Commission solicitation

NCFO 2012 Family Opera Proposal Competition

 

Thanks to the many composers and librettists who submitted works for consideration. The competition was won by Paul Phillips and Bill Harley for their proposed opera, Weedpatch, based loosely on on historical accounts of Oklahomans who immigrated to California’s Central Valley in the 1930s.

NCFO is a non-profit, community-based organization that since 1999 has produced outstanding new operas for audiences of all ages, sung by large casts of adults, children and teens from the community, most with little or no vocal training. Our operas span a wide range of popular and classical styles, and, ideally:

  • are entirely sung, with little or no spoken narration or dialog;
  • are between 60 and 100 minutes long, with one intermission;
  • are based on stories that both children and adults are likely to be interested in;
  • are musically sophisticated enough to appeal to adults, while still accessible to children;
  • have many (30 or more) solo roles, ranging in difficulty from easy to hard, principal roles to cameos;
  • have roles that can be played by men, women, boys and girls (we usually have twice as many children as adults, twice as many girls as boys);
  • contain a substantial part for one or more choruses, including at least one mixed chorus (i.e., including both treble and changed voices); and
  • require few, if any, trained singers, as our cast of adults and children is drawn from the community.

For examples of what we’re looking for, check out our past performances of:

Please contact us if you have written, or know of an opera or entirely sung musical that meets most or all of the above criteria.