June 11, 2003
For Immediate Release
Contact: Tony Scafide, Generation Media
917 217-3584 or [log in to unmask]

CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY OPERA PREMIERES VERA OF LAS VEGAS A NIGHTMARE
CABARET OPERA IN ONE ACT BY COMPOSER DARON HAGEN AND LIBRETTIST PAUL
MULDOON

NEW YORK, NY (June 11, 2003)--- The Center for Contemporary Opera, under
the artistic direction of Richard Marshall will present the world
premiere of Vera of Las Vegas. The world premiere of what is now being
affectionately referred to as Vera, will open in the Leonard Nimoy
Thalia at Symphony Space (95th & Broadway) in New York City on June 26th
& 27th. Performance Times are 7:30PM & 9:30PM for both nights.

Musical Director for the production will be Robert Frankenberry, the
stage director is Charles Maryan and the choreographer is Bruce Heath.
Richard Marshall's production for Vera has drawn a great cast ranging
from accomplished opera and theater performers to fast-rising talent.
Shequida has been cast to star as Vera. This Juilliard-trained opera
singer has more to offer than an already impressive five-octave vocal
range. Shequida is witty, charming, a linguist, and a skilled dancer.
Michael Musto of the Village Voice said, "with that voice, Shequida
brings together the bourgeoisie and the unwashed masses in bravos."
Patricia Dell has been cast to star as Doll, Elem Eley will portray
Dumdum and Dillon McCartney has been cast as Taco.

At the leading edge of contemporary opera is where Daron Hagen makes his
stand. His conception and creation of Vera envelops the audience into
the opera. Hagen envisions the work staged in a cabaret or nightclub
setting, with at least some of the audience seated at small cocktail
tables. The orchestra is clad in formal evening wear and will be seated
onstage in typical big band formation, behind dance band-style music
stands, and with the drummer on a raised platform in the middle. The
conductor acts like a bandleader and is dressed accordingly. The action
of the opera takes place throughout the performing space - onstage, on
the raised platform in the middle, at tables in the audience, and on a
runway.

General admission tickets for Vera of Las Vegas @ $45 & student & senior
tickets @ $35 may be ordered with a credit card by calling Symphony
Space Box Office at (212)-864-5400. For more information, visit the
Center for Contemporary Opera online at http://www.conopera.org/.

Composer Daron Hagen describes his new opera thus; "Vera of Las Vegas
takes place in the lurid imagination of Taco, a man on the receiving end
of a brutal interrogation. He passes out, and the audience finds itself
in a Vegas cocktail lounge, where, for the next sixty minutes, they
witness the unraveling of his mind. Appropriately, the story has the
surreal, perhaps super-real logic of dreams: it is ostensibly about how
tow on-the-lam IRA volunteers, Taco and his best friend Dumdum, are set
up by a rogue INS agent named doll and her friend Vera, an
African-America transvestite lap-dancer, during a layover in Las Vegas."
For more information about Daron Hagen, please visit
http://www.daronhagen.com/index.html.

Librettist and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon remarks that,
"the story of Vera of Las Vegas is a story of the serendipitous. The
University of Nevada at Las Vegas wanted an opera, so we [Daron Hagen,
Paul Muldoon] made one that was, in some sense, site-specific. Little
did we think of how much fun it would be to tell Las Vegas taxi drivers
that we were in town purely and simply for the opera. It is, of course,
out of such accidents that works of art have so often been made, on the
stream of such coincidences that we're carried along."

Press passes and tickets are available upon request from Generation
Media. For more information on Vera of Las Vegas, The Center for
Contemporary Opera, Daron Hagen, Paul Muldoon or any cast members,
please contact Tony Scafide at 917 217-3584 / [log in to unmask]
or Richard Marshall at 212 758-2757 / [log in to unmask]; you may
also find more information on the CCO website at http://www.conopera.org.

Jeffrey James Arts Consulting
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.jamesarts.com