Little Opera was founded by Aviv Ron, Musical Director of the Israeli Chamber Orchestra Ramat Gan, and the stage director Julia Pevzner. The first collaboration of Ron and Pevzner dates back to 2001 and the world premiere of Moshe Zorman’s chamber opera Inn of Spirits at the Tel Aviv Festival of Performing Arts. The goal of Little Opera is to offer high quality productions of chamber opera and musical theatre, despite the cultural budget constraints in Israel.
A diverse repertoire is an important part of Little Opera’s artistic credo.It embraces a wide repertoire ranging from baroque opera to contemporary pieces by Israeli as well as international composers.
Since its foundation in 2006, Little Opera produced Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, Telemann’s Pimpinone, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri performed along with Russian romances, Poulenc’s mono-opera The Human Voice, Menotti’s Telephone, Mozart’s Bastien and Bastienne and, in 2011, The Diary of One Who Disappeared by Leos Janacek in a new arrangement by the late Zeev Steinberg, premiered at the Voice of Music Festival at the Upper Galilee in Kefar Blum.
More recently, Little Opera staged Rita by Donizetti and Savitri by Gustav Holst. In autumn 2012, Little Opera took great pride in performing the world premiere of Tamar by Marc Lavry.
Little Opera will continue to widen its operatic repertoire as well as experiment with new exciting genres of musical theatre.
Little Opera places great importance on engaging new audiences. Therefore, the operas are either performed in their original language with surtitles in Hebrew or translated or sung in Hebrew.
Little Opera has collaborated with the Israeli Chamber Orchestra Ramat Gan, the Beer Sheva Sinfonietta and the Voice of Music at the Upper Galilee Festival. Little Opera is part of the Tamuz 98 Association of Cultural Activities and, since 2010, enjoys generous support of the Israeli Ministry of Culture.
Aviv Ron
Artistic Director / Conductor
Throughout his career, operas were and are a focal point of Ron’s interest and activities. Following his graduation at the Rubin Academy of Music(Tel Aviv University), Aviv did his postgraduate studies at the Wiener Musikhochschule in Vienna, where he founded the “Musiktheater Opus Modern”, an ensemble for staging contemporary operas. In spring 1992 he conducted the world premier of the opera “The Dying Man” (music by Sharon Eitan, text by Karl Kraus) and the Austrian premier of Wolfgang Fortner’s “That Time” (text by Samuel Beckett).
Aviv is honored to have had the privilege of assisting some of the world’s finest opera conductors including Maestro Claudio Abbado at “Le Nozze di Figaro” and “Don Giovanni” (Wiener Festwochen 1991) and of Sir George Solti at “Falstaff” (Salzburger Osterfestspiele 1993).
During the season 1994/95 Aviv Ron was invited by Maestro Gary Bertini to join the New Israeli Opera as Assistant Conductor and prepared more than 20 operas in their original versions. In 1997/98 he took over the position of Chorus Master at the New Israeli Opera, rehearsing among others the world premier of the “Requiem to a Leader”, in memory to Yitzhak Rabin, music by Dov Selzer, under Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
His ongoing engagement with living composers was honored in 2000 by the Cultural Minister, awarding Ron for conducting the world premiere of the opera “Dear Son of Mine” (music by Chaim Permont, libretto by Talma Elyagon), a co-production of the New Israeli Opera and Israel Festival. In winter 2000 Ron arranged and conducted a special version of “Carmen” for the New Israeli Opera.
Neta Amit Moreau
Stage Director
In Israel, Neta directed operas such as The Child and the Spells (Ravel) and The Fairy Queen (Purcell). She was also heading workshops on Dido Aeneas (Purcell), Hansel and Gretel (Humperdinck) and operas by Mozart. In co-operation with the “Panda Workshop”, Neta directs and works with children for children, staging pieces such as Peter and the Wolf (Prokofiev), The Carnival of the Animals (Saint Saens), The Yellow Submarine (The Beatles) and The Magic Flute (Mozart).
Neta works with the Israeli Opera and The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on educational programs for young listeners.
Neta’s co-operation with Little Opera started in 2013 directing Dr. Miracle (Bizet). In 2014, Neta directed Il Segreto di Susaana (Wolf Ferrari) at the Little Opera.
Ronit Segev
Ronit worked with the Israeli Opera for about ten years. After that and till now, Ronit works at the Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem. Beside her dozens of years’ experience with students and professional, she become a translator as well translating libretti to Hebrew.
Lately, she started writing articles for the Internet Magazine “Opus” about opera.
Sylvain Moreau
As a chansonnier and playing the guitar, he performs around Europe and Israel.
Sylvain also wrote “Alice”, a play that was performed in Paris.
As an actor, he performed at the Israeli Opera in different productions, such as Othello (Verdi), Don Carlos (Verdi), Luisa Miller (Verdi) and Tosca (Puccini). And behind the scenes, he works as a stage and light technician with different dance, theater and music productions.
For “Little Opera” he combined his skills and was responsible for designing and producing the set of “Il Segreto di Susana” and acting the mute roll of “Sante”.
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