Verdi, no less, called it “the greatest opera buffa ever written.” The public has agreed for nearly two centuries, and Caramoor now offered a new look at the beloved “Barber” in the much-anticipated critical edition by the renowned Philip Gossett. Il Barbiere was performed with Rossini's original orchestration - lighter and more sparkling than the version usually performed - and with the brilliantly florid vocal style reconstructed from performing documents of the composer's day. Like Caramoor's recent revivals of La Sonnambula, Tancredi, and others, it promised to be a completely fresh take on a well-known masterpiece.
This production was semi-staged and sung in Italian with English super titles.
Pre-Opera Events: Saturday, July 12 Spanish Courtyard
Free for Opera ticket holders.
3:30pm Edition and Tradition
Il barbiere di Siviglia has the distinction of being the oldest opera from the Italian repertory that has remained in that repertory without a break. That means it also has the longest accumulated set of performing traditions. Philip Gossett and Will Crutchfield discussed the transformations Il barbiere has undergone in its nearly two centuries of existence and the differences a new edition can make. Members of the Caramoor Bel Canto Young Artists illustrated with alternative arias and versions from Rossini's pen.
4:30pm The Great Garcias
The star of the first Barbiere was its tenor, Manuel Garcia (the opera was actually called Almaviva on its opening night). His son, Manuel Jr., was America's first Figaro (and the inventor of the laryngoscope). His daughters, Maria and Paolina (Pauline), became celebrated prima donnas under their married names of Malibran and Viardot, and both of them kept Rosina as a star part. And they composed too! The Caramoor Bel Canto Young Artists with Rachelle Jonck performed a program of music written by and for this extraordinary family.
5:30pm dinner break
7:00pm Philip Gossett introduces Il barbiere di Siviglia
Philip Gossett is the world's pre-eminent scholar of Italian opera. He is the General Editor of the critical editions of both Rossini and Verdi, the author of Divas and Scholars, and the recipient of innumerable awards and prizes.
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ABOUT IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA
Gioachino Rossini
1792-1868
Verdi said it best, and, as so often, said it all: “I nevertheless believe that Il barbiere, for its abundance of real musical ideas, for comic verve, and for truth of declamation, is the most beautiful opera buffa in existence.”
Verdi, at 85, was modestly dissenting from Camille Bellaigue’s assertion in print that Falstaff was the greatest of Italian comic operas. And with all respect for Falstaff (which I love as much as it is possible to love a musical work), Il barbiere di Siviglia has proved its case in the only court whose authority Verdi would have recognized, that of the box office. In the performance statistics of opera houses all over the world, The Barber of Seville surpasses, often by surprising margins, all other comic operas of whatever nationality. It is a classic, and has suffered every indignity a classic can suffer except for that of neglect.
More about the indignities in a moment. On another occasion, Verdi made his admiration a shade more specific. He was grumbling about the tendency to break things down analytically: “Melody, harmony, declamation, ornamental line, orchestral effects, local color – these are only tools. Make some good music with them, and I will allow anything and all the categories. For example, in Il Barbiere the phrase “Signor, giudizio per carità”, this is neither melody nor harmony; it is the word declaimed, exact, true and musical: Amen.”
There is something here about hitting the nail on the head, or getting to the heart of the matter, or whatever other cliché one might dredge up to describe the simple rightness of a work that achieves all its aims with effortless precision. The Barber does that, and the world has said “Amen” for nearly two centuries. What other composer has taken out such a patent on the first three notes of the major scale (the same pattern as “Three Blind Mice”)? If there is one operatic phrase known both inside and outside the theater, it is “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro!” It is shorthand for “opera” in popular imagination, just as the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth is shorthand for “classical music.”
This fortunate child came into the world on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. The premiere has gone down in history as a disaster: stage mishaps, mistuned guitars, an audience faction loyal to the earlier Barbiere of Giovanni Paisiello, hisses and catcalls. We hardly hold it against Geltrude Giorgi-Righetti (the first Rosina, who wrote a memoir of the event) that she couldn’t resist making a good story better; other evidence, such as Rossini’s letters home, suggests a more equivocal outcome. But the idea that this, of all operas, flopped on opening night appeals to universal hopes for justice and vindication, because from the second night onwards it succeeded as practically no other had done before. Il barbiere has the distinction of being the very first opera by an Italian composer to hold its place in the repertory of all opera-giving nations uninterruptedly, from the time of its introduction to the present.
