MISSION STATEMENT

The purpose of the Mesopotamian Opera, Inc. is to further the teaching and employment, in live performance, of expressive performing arts techniques.  The goal is to create work, employment when possible, and contemporary context for the arts of dance, song, recitation and role playing, and all the attendant arts; stage design, music composition, choreography, lighting design, conducting, playing of musical instruments and directing.  This goal supports the infrastructure of teachers and coaches, university and college departments, that every year turn out aspiring talent in the field of live, expressive performing arts by laboring to provide another delivery platform for the many years of work and dedication represented in the lyric population.

Board of Directors  for The Mesopotamian Opera Company, Inc.

Peter Wing Healey, President

Dr. Michael Pearl, shoulder surgeon  

Edward David Miller, New York poet, Secretary

Maria Manhattan, New York artist

Karolyn Kiisel, designer, Chief Financial Officer

Daniel Chess, mathematician New York

Dinakar Ramakrishnan, former Chairman of Math Cal Tech

Dr. Larry McCready, in memoriam

Stanley Cranston, in memoriam

Russell Ellison, in memoriam

Bruce Wright, in memoriam

THE MESOPOTAMIAN OPERA COMPANY, INC.

Peter Wing Healey, Artistic Director

TO CONTACT THE MESOPOTAMIAN OPERA COMPANY, INC.  PLEASE EMAIL US AT

or send a letter to

gm

or mail us at

The Mesopotamian Opera Company, Inc

835 Moon Avenue

Los Angeles, CA  90065-4143

or winghealp@roadrunner.com

winghealp@gmail.com

Enter Text

Director

Peter Wing Healey, composer, writer, director, choreographer, and founder of The Mesopotamian Opera Company, Inc., attended Haverford College and The Boston Conservatory of Music.  

He began classical piano training at 6.  At 13 he sang professionally with Christ Church Cathedral Choir in Vancouver, B.C.  He continued his keyboard studies in Springfield, Mass. with Dorothy Guion, a protégé of Dame Myra Hess, and sang choral and operatic music under the direction of Alfredo Carbonell at Longmeadow Highschool.  He studied music theory in Salzburg on a summer trip.  At 18 he studied baroque keyboard with Agi Jambor, head of the Music Department at Bryn Mawr College, famous concert pianist and  student of Edwin Fischer.  In college he turned to dance.  In New York he studied with Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, David Howard, and Sara Sugihara.  He studied classical ballet with Janet Panetta, soloist at American Ballet Theater and protege of Margaret Craske, the great student of Maestro Ceccetti, who had trained Anna Pavlova.

Mr. Wing Healey danced professionally in New York City, from 1976 to 1996, with Daniel Lewis from the José Limón Dance Company, with Anna Sokolow, with Hannah Kahn, with Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians and with The Mark Morris Dance Group.  He performed all over the world.  He  danced as a soloist in Mark Morris's The Hard Nut at the Theatre Royale de la Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium, filmed for PBS's Great Performances. He worked as rehearsal director on The White Oak Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov and was balletmaster on the John Adams/Peter Sellars opera Nixon in China from its inception in 1987 at the Houston Grand Opera through re-stagings for the Los Angeles Opera, The English National Opera, The Greek National Opera and The Metropolitan Opera.

Mr. Wing Healey's original plays, operas and operettas have been performed in New York at P.S.122, The Judson Memorial Church, The Vineyard Theater, The Middle Collegiate Church, The P.S. 122, R.A.P.P. Arts Center,Middle Collegiate Church, H.E.R.E., The Greenwich House, and in Los Angeles at LATC, Highways, 2100 Square Feet, The Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, The Highland Park Ebell Club and The Whitmore-Lindley Theater Center. His play Thyestes's Feast was published in the online journal Papotage after winning their writer's competition and was later hailed by critics as "riveting", "interesting and potent theater".  His opera The Tree was awarded a $25,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation through The Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, Jenny Krusoe, director with significant additional support from the Department of Cultural Affairs of Los Angeles.  He has received support for his work from American Opera Projects, TWEED Productions,  The Howard Gilman Foundation, The Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, The Noah Wyle Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation.

COSTUME DESIGNER

Karolyn Kiisel is a Los Angeles based designer, author and fashion educator.  Her designs have been sold internationally, including to Barney’s New York and Bergdorf Goodman, and have been featured on the cover of Womens’ Wear Daily.  Her book, Draping, the Complete Course, published by Laurence King, London, is considered the authority on the subject and tapped her 20 plus years experience teaching at the prestigious Otis College of Art and Design.

She is currently working on her second book, Advanced Creative Draping which will focus on draping for couture, avant-garde, and costume design.

WE ACKNOWLEDGE

The artists, creators, performers, directors and volunteers of The Mesopotamian Opera acknowledge that their activities take place on the ancestral territory of the Tongva and Kizh Nation - Gabrieleño people and their neighbors: (from North to South) the Chumash, Tataviam, Kitanemuk, Serrano, Cahuilla, Payomkawichum, Acjachemen, Ipai-Tipai, Kumeyaay, and Quechan peoples, whose ancestors lived in the region we now call Southern California for at least 9,000 years.  We pay respects to the members and elders of these communities, past and present, who, where possible, remain stewards, caretakers, and advocates of these lands, river systems, and the waters and islands of the Santa Barbara Channel.