On October 8, join us for a joyous, musical homage to Norwegian immigration to the United States! “North Star Rising: New York Opera Society (NYOS) and Opera Nordfjord celebrate Crossings 200” explores two centuries of rich transnational exchange through musical selections that honor the past while looking forward to imagine the future.
In tonight’s program, ASF Fellow Alisa Jordheim and NYOS return to Scandinavia House to present Norwegian art songs and excerpts of an acclaimed new musical by NYOS’ Norwegian composer-librettist duo Gisle Kverndokk and Øystein Wiik. They will be joined by tenor Allan Palacios Chan, repetiteur Jason Wirth, and narrated by Øystein Wiik.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ALISA JORDHEIM, SOPRANO
Described as “vocally resplendent,” “powerful,” and possessing “impeccable coloratura” (San Francisco Chronicle), soprano Alisa Jordheim made several exciting role debuts in the 2024-2025 season, including Violetta in La Traviata (Opera Western Reserve), Adina in L’elisir d’amore (New Philharmonic), La fée in Cendrillon (Opera Orlando), Daria/Prima Donna in Viva la Mamma (Florentine Opera), and the Young Girl in Cipullo’s After Life (Music of Remembrance) in Seattle and San Francisco, in addition to covering Oscar in Un ballo in maschera and Janine/Ofwarren in The Handmaid’s Tale at San Francisco Opera. On the concert stage, she sang further performances of Carmina Burana with the Pacific Symphony and Evansville Philharmonic, holiday concerts with San Diego Opera and the Spreckels Organ Society, and an “Iconic Broadway” concert with the Northwest Indiana Symphony.
Other recent engagements include: Gilda in Rigoletto (San Diego Opera, Central City Opera, Pacific Symphony, Amarillo Opera), Adele in Die Fledermaus (Central City Opera), Musetta in La bohème (Pacific Symphony), Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro (Virginia Opera), Despina in Così fan tutte (San Diego Opera), Ninetta in La gazza ladra at Lincoln Center (Teatro Nuovo), Cunégonde in Candide (Palm Beach Opera), Erster Knappe in Parsifal (Opéra national de Paris), Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia (Boston Midsummer Opera), Erste Zofe in Der Zwerg (George Enescu Festival), Clotilde in Maria, regina d’Inghilterra (Odyssey Opera), Lola in the world premiere and recording of Sister Carrie (Florentine Opera), Constance in Dialogues des Carmélites (Caramoor International Music Festival), Mozart’s Requiem (Ensemble Pygmalion at the Château de Versailles, Baltimore Symphony), Torke’s Book of Proverbs (Grant Park Music Festival), Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Prangcharoen’s Endless Tears (Thailand Philharmonic), Ein deutsches Requiem (Las Vegas Philharmonic), Exsultate, jubilate and Messiah (Milwaukee Symphony), a solo concert at the Voces8 Foundation in London, and works by Gershwin and Rachmaninoff with the Bochumer Symphoniker.
Ms. Jordheim is an alumna of the Merola Opera Program, Central City Opera Young Artist Program, Florentine Opera Studio, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she earned her Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in vocal performance with a doctoral cognate in Scandinavian song and diction. She has won awards from The Sullivan Foundation, Metropolitan Opera National Council, George London Foundation, and the Fulbright Foundation and American-Scandinavian Foundation to study Scandinavian song and diction in Norway.
ØYSTEIN WIIK
Øystein Wiik (1956) is a Norwegian actor, singer, author and playwright. A musical theatre performer he has starred in several musicals in Norway, Austria, Germany and England. He starred as Jean Valjean in the original production of Les Miserables in Oslo, Vienna and London’s West End. He is also a very successful author and has written 11crime novels, film scripts and book and lyrics for a wide range of musicals and operas.
GISLE KVERNDOKK
Gisle Kverndokk (1967) is a Norwegian composer, conductor and musician. His work list includes operas, musicals, symphonic works, chamber, church- and film music. His opera Upon this Handful of Earth was premiered at the St. Ignatius Church in New York City, 2017. His children’s opera Purriot was a great hit at The Norwegian National Opera in the 2018 season, and his opera The Forth Watch of the Night has been produced several times at The Norwegian National Opera and at The Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland, in 2012.His musical Letters from Ruth, produced by Musical Frühling in Gmunden, Austria, won several awards at the German Musical Theatre Awards 2023, including Best Composition and Best Musical. His album Symphonic Dances. recorded by The Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2020.