It is all the more remarkable that it should have done so without the benefit of what might be considered some of its essential features, because what Rossini presented in that first run of performances has only rarely been presented since. On the occasion of performing a brand-new edition of Il barbiere, it’s worthwhile to introduce the opera partly in terms of the aspects that are still unfamiliar to most operagoers.
To start with, Rossini and his librettist (Cesare Sterbini) embraced the subtitle of the Beaumarchais comedy on which the opera is based: “The Useless Precaution.” Specifically, this precaution is Doctor Bartolo’s removal of the ladder by which Figaro and the Count Almaviva intend to spirit his ward Rosina (and her dowry) out of his house. The result: the notary Bartolo had summoned to marry Rosina to himself instead witnesses her marriage to the Count. More generally, the “useless precaution” is that staple of Enlightenment comedy, the futility of the efforts of the older generation to stand in the way of young love.
Sport is made with this idea throughout: Rosina, in her very first scene, pretends that the letter she is trying to pass to her unknown admirer is an aria from a new opera called “The Useless Precaution,” which gives old Bartolo a chance to grouch about the tasteless music young people like nowadays (think of hip-hop). In the music-lesson of the second act, she actually sings the aria, and sure enough its text carries the motto of the story: “Against a heart inflamed by love, tyrannical power arms itself in vain.” References to the “Useless Precaution” are dotted throughout the dialogue, right up to the final scene. But for most of the Barber’s stage history, all of this was cut out (except the very last reference, which can hardly have made sense without the rest), and Rosina in her lesson scene sang whatever aria except Rossini’s that might strike her fancy.
Then there is the question of the tenor role. Manuel Garcia was the starriest singer in the opening night cast, paid considerably more for singing it than Rossini for writing it. Rossini admired him tremendously, worked with him often, and not only built the opera around his participation but named it after him: Almaviva was the title in Rome, and the opera became Il barbiere di Siviglia only on the occasion of the first non-Garcia revival. This is not just a curiosity. The opera as composed is framed by the character of the Count. How many times, seeing the wonderfully atmospheric first scene in which the musicians gather “piano, pianissimo” to accompany the serenade, has any of us paused to notice that it has nothing to do with the story? It is a false start – the Count serenades Rosina, but she doesn’t hear it, and he has to start over a little later. It’s just there so that Garcia could sing a major solo; from the standpoint of drama one could simply leave it out, though of course no one would think of doing such a thing because the music is so wonderful.
The other side of the frame, in contrast, was lopped off for many years, and still is in most performances. The Count ends the opera with another aria, equally redundant dramatically, celebrating his final triumph. It is very hard to sing, and that is a pretty valid reason for its omission (it’s not a good idea to celebrate matrimonial success with a vocal struggle). But it must have made an impression at those early performances; in the next revival (with a less starry tenor), Giorgi-Righetti appropriated it for Rosina, and Rossini must have liked the result, because he transplanted the catchiest part of it into La Cenerentola for her, where it remains to this day as the dazzling rondo-finale to that opera.
Many critics, perhaps working from the principle of validating what they already think they know, read this aspect of Il barbiere simply as Rossini’s capitulation to the star system, and say “good riddance” to the Count’s final aria. But after all, there is a coherent idea here, both musically and dramatically. It is the Count’s desire for Rosina that drives the whole story, the Count who does the heavy lifting in the plot (in his disguises as the drunken soldier and the music teacher), the Count who saves the day in both of the crisis moments (showing his insignia of rank to the police captain in the Act One finale, and pulling a gun on Don Basilio when push comes to shove at the end of the opera). Rossini’s bookends, the big tenor solos at the beginning and the end, make perfect sense if one is disposed to take a fresh look.
Garcia, by the way, repaid Rossini’s favor handsomely. He not only kept singing the Count Almaviva right up to the end of his spectacular career (gamely giving up his final aria once its deletion had been established as the norm), but trained both of his daughters to be world-famous interpreters of Rosina, and introduced Italian Opera to the New World in an ambitious 1825-1826 tour that opened, naturally, with Il barbiere. He also tried to turn his son into a Figaro: Manuel Garcia Jr. sang that role in that tour, but when his voice turned out to be insufficiently strong for stage work, the youngster turned to other pursuits, inventing the laryngoscope and leaving us, in his extensive writings, the best idea we have of how Italian opera was performed in Rossini’s day.
“Taking a fresh look,” meanwhile, is exactly the watchword of the extraordinary new scholarship that has grown up around Italian opera in the last four decades, and here again The Barber has been central. Here is a very short version of a very long story, which is worth telling to answer the question “why a new edition”?
