Lauren Flanigan Will Lease $3.6 Million Harlem Mansion For Music

Headmistress: Soprano Lauren Flanigan

"It's a throwback to a time when Harlem was still a rural village and not yet legally part of the city. An old clapboard house, widely considered to be the oldest single-family home still occupied in Harlem, has been sold for $3.6 million to a new owner who plans to turn it into a home and practice facility for struggling young musicians, the Daily News has learned. The famed wooden property, at 17 E. 128th St., dates back to 1864 and is one of the few surviving frame houses in the neighborhood. It was landmarked by the city in 1982. The new owner, San Francisco-based e-commerce executive Jack Stephenson, told the Daily News that he plans to lease the property to his friend, famed opera singer Lauren Flanagan [sic]. Flanagan will turn the house into a new location for Music & Mentoring House, a not-for-profit organization providing upscale affordable housing and mentoring to students studying in the arts.'She takes music students in a gives them room and board, feeds them, makes their beds and

The new Harlem location for Music & Mentoring House
 is in the center with the green stairs.

gives them instruction in music,' Stephenson said. 'There are boot camps and classes on how to get by in the business and she invites many famous friends like Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the musical Wicked to come talk to them.'....The stunning French Second Empire-style home has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, six working marble fireplaces and a country kitchen that leads outside into a garden. The house has remained the same, even as the neighborhood has grown and evolved around it and still has its original veranda, a pair of doudle-leaf Itlaianate doors, wood-framed windows and a sloping mansard roof." [Source] For an in-depth study of the past property owners, including Carol Adams who was once a famous member of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, click here. More photos of the house can be found after the jump.

Lauren Flanigan Discusses Legal Troubles in Opera News

"In September 2000, she was about to open in New York City Opera's Mark Lamos production of Roberto Devereux. It was a high-pressure engagement, since she was taking on the role in which Beverly Sills had triumphed at the company decades earlier. Just prior to the opening, she made headlines in New York City for being sued for nonpayment of commission by her former representative, Merle Hubbard, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. 'Part of the problem was I had so much trouble in '98 and '99. I was sued by my former agent. I legitimately owed him money — but not like 'thousands of dollars from ten years of service.' Typically what happens is that when a singer goes to another agent, the new agent and the old one work it out. It's a little-known part of contract law that you can't break a contract without paying out the value of the contract. The question was why would they do this, when it was about so little money? We're talking $4,500. I think they just really wanted to ruin my reputation. The lawyer fees drove the costs up so high that I couldn't pay anybody.' Merle Hubbard, the complainant, was joined in the case by Flanigan's former managers Robert Lombardo and Herbert Breslin. In an interview before his death, in August 2011, Hubbard offered his view of the situation. 'Lauren?' he asked facetiously. 'What court case? She declared bankruptcy and got away with it. I never got a cent. She owed me $28,000, and if you add in lawyers' fees and court case and blah blah blah, it came to close to $40,000. That was for completed contracts that she never paid for. I took [composer] Marvin David Levy to hear her, and he decided she should do Mourning Becomes Electra and talked Chicago Lyric into breaking a signed contract and giving it to Lauren, and she did it in Seattle and New York as well. That's just one. She'd pay occasionally and then send me letters saying, 'I don't want you to work for me anymore,' and then I'd call her up, and she said, 'Let's do this.' So she's schizoid on that subject. She's a dishonorable lady — and a fine artist.' Flanigan recalls the events that followed: 'The day of the [Devereux] opening, after begging Sills not to come that night, I was in the lawyer's office filing for bankruptcy. I had $400 to my name. The bankruptcy was supposed to stop everything. So City Opera could pay me. I went in front of the bankruptcy judge in November." [Source]

Catherine Malfitano's Daughter Premieres Opera Libretto

Lauren Flanigan, Thomas Pasatieri, Catherine
Malfitano, Daphne Malfitano and Chris Cooley.

"'My name is woman,' Magda Sorel says in Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera The Consul. In The Family Room, composed by Thomas Pasatieri with a libretto by Daphne Malfitano, the two main characters are billed only as Woman 1 and Woman 2. Their identities are even more erased those of Magda and her family as they too face brutal cold and imminent death. The Family Room has its own sensational premise that can be traced to real events. Its protagonists have been trapped in a windowless basement room, afraid—or maybe unable—to leave their captor. The opera’s private staged reading at the McCarter Theatre’s Berlind Theatre was the first collaboration between Opera New Jersey and American Opera Projects. The show opens this weekend and offered much to recommend it. Written for and sung compellingly by renowned sopranos Catherine Malfitano and Lauren Flanigan, the story’s central women are vividly, distinctly drawn, with relatable desires expressed eloquently in both words and music. The opera has many elements of mystery and room for audience interpretation. But, while trying not to give too much away, part of what makes The Family Room so intriguing is that desperation breeds creativity. As the women imagine future plans and share their memories, intoxicating melodies lull the characters and the listeners." [Source]

For ticket information about the performances on July 23 and 24, visit the Opera New Jersey website here.