From the Met - New York, NY (February 13, 2006) - In the first significant creative collaboration of its kind between Lincoln Center sister organizations, The Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater have joined forces on a groundbreaking opera commissioning program to foster the creation of new works to be produced at their respective theaters. The announcement of the Met/LCT Opera/Theater Commissions was made today by Peter Gelb, The Met's General Manager Elect, and Andre Bishop and Bernard Gersten, Artistic Director and Executive Producer, respectively, of Lincoln Center Theater (LCT). The program will provide renowned composers and playwrights/librettists with the financial and creative resources to create and develop new works for productions to be staged at The Met or Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater. The initial group of artists selected to take part in the Met/LCT Opera/Theater Commissions initiative includes Adam Guettel, Jake Heggie, Michael John LaChiusa, Wynton Marsalis, Rachel Portman and Nicholas Wright, Jeanine Tesori and Tony Kushner, Michael Torke and Craig Lucas, Rufus Wainwright, and Scott Wheeler. "The Opera/Theater Commissions program will provide the flexibility and support that contemporary opera urgently needs for the proper dramatic development of new works, too often missing from the standard commissioning process. It will widen the creative field to include gifted artists currently composing for serious musical theater and other musical forms," said Peter Gelb. "As Lincoln Center Theater continues its support of serious musical theater at a time when Broadway has turned increasingly to pop music, it is logical that The Met and LCT should join forces, since we believe that the thin border between opera and serious musical theater can easily be crossed. Pooling our creative resources, we will jointly foster new work as these artists create both grand and smaller-scale operas for the respective sizes of our theaters." Janos Gereben/SF www.sfcv.org [log in to unmask]