Teatro Nuovo (New York)

Teatro Nuovo was founded in 2017 to continue the work of Bel Canto at Caramoor after Crutchfield and the Caramoor Summer Music Festival (where he was Director of Opera from 1997 to 2017) parted ways following his desire to expand the scope and offerings of the program.[1]

Teatro Nuovo presented its inaugural Bel Canto Festival in The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College in July and August 2018, performing Rossini's Tancredi, Mayr's Medea in Corinto, and a second version of Tancredi featuring the eight alternative pieces Rossini composed after the premiere, which the company called Tancredi rifatto. Like its predecessor, the program is accompanied by a multi-week training program for young singers, with a cohort of Resident Artists and Studio Artists led by a faculty that includes Crutchfield, Rachelle Jonck, Marguerite Krull, and Marco Nisticò. In its first season, several of the leading roles were sung by program members, joining guest soloists Jennifer Rowley, a Bel Canto at Caramoor alum; Tamara Mumford; Amanda Woodbury; and Santiago Ballerini.

In contrast to the Caramoor seasons, which were accompanied by the festival's resident Orchestra of St. Luke's, Teatro Nuovo formed a new 48-member orchestra playing on period instruments, seated according to the layout used at the Teatro di San Carlo of Naples in 1816, and revived the historical practice of performing without a conductor. Instead, leadership was divided between the concertmaster (Jakob Lehmann) and keyboard player (Crutchfield for Tancredi, Jonathan Brandani for Medea). On its website the company claims that this procedure has the effect of making the orchestra "a participating and listening ensemble, rather than an instrument to be played upon by a conductor."[2]

Critical reaction to the new venture emphasized the orchestral innovations. The critic of The Wall Street Journal wrote that "the effect was transformative,"[3] and the Financial Times headlined its review, "this is how it should be done."[4]

Teatro Nuovo boasts expanded offerings in its second season: Vincenzo Bellini's La straniera, Rossini's La gazza ladra, and a concert pairing Rossini's Stabat Mater with Gaetano Donizetti's Symphony in E Minor. Performances in the second season again take place at The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, but also within New York City at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall and the Church of Heavenly Rest. The critically acclaimed period-instrument orchestra returns.[5]