Arts & Entertainment Staff photos by Angie Baan Bernard Uzan and David DiChiera collaborated for eight years on the creation of Cyrano. Tandem At The Opera Composer David DiChiera teams up with director-librettist Bernard Uzan on Cyrano. Bill Carroll Special to the Jewish News M ore international recognition is in store for Detroit with the world premiere Oct. 13 at the Detroit Opera House of a musical rarity: a new opera. Most operas are at least more than a century old and have been per- formed many times, so it's refreshing for a new one to be created in the 21st century and have its international premiere in the heart of downtown. Cyrano, based on Edmond Rostand's 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac, has been turned into a full-scale romantic opera by David DiChiera, founder and general director of Detroit's Michigan Opera Theatre, and Bernard Uzan, a Franco- Tunisian Jew now based in the U.S., who began his career as an actor and teacher and has evolved into an internationally known opera director. For the past eight years, DiChiera and Uzan have been practically joined at the hip — either in person or by phone, fax and e-mail — collaborating on Cyrano. The production is DiChiera's debut as an opera composer (his other works include a concerto, two song cycles, a children's opera and other chamber and choral works) and Uzan's first libretto after directing 225 operas worldwide. It's a reunion of two longtime friends and col- leagues who met in 1983 when DiChiera asked Uzan to direct Faust for MOT. More than 20 additional MOT directorial assignments have followed. After the premiere on Oct. 13, Cyrano, sung in French with English surtitles, will have four more performances through Oct. 28. Next year, the Philadelphia Opera and Florida Grand Opera will stage Cyrano. MOT has been hyping the upcoming opera with a month's worth of special events: a Cyrano film series, French wine and food tastings, a sneak peak at the costumes and exclusive previews with the creative team. The World Premiere Festival Weekend includes the annual black-tie opera ball at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12, in the Festival Tent next to the Detroit Opera House; a 9:30 p.m. black-tie gala supper in the tent following the 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, opening-night performance; and a brunch in the tent with Cyrano artists fol- lowed by a question-and-answer session noon Sunday, Oct. 14. For 37 years, DiChiera, 72, has been producing opera and other musical pro- ductions. The founder of Michigan Opera Theatre, he saw his dream of a Detroit Opera House fulfilled in 1996, when he headed up the creation of a world-class opera venue in an extensively renovated 1922 movie palace. A fund-raiser extraordinaire, he raised almost $70 million to create the opera house, including its renovation, a parking structure and the new Ford Center for Arts and Learning addition. MOT is one of the few opera companies in the U.S. to own its own opera house. DiChiera and the MOT board raised more than $1.5 million to fund Cyrano alone, with Ford Motor Co. donating another $1 million for MOT's fall opera season that includes The Marriage of Figaro in November. Uzan, 62, fled anti-Semitism in Tunisia and Paris and came to America in 1972, performing many acting roles over the years. He was the driving force behind Cyrano. "I always wanted to compose an opera but never found the right subject or had the time says DiChiera, who holds a master's degree in composition and a doctorate in musicology from UCLA. "Bernard approached me with the idea of setting Cyrano. He was very infused with the work and really sparked my partici- pation. I resisted at first, but he wore me down. It was a given he would write the Cyrano on page 52 October 4 2007 49