Opera in Rossini’s time circulated in manuscript copies. Music was engraved and printed for the amateur public to perform at home, but only gradually did it come about that whole operas would be published in book form, and even then it was quite a while before professional singers worked from such published versions. Last of all came the practice of routinely printing full orchestral scores, and Il barbiere fell victim to a particularly unfortunate accident when the leading Italian music publisher (Casa Ricordi) got around to printing what would become the standard version of the opera. I am oversimplifying some details here, but the gist of the matter is this: What got printed by Ricordi, and subsequently disseminated through thousands of performances and dozens of recordings, was not Rossini’s orchestration of Il barbiere, but an updated, augmented and heavily “interpreted” version that happened to be in use in Milan (Ricordi’s home base) in the later 19th century. As an example of how music was adapted from generation to generation, it is full of interest. But as a basic performing text for the opera, it is a disaster – by far the worst edition of any well-known opera ever to have been in general circulation.
A little over 40 years ago, a young Italian conductor named Alberto Zedda became curious about discrepancies in the score and took himself to the Museo Civico in Bologna, where Rossini’s autograph manuscript is preserved. He was not the first person to be shocked by the differences, but he was the first to copy his readings of the autograph into a set of rental parts and return them to Ricordi in that state. The publisher imposed a fine on him for “damaging” the materials; Zedda protested that he had instead made them faithful to Rossini; and after some appropriately operatic disputation, the upshot was Alberto Zedda’s engagement to make, for Ricordi, the first-ever “critical edition” of any standard Italian opera.
This story is one of the early episodes in a fantastically exciting musical adventure, the best account of which is Philip Gossett’s recent Divas and Scholars (an excerpt appears in the Festival Program Book). Today dozens of operas, familiar and unfamiliar, are available in newly-researched scores, and in many of them we encounter profound questions about what we thought we knew. But to keep our focus for the moment: Why a new critical edition a few decades after Zedda's? The short answer: much has been learned since Barbiere helped get the ball rolling forty-odd years ago. The Zedda score did inestimable service in alerting everyone to what had been going on for so long, and in bringing those who used it far closer to Rossini’s opera. But in the intervening years of research and labor, editors have developed far more tools for figuring out how to handle the sources, how to resolve ambiguities in a composer’s score, how to present the information to the musicians who use it, and so on. As someone who has conducted Il barbiere many times from both the “old” Ricordi score and from the Zedda edition, I can testify that the new Bärenreiter Barbiere, edited by Patricia Brauner as a part of the legendary team of scholars working under Philip Gossett, is truly new in hundreds of important details. And that it is a delight for anyone who loves this opera.
When we look at the past vicissitudes of Il barbiere, it is important to guard against facile severity: whatever later productions might have subtracted from the opera, they obviously preserved the immortal part, because otherwise the opera would not have survived while so much of Rossini’s output fell into obscurity. One can acknowledge this, and still shake one’s head in perplexity at the degree to which some people in our profession resist the idea of the “fresh look.” In case there are operagoers who might be curious about how all this scholarship is received in the rehearsal halls of the world, I’d like to divulge that there are some people who don’t like all this “critical edition” business one bit, and to go into a little more detail about how it all works.
At the most philistine level, these people may be musicians disturbed by the very notion of having to think about the music in front of them. They are comfortable with, even attached to, the form in which they first learned a piece, and the idea that “the piece itself” might not be such a definite starting point as they had assumed thrusts them into areas of decision-making and contemplation of alternatives that is simply not congenial to their way of working. This is putting it nicely; there are some people who simply turn up their noses at anything that requires extra work, such as re-studying a score they have already learned.
There are others who have more nuanced objections, though. A good critical edition is not exactly “convenient” for the performers, nor is it meant to be. The good editor strives to minimize his interventions. Sometimes, when the composer’s notation is incomplete or obviously a slip of the pen, the editor must step in and provide something for the performers to read. Sometimes, when details are clear in the early appearances of a passage and sloppy or missing at its recurrences, it would be pedantic to withhold the details from the repetitions. But in many cases there will be questions that can be answered in more than one way, inconsistencies that may or may not be intentional. And here the scrupulous editor will often leave the doubt in the performer’s lap, providing in the footnotes and commentary whatever information is available for us to make a rational choice.
