Cincinnati Opera Commemorates World War I

With libretto by Mark Campbell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera is based on the 2005 French film “Joyeux Noël.” It comes to Cincinnati Opera at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday at Music Hall, second production of the Opera’s 2014 summer festival.

 In two acts and a Prologue, “Silent Night” recounts the moment in 1914 (there were actually several up and down the front) when German, French and Scottish troops laid down their arms to observe the holiday in a spirit of brotherhood and peace. The cast of 15, all but two of them men, includes nine Cincinnati Opera debuts. Conducting will be David Charles Abell, with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the pit.

Tickets begin at $25. Call (513) 241-2742, or visit www.cincinnatiopera.org

In news of music and the arts:

Queen City Chamber Opera has made its 2014-2015 season announcement. Coming up in October will be act I of Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried,” third opera in Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (the company staged act I of “Die Walküre,” second of the “Ring” operas, in May). In March, the company will present Mozart’s “Abduction from the Seraglio.” Both productions will take place at the Arts Center at Dunham Theater, 1945 Dunham Way in Cincinnati. Times and dates are as follows:

“Siegfried,” act I, by Richard Wagner. 8 p.m. Oct. 24 and 3 p.m. Oct. 26.

“Abduction from the Seraglio” by Mozart. 8 p.m. March 13 and 3 p.m. March 15.

Tickets, $10-$30, are available at http://siegfried.brownpapertickets.com/ and http://abduction.brownpapertickets.com/

The Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra has named LeeAnne Anklan as acting general manager, effective July 1. The newly-created position is the CCO’s senior administrative post, with responsibility for the artistic administration, as well as orchestra operations and concert production. Anklan previously served as the CCO’s artistic and orchestra operations manager.

Ken Lam, former assistant conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, has been appointed music director of the Charleston (SC ) Symphony Orchestra. He will take the helm in Charleston in the fall of 2015. Lam, who also served as conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, has been named associate conductor for education and artistic director of the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestras, as well. Also in the news, Cincinnati Pops conductor John Morris Russell has extended his contract as music director of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina for four more years, effective through 2017-2018.

The Cincinnati Boychoir has commissioned a major choral-orchestral work for its 50^th anniversary season. “A Horizon Symphony” by Dominick diOrio will receive its world premiere on March 6, 2015, the first anniversary of the Boychoir’s first rehearsal in 1965.

The six-movement, 20 -minute work comprises poetry by Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane and an anonymous 12^th-century poet. DiOrio, assistant professor of choral conducting at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, conceived it in part as a companion piece to Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms,” which was written for the choir of men and boys at Chichester Cathedral in Sussex, England. It is scored for the same forces as Bernstein’s work, a choir of male trebles, altos, tenors and basses and a chamber orchestra including several percussionists, harps, brass and strings.

“Performing the ‘Chichester Psalms’ will allow us to look back exactly fifty years into our past,” said Boychoir artistic director Christopher Eanes. “DiOrio’s work will allow us to look forward to what is next; the texts are about adventure, about always seeking something more, something better, something more meaningful in our lives.”