New Work . New Audiences

Explode all Expectations! These "opera-musicals" embrace an indigenous vernacular energy; they burst forth in our own American-ness; and they resonate with our own language. They enchant, challenge and inspire multigenerational audiences - our definition of family - they make us laugh, cry and acknowledge who we are. These are, in fact, the same ideas that inspired the beginnings of opera back in 1590; and they are what we re-capture in these new works by American composers and writers of today.

Family Opera Initiative is a company created to bring to a widely diverse audience the opera experience in the form of new, original American "opera-musicals" that are accessible but challenging, made by exciting, unexpected artists, who speak to this audience through the artistic media of opera: music, words, theater, and visuals, with subject matter that matters.

• to bring unexpected artists together to create original American operas with artistic integrity and depth, that will connect to multigenerational and non-standard audiences, especially preteens, teens and adults of all ages;
• to reach, engage and entertain a public not ordinarily predisposed to the notion of 'opera';
• to explode the notion that opera is old fashioned, a museum, an art form for the intelligentsia;
• to make indigenous American opera, with American themes, language and music - a modern day, ultra American singspiel - the "Opera-Musical";
• to create this work to a benchmark that will also engage and challenge seasoned opera and theater audiences;
• to present these "opera-musicals" both inside traditional theaters and opera houses, and outside in the community - in non-standard spaces, places and environments;
• to engage the community in the process and the performance of the piece to the greatest extent possible

"Strong, fresh and unabashed,"* Holby has directed world premieres of new operas by by many leading composers of our day, including Eve Beglarian, Kitty Brazelton, Richard Peaslee, Vincent Persichetti, Lisa Bielawa, Connie Beckley, Joan La Barbara, Phil Kline, Vivian Fine, and Eric Salzman; choreographed premieres by composers Leonard Bernstein, Gian Carlo Menotti, and Lou Reed, and directed and choreographed for companies across the country, including Lincoln Center Festival, Kennedy Center, The York Theater, Symphony Space (NYC), and the opera companies of Washington, Los Angeles, Anchorage, Wolftrap, La Scala, Philadelphia, Lake George, North Carolina, Memphis, Indianapolis, Toledo, and Houston.

Holby's primary mission lies in originating, collaborating on, and directing new American opera, which began with her originating role in Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's groundbreaking Einstein on the Beach. She is the founder of American Opera Projects, running that company as Executive Artistic Director from 1988-2001. Founding Founding Family Opera Initiative in 1994, Holby is currently collaborating with composer Kitty Brazelton and the late George Plimpton on FOI's fourth opera entitled Animal Tales. She is collaborating with composer Eve Beglarian on The Man in the Black Suit (based on the story by Stephen King) for which Holby is also co-librettist (Rockefeller Bellagio Fellow 2006); and directing premieres by Eric Salzman and John Cage.

Educated as an architect at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS, M.Arch), and opera direction at Houston Opera Studio, combined with her unique background in dance and choreography, Holby brings "her ferociously independent spirit to bear on her multifaceted work." *(The New York Times)

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