This means that here and there in most scores there will be things that look puzzling or even wrong, and the users of the edition have no choice but to go foraging among the footnotes to find out why, and what the options might be. Sometimes they will find a reason to prefer a certain correction. Sometimes they will find a reason to think again, to ask whether it is the score or their own expectation that was “wrong.” A simple example in Il barbiere comes in the introduction to the Count Almaviva’s first solo, where the woodwinds play a genial six-note figure repeated four times as it ambles down the scale. Rossini sets up this pattern with an alternation of half-steps and whole-steps, repeats it once that way, and then abandons the pattern for the next two repetitions, continuing with only whole-stepsm where the half-steps might have come. Previous editors have assumed that he just forgot to continue writing the necessary sharp and natural signs in the second half of the bar, and so all of us have grown up with all four parts of the phrase following the same pattern.
Maybe Rossini did forget. But if so, it is a little odd that he forgot consistently while writing out the parts of three different instruments – and then wrote the whole thing a second time, “remembering” and “forgetting” in exactly the same places. That’s what we can find out by looking it up in the “critical commentary,” and it makes us stop and think. Or sit down at the piano, perhaps. Having conducted Il barbiere so many times with the familiar “consistent” pattern, I was quite bothered at first by the lack of those half-steps. But after several attempts to hear what he might have meant if he meant the inconsistent pattern, I could hear it differently – as a way of relaxing the phrase while it drifts to its resting place. The problem, I realized, was not the way Rossini wrote the passage, but my own familiarity with the way he didn't write it.
Another example, more general: In musical notation, short notes are grouped together with what we call “beams” (heavy black lines connecting the stems of the notes) and Rossini had a habit of doing this in a way that is different from the one most composers came to adopt. The “usual” way is to break up the beam every few notes, according to the arithmetical division of the music’s pulse. Rossini’s way was often to break the beams, or continue them, in irregular groupings. This is much harder to read at first sight, because the usual divisions let the player see at a glance how many notes are left before arriving at the next beat. But the irregularities contain a musical message. Musical impulses sometimes begin, peak, or conclude somewhere other than on the strong beats of the bar, and Rossini’s idiosyncratic notation shows that he found it meaningful to use beaming as a way of suggesting these impulses. And the score is full of passages that we play a little differently because we have now seen those suggestions. Yes, it can be annoying, and it costs time; players make more mistakes in the first rehearsal when their parts are printed with Rossini’s notation. Just as it costs time to look up the footnotes and sit around trying to imagine that phrase without its familiar half-steps. And time is always money. But not everything that is annoying is therefore useless, and not every expenditure of money is a waste.
The fact is that – quite apart from getting things right that might have been wrong before – we all learn more about Rossini, and perhaps about music itself by undergoing these “nuisances.” They require us to think our way through problems that more traditional editing solved for us without our participation -- without letting us know that a problem might exist, without giving us the option of solving it differently.
Those of you who know Barbiere well will, I hope, have some surprises tonight. Some of them will come from the edition, some perhaps from our experiment in using performance annotations that have come down from interpreters of Rossini’s day. Does this mean a rejection of the old performances and recordings of the opera that we all know and love? Not at all. Another citation from Verdi: “Torniamo all’antico: sarà un progresso.”
Let’s get back to antiquity; it will be progress. Looking back and delving into history is not a way of trying to turn back the clock, but rather one of the ways we move forward. The efforts that led to this new edition, like the parallel efforts that we and other artists put into interpreting it for the public, are all dedicated to keeping us singing “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro” for the twenty-first century.
- Will Crutchfield, Director of Opera
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Barry Banks, tenor ~ "Barry Banks was a superb Oreste, creating the wonderful illusion that his cascading roulades were not some artificial vocal preening but the organic expression of emotion boiled over" (Jeremy Eichler, New York Times).
A graduate of The Royal Northern College of Music, Barry Banks has established himself as one of today's finest interpreters of the Italian bel canto repertoire. He is much in demand on the international opera platform, performing at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, The Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Paris, English National Opera, Théâtre du Chatelet, the Salzburg Festival, La Monnaie, The Santa Fe Opera and Teatro Communale di Bologna amongst others. His roles include: Lindoro (L'Italiana in Algeri); Nemorino (L'elisir d'amore); Don Ramiro (La cenerentola); Oreste (Ermione); Tom Rakewell (The Rake’s Progress); Tamino (Die Zauberflöte); Don Narciso (Il turco in Italia); Belfiore & Libenskof (Il viaggio a Reims); L'Astrologue (Le coq d'or); Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) and Uberto (La donna del lago).
