You are reading

Queens Opera Theatre to debut at Flushing Town Hall Saturday

Flushing Town Hall

April 12, 2017 By Hannah Wulkan

A new Queens-based opera company will launch its first performance this weekend.

Queens Opera Theatre, the borough’s only opera company, will stage a free preview performance on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Flushing Town Hall at 135-37 Northern Boulevard to introduce the company to the public.

The performance will feature highlights from various operas including Bizet’s “Carmen,” Korngold’s “Die tote Stadt,” Puccini’s “Turandot” and Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman,” among others. The showcase will kick off the company’s first season, which was founded in an effort to make opera more accessible.

“We feel it is just as important to engage the current opera-loving community but also introduce and foster new audiences,” said Executive Director Brian Gill.

“So many think that art form is elitist, but we want to bring opera back to the people where it belongs,” added Artistic Director Maestro Andy Anderson.

Artistic Director Maestro Andy Anderson (left), Executive Director Brian Gill (right)

The two men, who have known each other and worked together for years, came up with the idea to launch an opera company in Queens in 2015. They realized that Queens was the only borough without its own opera company, and decided to start one to make high quality performances accessible to everyone.

In its first season, the company will stage a holiday production, and will also put on a full production sometime in the spring at the Flushing Town Hall, Gill said.

Moving forward, Gill and Anderson hope to also incorporate educational programming in to the company. Gill said that he hopes to potentially bring a rapper or poet to a class to do an impression of a classic aria, and then deconstruct it with children looking at various musical forms and using it to dive deeper into character development in the opera.

The performance this weekend is a chance to launch the company, and audience feedback will help shape its development moving forward.

“It’s really a chance to introduce ourselves and the company to the community,” Anderson said. “It’s really more of a town hall than a performance, because we want to start getting feedback and get people excited so they know we are here.”

For tickets click here.

email the author: news@queenspost.com
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Fall fun in western Queens: Your guide to the best seasonal events

Aug. 29, 2025 By Jessica Militello

With beach days and summer BBQs behind us, the start of September rings in the start of magnificent Fall foliage, Halloween and more fun activities that come with the start of Autumn, including a list of Fall events in the area. From apple picking to seasonal ciders and more, there is tons to explore in the community. From Mystic Markets to scary movie meet-ups and more, here is a list of Fall events you do not want to miss.

Fresh Meadows MS-13 gang associate sentenced to nearly a half-century in prison for murder of Corona teen in Kissena Park: Feds

An MS-13 gang associate from Fresh Meadows was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison on Tuesday, Aug. 26, for the 2018 slaying of a Corona teenager in Flushing’s Kissena Park.

Juan Amaya-Ramirez, 27, and his co-defendant Oscar Flores-Mejia, 25, from Elmhurst, who is also an associate of the transnational criminal organization, pleaded guilty to the murder of 17-year-old Andy Peralta in Brooklyn federal court last September.

AG’s office launches investigation into death of man run over by police officer in Flushing Meadows Corona Park

The New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI) has launched a probe into the death of a civilian on Saturday, Aug. 23, following a motor vehicle collision involving NYPD officers in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

At approximately 4:37 p.m., an NYPD officer from the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst was driving westbound in a marked police cruiser, a 2015 Ford Taurus, at around 10 miles per hour in front of the Queens Theater on United Nations Avenue South, across from the Unisphere, when the vehicle ran over a man who was allegedly lying face up on the roadway prior to the collision, police said.