Øystein Wiik and Gisle Kverndokk have written 14 musicals and operas together, that have been performed on stages in Germany, Austria, Norway and the USA. Their first musical Sophie’s World was hailed as “Musical of the Year” in the German magazine Musicals in 1998. Martin L. was nominated for The Nordic Council’s Music Prize in 2008, and Around the World in 80 days won numerous awards at the German and Austrian Musical Theatre Awards in 2017, among them “Best Musical” at both places.
JASON WIRTH, PIANIST
“One of the finest collaborative pianists I have heard” as well as “an impressive musician in his own right” (New York Concert Review), Jason Wirth “spun a gossamer web of unusual sounds on the piano” (The New York Times) in appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, in addition to solos with the Moscow Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a collaborator, Jason has performed with many major opera stars such as Eric Owens, Angel Blue, and drag superstar Monet X Change. Jason’s recording of Poulenc’s The Story of Babar with film star Michael Douglas has been released on Naxos, and he worked as a pianist and coach for the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, Arizona Opera, Sante Fe Opera and the American Ballet Theatre, as well as holding the Chair of the Collaborative Piano at Wintergreen Music Festival. As a music director he has led shows with New Camerata Opera, Lighthouse Opera (Verdi’s Rigoletto and Floyd’s Susannah), and the Modern Opera Company, of which he is a co-founder (Menotti’s The Medium and Amahl and the Night Visitors, Sondheim’s Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd and Weill’s Street Scene).
ALLAN PALACIOS CHAN, TENOR
Hailed by Opera News as a “clarion high tenor” and by Seen and Heard International as a “standout performer…bringing musicality plus an attractive and flexible leggiero sound,” Philippine-born American tenor Allan Palacios Chan is known for his stylistic versatility and deep connection with audiences.
A graduate magna cum laude of both George Mason University (BA, Music with Theater minor) and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (MM, Vocal Performance), Allan was a Corbett Foundation Young Artist with Cincinnati Opera for four seasons and a two-time Voice Fellow at the Music Academy of the West, where he appeared in the West Coast premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Second Nature.
His performance credits include his debut with Tacoma Opera as Sing Lee in the world premiere of Tacoma Method; the role of Achille in NYOS’s Babette’s Feast; Guang in Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis’ Stuck Elevator with Knoxville Opera; tenor solos in the world premiere of Paul Leavitt’s Stabat Mater; concerts at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Cape Cod with the New York Opera Society; and guest appearances with the award-winning Philippine Madrigal Singers on their first U.S. tour since the pandemic.
ABOUT THE NEW YORK OPERA SOCIETY
The New York Opera Society (NYOS) develops new audiences for opera by commissioning, creating, and funding exemplary productions. To that end, NYOS serves as a conduit to the public by disseminating important messages, musical inspiration, and seminal artistic performances via partnerships with major performance venues, corporations, nonprofits and governments to present the work of our artists. In its most recent season, NYOS co-produced the world premiere of Letters from Ruth by Gisle Kverndokk and Aksel-Otto Bull with Musical Fruehling Gmunden), winning 4 major prizes from the German Musical Theater Academy in 2024 for Best Composer, Best Production of a Musical, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Additionally, NYOS has comssioned and produced the world premiere of Upon this Handful of Earth with Sacred Music in a Sacred Space in NYC and a highly lauded staged reading of Letters from Ruth at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; both works by Gisle Kverndokk and Aksel-Otto Bull. NYOS has also commissioned the first operatic version of Tres Sombreros de Copa (Three Top Hats) by Ricardo Llorca which premiered in Brazil and had its Spanish premiere at Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid in November 2019. Previously, NYOS has co-produced the Teatro Real/Madrid premiere and Lincoln Center premiere of its contemporary Spanish opera, Las Horas Vacias, by Guggenheim fellow and Juilliard faculty member Ricardo Llorca; three tours and world premieres of NYOS’ commissions from Gisle Kverndokk’s and Wiik’s Max & Moritz: A Cartoon Opera in Seven Pranks and Supersize Girl. Other notable NYOS evenings have taken place at the National Gallery of Art, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Embassy of Italy, New York’s World Financial Center, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, and the United Nations. Audiences have included the Royal Couple of Norway, the Undersecretary of Defense in Washington, D.C., Queen Sofia of Spain (at a gala in her honor), Barbara Walters, Stanley Tucci/Martin Scorsese (at a gala in their honor), and nearly every European and South American Consulate. NYOS has been favorably featured in The Washington Post, on PBS, in a feature article in The Wall Street Journal, and Opera News. NYOS is led by Executive Director Jennifer Cho and a dedicated Board of Directors chaired by philanthropist, Lesley Silvester.