A committed concert artist Barry Banks has sung Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Daniele Gatti, Fidelio with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Walter Weller, Bruckner's Requiem with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Sir Charles Mackerras, and Rossini's Armida at the Edinburgh Festival under Carlo Rizzi. Other highlights have included Britten’s War Requiem with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg under Jan Latham-Koenig, Ermione in concert at Carnegie Hall and I puritani and Linda di Chamounix at the Caramoor Festival.
Barry Banks' discography includes The Elixir of Love, Don Pasquale, Don Giovanni, The Thieving Magpie and The Magic Flute for the Chandos Opera in English series, La bohème under Kent Nagano and Un ballo in maschera under Carlo Rizzi both for Teldec and Trial by Jury under Sir Charles Mackerras for Telarc. DVD releases include Billy Budd in the English National Opera production for Virgin, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail which was recorded at Buckingham Palace. His solo recital disc - Barry Banks sings Bel Canto Arias - is released by Chandos.
Highlights in the 2007/08 season include La fille du regiment at Houston Grand Opera, La cenerentola at Gran Teatre del Liceu, and Lucia di Lammermoor at English National Opera.
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Priti Gandhi, soprano ~ A native of Bombay, India, soprano Priti Gandhi has been praised for her "dazzling, shimmering coloratura" wrapped in a "velvet-toned, luscious" voice. Revista Pro Opera recently named her "an ascending presence in American theatres," while the American Record Guide describes her as "excellent". This season she made her New York City Opera as Mercedes in Carmen. Ms. Gandhi looks forward to making her role debut as Musetta in La Bohème with San Diego Opera. Ms. Gandhi returned to Opera Pacific to perform the Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte with Maestro John DeMain, to Tulsa Opera for Mallika in Lakmè and to Seattle Opera and San Diego Opera as the High Priestess in Aïda.
Ms. Gandhi's most recent engagements include her Los Angeles Opera debut in Kurt Weill's The rise and the fall of the city of Mahagonny with Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone, the role of Silvia in a concert performance of Mozart's Ascanio in Alba in Mexico City conducted by John DeMain, Waltraute in Christoph Eschenbach's Die Walküre at the Théâtre du Châtelet of Paris, The Fox in Francesca Zambello's production of The little prince at Tulsa Opera, Varvara in Kàt’a Kabanova with Patricia Racette at San Diego Opera, and Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos with Jane Eaglen at Seattle Opera.
Ms. Gandhi's other appearances include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre in Prague, Cenerentola in Dayton and San Diego and Dorabella in Così fan tutte. Of her recent return to the title role in La Cenerentola with San Diego Opera, critics wrote, "no matter where you sat, you definitely could hear the gleam in her voice, which has both depth and charm".
Ms. Gandhi has merited awards and recognition at home as well as internationally. She was a prize finalist in the prestigious 2000 International Antonín Dvorák Competition of the Czech Republic, in addition to earning special recognition awards from the Dvorák Society and the Opera Mozart Association of Prague. In the United States, she was named a Western Regional Finalist of the 1999 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, as well as 1st Place Winner in the 1997 Palm Springs Opera Guild Competition. In 2004, she was awarded an Austin Critic's Table Awards nomination for her performances as Dorabella in Così fan tutte with Austin Lyric Opera.
In concert, she has been a featured soloist with the Mainly Mozart Festival and the San Diego Symphony in works such as Mozart's Mass in C Minor, Luciano Berio’s Folksongs, and Mozart's Mass in C, Spatzen-Messe.
Ms. Gandhi has sung under the baton of celebrated conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, James Conlon, Richard Bonynge, Edoardo Müller, John DeMain, Gerard Schwarz, John Fiore, Christoph Perick, and Asher Fisch. Directors with whom she has worked include John Doyle, Leon Major, Michael Hampe, Lotfi Mansouri, Robert Wilson, François Rochaix, Chris Alexander, and Sharon Ott.
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Philip Gossett, lecturer ~ Philip Gossett is one of the world's foremost experts on opera. A music historian, Gossett specializes in 19th-century Italian opera, specifically the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi. Author of two books on Donizetti and of the recent Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera (University of Chicago Press, 2006), Gossett serves as general editor of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi and of The Critical Edition of the Works of Gioachino Rossini. Among the operas he himself has edited or co-edited are Rossini's Tancredi, Ermione and Semiramide. He is currently working on Verdi's La forza del Destino. In 1998 the Italian government awarded him its highest civilian honor, Cavaliere di Gran Croce. He most recently won the Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award, an honor that carries with it a prize of $1.5 million. Early in 2004, Newsday wrote of Gossett that “some encomiasts claim that soprano Maria Callas did as much for Italian opera as Toscanini or Verdi. Musicologist Philip Gossett arguably has done as much for Italian opera as any of those geniuses.”
