About Us Mission Statement Millennial Arts Productions (“MAP”) is an operation of Millennial Arts, Inc., a New York not-for-profit corporation, created by producer/writer Paula Heil Fisher and director Eric Fraad in 1992. The company was founded to create and present unique works for the stage and is known today for its innovative productions of classical operas, oratorios, ballets, song cycles and dramas and, of late, classical music-related films. The productions have featured iconoclastic contemporary interpretations, sophisticated and spectacular design, the blending of classical and popular imagery, and the combining of art forms. The result has been a highly entertaining and uplifting experience for all audiences; the child, the opera-goer, the teenager, the balletomane, and especially those who are searching for a strong shot of something new. MAP’s productions have included Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, Handel’s Messiah, staged as a full-length opera, cast with all soloists, and a dramatic presentation with orchestra of Esther, combining the music of Handel and the poetry of Racine, performed at the Angel Orensanz Center for the Arts, a 160 year old synagogue on New York’s Lower East Side. Map’s original opera premieres included La Fete d’Atreus (French Baroque), The Birth of Opera: Venice 1600-New York 2000, La Contessa del Canto, e delle Lagrime: Barbara Strozzi (premiered at Yale University), and La Caccia al l’Amore (The Hunt for Love), an equestrian themed opera which premiered at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida. Millennial Arts Productions produced two intertwined film projects about the performances by American star tenor Neil Shicoff in the role of Eléazar in La Juive, a 19th century French opera by Frommental Hàlevy. The first of these projects is an original music video/film short performed by Kammersänger Shicoff with members of the New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Kohn and directed by the legendary filmmaker Sidney Lumet. The second project, entitled “Finding Eléazar” is a full-length documentary that traces the life and artistic career of Neil Shicoff in his journey to perform Hàlevy’s extraordinary lead character Eléazar. The World Premiere of this film took place during the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival and went on to acclaimed screenings at the Montreal World Film Festival, the Boston Haifa International Film Festival, the Savannah Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Film Festival and La Fenice, Venice.