ann Swenson in 2002, and the National Council Finals concert (2005). He returned in the 2005-06 season for La Traviata and Handel’s Rodelinda.

Mr. Summers’s growing discography includes the 2002 Grammy Award-winning recording ‘Bel Canto’ featuring soprano Renée Fleming, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He also led the recorded revivals of two of Houston Grand Opera’s world premieres: Mark Adamo’s Little Women (Ondine, 2001) and Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas (Albany, 2002). The revival of Little Women was broadcast nationally on PBS/WNET’s "Great Performances."

As Guest Conductor in other theatres, Mr. Summers has conducted such wide-ranging works as Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and La Bohème (Opera de Bordeaux), La Bohème (Seattle Opera), Lee Hoiby’s The Tempest (Dallas Opera), Aribert Reimann’s A Ghost Sonata (San Francisco Opera Center), and Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (Teatro San Carlos, Lisbon). Following his Opera Australia debut in 1994 with La Cenerentola, Mr. Summers has returned regularly to the Sydney Opera House, conducting Lucrezia Borgia, Werther, Iphigenie en Tauride (Melbourne), La Bohème, Rinaldo, Madama Butterfly, The Abduction from the Seraglio and The Pearl Fishers.

In addition to his work in the field of opera, Mr. Summers led the 1997 European concert tour of the English Chamber Orchestra with Russian vocal stars Olga Borodina and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, performing at Berlin’s Deutsche Oper, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Rotterdam’s de Doelen, and Paris’s Théâter des Champs-Élysées. The program was recorded and released on CD by Philips. Most recently, Mr. Summers debuted with three major American orchestras, in concerts with soprano Renée Fleming with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Symphony, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

A musicologist and teacher, Mr. Summers was music director of the San Francisco Opera Center from 1989 to 1994. He conducted Falstaff and The Bartered Bride for the Opera Center’s Merola Opera Program -- the foremost summer opera-training program in the United States -- as well as six Grand Finals concerts. As conductor of the Opera Center’s touring company, Western Opera Theater, Mr. Summers traveled across the United States and Canada, leading literally hundreds of performances of Madama Butterfly, Don Pasquale, La Bohème, Lucia di Lammermoor and Carmen. He led five opera tours of Asia and the Pacific, helped develop the Pacific Voices program for the San Francisco Opera Center, and conducted the first-ever Tosca produced in China. He has conducted, coached, and taught at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and throughout Japan.

The Indiana University graduate, named Stolichnaya’s Artist of the Year in 1998, has twice received the Otto Guth Award from the Merola Opera Program, and was also named its Distinguished Alumnus in 2001, a distinction he shares with Ruth Ann Swenson, Thomas Hampson, and Carol Vaness.