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Ricardo Herrera, bass-baritone ~ Ricardo Herrera’s 2008 season is highlighted by an appearance as soloist with Distinguished Concerts International in Jenkin’s Mass for Peace at Carnegie Hall where he also stepped in for Walter Cronkite to deliver excerpts of the “I have a dream” speech in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a recital of Spanish music entitled Creados en Canto in Clinton, CT, Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen with Glacier Symphony Orchestra, soloist in Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem with New Haven Symphony, soloist with the South Eastern Festival of Song in Dallas, TX and soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Lake Forest Symphony. Upcoming engagements include concerts in Italy this summer and Ferrando in Il Trovatore with El Paso Opera in September.
Mr. Herrera has performed with New York Festival of Song in their Teatros Españoles and Amores Nuevos programs, Marchese in Linda di Chamounix with Bel Canto at Caramoor, Escamillo in Carmen with the Oldenburgisches Staadtsheater in Germany as well as several featured roles with the San Francisco Opera. As an Adler fellow at the San Francisco Opera Center, Mr. Herrera appeared in many roles, including Baron Douphol in La Traviata, Zaretski and The Captain in Eugene Onegin, Henry B. in The Mother of us All and Second Mate in Billy Budd.
A recipient of various awards and distinctions, Mr. Herrera won first Prize in the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Competition, participated in Placido Domingo’s Operalia World Opera Contest and the Merola Opera Center where he performed the title role in the Western Opera Theater Tour of Don Giovanni. After performing leading roles in the premiere season of Opera Aegean in Greece under the direction of Sherrill Milnes, he received the Demodocus Award which resulted in his Carnegie Hall debut as bass soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Recent engagements have included Schaunard and Colline in La Bohème with Western Opera Theater, the title role in Don Giovanni with Pine Mountain Music Festival, Escamillo in Carmen with El Paso Opera, The Green Knight in the American Opera Projects’ premiere of Pearlee’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Leo in the world premiere of Spratlan’s Earthrise, the title role in Macbeth with Berkeley Opera, Pallante in Agrippina and Somnus and Cadmus in Semele with Chicago Opera Theater, and Taddeo in L’Italiana in Algeri with San Francisco Opera. Mr. Herrera’a performance as Tiresias and Le Veilleur in Enesco’s Oedipe with Sinfonia da Camera was recorded live by Albany Records. In concert, he has performed as soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Modesto Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem and Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem with the Marin Symphony, Elijah with San Francisco City Chorus and The Priest/Angel of Agony in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with Kalamazoo Symphony.
Mr. Herrera received a BM from the University of Texas in his native El Paso and a MM from The Juilliard School. He was recently appointed to the Voice faculty of The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he also serves as Director of the Opera Studio.
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Rachelle Jonck, assistant conductor ~ Rachelle Jonck received her musical training at the Conservatory of the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. After initially training and performing as a concert pianist, she discovered the joy of working with other musicians, especially singers, and decided to focus on vocal accompaniment. Simultaneously nurturing an interest in musicology, she received her degree majoring in both piano and music sociology.
After completing her studies, Ms. Jonck joined Cape Town Opera as rehearsal pianist and vocal coach. She also taught at the Opera School of the University of Cape Town. In 1993 she moved to Pretoria as chorus master and assistant conductor at the State Theater Opera. She was awarded a FNB/Vita award for her contribution to opera in South Africa and in 1998 received the Nederburg Opera Prize – South Africa’s premier opera award. Throughout her operatic career in her home country she maintained a busy concert schedule accompanying local and visiting singers and instrumentalists. She was an official accompanist of the International String and Vocal Competitions in Pretoria (hosted by the University of South Africa.)
In 1998 Ms. Jonck moved to New York City as Head Coach and Assistant Conductor of Bel Canto at Caramoor (with Will Crutchfield) – a position she still holds. Balancing her love for opera and song literature she maintains a busy vocal coaching studio and enjoys recital collaborations with her singers. She works with a wide variety of singers, including established professionals whose careers take them to the largest opera houses of the world, and younger singers still on the verge of a professional career. While her repertoire is diverse, she has made a name for herself in New York City as a specialist Italian style coach. She has served on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music as Head Vocal Coach. She currently teaches at Westminster Choir College in Princeton.
