User:Scottandrewhutchins/bro

The Brooklyn Repertory Opera is a Park Slope, Brooklyn-based opera company founded in 2005 by artistic director Kathleen Keske and executive director Brett Wynkoop, a married couple. The company formed when composer/librettist Susan Stoderl called Keske and told her that the part of Senza Bliss in her new opera, A.F.R.A.I.D., based upon the life of Fanny Fern, had been written expressly for her. The opera production competed in the New York International Fringe Festival.

The opera was performed in a former bathhouse known as the Brooklyn Lyceum, Tuesday evenings at 7:30 in an unlimited run. The show closed in early 2007, when Stoderl was ready to take the work elsewhere. Beginning in June of 2007, the company began performing public domain works from the standard repertoire: Così fan tutte, Fidelio, Cavalleria rusticana, Hänsel und Gretel, and The Marriage of Figaro, all in English translations for the purpose of increasing ticket sales. La clemenza di Tito was considered until there was a conflict with the basset horn player who suggested it to begin with.

The group works with the Astoria, New York-based orchestra, Hellgate Harmonie. The music director is Stephen Francis Vasta. The chorus master is Conrad Chu. Beginning with the production of Hänsel und Gretel, the company added a dance mistress, Mary Silverstein, a member of the vocal chorus for several previous productions. In addition, the conductors Yoon Jae Lee and Roger Malouf have worked with the company.

Among the stock company of performers who have performed multiple times with the company are Kathleen Keske, Francis Liska, Pamela Scanlon, Jay Gould, Marcella Caprario, Tamara Cashour, Barret Cobb, Mary Jane Dingledy, Elizabeth Eiel, Ivy Frenkel, Courtenay Schowalter, Allison Atteberry, Shannon Elizabeth Hunt, Jocelyne O'Toole, Matthew Yohn, Eric Jorgenson, Jonathan Ichikawa, Ilberto Lagana, Dwight Hill, Scott Andrew Hutchins, and Jason Kim.

A skilled cartoonist, Francis Liska draws the advertising artwork for the company.

Beginning in Fall 2008, conflict with the owner of the Brooklyn Lyceum led the company to establish quarters elsewhere in Park Slope.