In addition to regular concerts at the Caramoor Festival, Ms. Jonck’s recital appearances in the United States include Weill Recital Hall, the Bard Festival, the Monadnock Music Festival (Peterborough, NH), Music Mountain (Falls Village, CT), Van Cliburn Concerts (Fort Worth, TX), National Gallery Recitals (Washington, DC), Art Song of Williamsburg (VA) and the Dame Myra Hess broadcast concert series (Chicago, IL).
Also a budding young conductor, she made her debut conducting the Orchestra of St Luke’s in collaboration with the David Parsons Dance Company soon after her arrival in the United States. In 1999 she worked with this highly acclaimed orchestra again in collaboration with Pascal Rioult for New York Children’s Free Opera and Dance at the Kaye Playhouse. In January of 2000 she returned to South Africa to conduct Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Spier Festival in Stellenbosch. In May of the same year she made her operatic conducting debut in New York City conducting the Orchestra of St Luke’s in their production of Bizet’s Le Docteur Miracle at the 92nd Street Y. For Caramoor she conducted Mozart’s Così fan tutte as well as Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon.
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Daniel Mobbs, bass-baritone ~ American baritone Daniel Mobbs has won praise on both sides of the Atlantic for his "solid, resonant voice and boundless energy...his stage presence virtually ensured that he was the focal point of nearly every scene in which he appeared," as written in the New York Times.
The 2007 – 2008 season has brought a wealth of interesting and challenging roles to Daniel Mobbs, including Leporello in Don Giovanni and Baritone #1 (the Cold Genius of Winter) in Purcell's King Arthur at New York City Opera, an appearance at the Opera Orchestra of New York's Gala 100th Performance Concert at Carnegie Hall, Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette at Baltimore Opera, Capellio in Bianca e Falliero at Washington Concert Opera, the title role in Guillaume Tell at the National Opera (Warsaw), and in Brahms' Requiem at Carnegie Hall. (Bianca e Falliero marks the fourth time Daniel Mobbs has performed a Rossini opera with Vivica Geneaux!)
Next season, Mr. Mobbs will bow as the title character in Le nozze di Figaro with Palm Beach Opera, Leporello at New Orleans Opera and Orsini in Rienzi with Opera Orchestra of New York.
Last season’s appearances included: at New York City Opera, Douglas in La donna del lago and Marcello in La bohème, the Rossini Otello with Opera Orchestra of New York, Marcello in La bohème with New Orleans Opera, and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly with Connecticut Grand Opera. He made his Florida Grand Opera debut in late 2007 as Alfonso in Così fan tutte. In the summer of 2007 Mobbs performed the role of Togod in the American Premiere of Pascal Dusapin's Faustus, the Last Night, as well as the role of Ferrando in Il trovatore and the bass solos in Rossini's Petite Messe Solenelle, all at Caramoor.
Mr. Mobbs has enjoyed a long relationship with the Caramoor International Music Festival. In recent seasons he has been seen as Lycomedes in Handel's Deidamia, in the American premiere of Donizetti's Elisabetta, Ernesto in Il Pirata, Elmiro in Rossini's Otello, Lodovico in Verdi's Otello and recitals entitled Shakespeare's Songs and Love, Death, Heaven and Hell.
Orchestral credits include the Fauré Requiem with the Pacific Symphony; Carmina Burana with the symphonies of Kalamazoo, Nashville, Knoxville and Grand Rapids, Messiah with Chattanooga Symphony, and Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Nashville Symphony.
A native of Louisville, Kentucky, his awards include first place in both the College Division of the MacAllister Awards and the Mario Lanza Scholarship. He is a winner of the Sullivan Foundation Award and also a recipient of a grant from the Puccini
Foundation. In 2008, New York City Opera awarded him the Kolozsvar Award, recognizing his "memorable performance of multiple roles in Purcell's King Arthur." He is a graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia.
Mr Mobbs has sung Il barbiere with New York City Opera, the Spier Festival (South Africa), Arizona Opera, Baltimore Opera and Kentucky Opera.
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Aaron Blankfield, tenor ~ Currently a student at Westminster Choir College, Aaron Blankfield, a Memphis native, is a transfer from the University of Tennessee. While there, he sang a number of supporting roles, including Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Lippo in the Ice Cream Sextet from Street Scene and the tenor solos in Handel's Messiah and Charpentier's Magnificat. He has also performed with Boheme Opera New Jersey as Borsa in Rigoletto and Gastone in La Traviata. He has been featured numerous times as a soloist with the Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra at their Annual New Year's Eve Concert as well as the 75th Anniversary of the War Memorial.
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Carla Dirlikov, mezzo-soprano ~ Carla Dirlikov began the 2007-2008 season as Cherubino with Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, under the direction of Jonathan Eaton. She also performed Handel's Messiah with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra as well as at the Kennedy Center. She performed and recorded Rossini's Stabat Mater and Beethoven's Kantate auf den Tod Kaiser Joseph II at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, under the baton of maestro Steven Mercurio. Ms. Dirlikov was recently named a prize winner at the Palm Beach Opera Competition, and in June she makes her European opera debut as Princess Eboli in Verdi's Don Carlo at the Opera Royale de Wallonie in Belgium. Future engagements include appearances with Knoxville Opera, Opera de Montreal, and New Orleans Opera.
Ms. Dirlikov's stage credits include Carmen, Rosina, Cherubino, Papagena, Idamante, Dorabella, Flora in La Traviata, Mrs. Todd in The Old Maid and the Thief, Mère Marie in Dialogue des Carmelites, and Penelope in Il ritorno d'Ulisse. She has performed with Annapolis Opera, Pellegrini Opera, Opera Roanoke, the Banff Centre, Montreal Place des Arts, Summer Opera Lyric Theatre, and at the Canadian and Mexican National Arts Centers.
Ms. Dirlikov received a BM from the University of Michigan, an MM from McGill University, and a diploma from the Conservatoire National de Paris. She has participated in the Banff Center Opera as Theatre Program, the International Mozarteum Summer Academy under Grace Brumbry and L'Academia Chigiana under Shirley Verrett.
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John-Andrew Fernandez, baritone ~ John-Andrew Fernandez is a versatile, young singer who is expressive in a variety of classical genres. Recent performances include Montfleury (cover) for Opera Company of Philadelphia’s production of Cyrano, the baritone soloist in Carmina Burana with the Masterworks Chorus, Prospero and Leonte in the premiers of La tempesta and Il racconto d’inverno with International Opera Theater, Teatro Avvalloranti, Città della Pieve, Italy, Yamadori in Madama Butterfly with the Princeton Festival, Belcore in The Elixir of Love at Swarthmore Opera, the title role in Gianni Schicchi, The Count in The Marriage of Figaro and Peter in Hansel and Gretel with Westminster Opera Theatre. Upcoming engagements include Mercutio in Romeo e Giulietta (premier) for International Opera Theater and Silvio in I Pagliacci for Knoxville Opera.
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Anya Fidelia, soprano ~ Anya Fidelia began the 2007/8 season with a duet recital at The International Rachmaninov Society in New York City presided by Vladimir Ashkenazy. Ms. Fidelia made her Moscow and St. Petersburg debut with the "Art-November" International Festival, where she was heard on major stages of both Russian capitals in orchestral and piano solo concerts. Other credits this season include appearances at the Metropolitan Opera Guild, Leonora in a concert version of Il Trovatore in Israel under the baton of Maestro Paul Nadler, concert appearances as Butterfly in Israel and Sweden, a solo recital for the UN VIP guests of the UN Russian Mission, sponsored and hosted by Mayor Bloomberg and Santuzza with Treasure Coast Opera in Florida.
During the upcoming seasons Ms. Fidelia will return to Russia for a recording, more concerts and operatic performances. She will be heard in Moscow as Leonora in La forza del destino in concert and the title role of Barber’s Vanessa.
Past seasons included Tosca at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Stefan Weisman's new opera, Darkling with the American Opera Projects in New York City, an original soundtrack for Tribeca Film Festival Award Prize Winner documentary, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis. Additional highlights include: Verdi and Puccini arias for the Metropolitan Opera Guild Master Class series; Tatyana (Eugene Onegin) and Butterfly (Madama Butterfly) in Tel Aviv with the International Vocal Arts Institute (IVAI); Lisa and Butterfly at the Gala Concert at the New Israeli Opera and Shuni Theater, Israel; Mozart's Donna Anna and Countess at the Kimmel Center with the Center City Opera in Philadelphia and a tour of France with the New York Opera Society.
Ms. Fidelia is a winner of numerous awards and grants, including The Schuyler Foundation for Career Bridges Competition and the Liederkranz Foundation Award Competition.
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Nelson Martinez, baritone ~ Young Verdian baritone Nelson Martínez began his professional career in Cuba as principal soloist with the Rodrigo Prats Lyric Theater, and later with Cuban National Opera. At Cuban National Opera Nelson he performed the main principal roles of the Italian repertory, among them Figaro, Enrico, Germont, Rigoletto, Alfio, Tonio, Silvio and Marcello. In zarzuela, Nelson Martínez has been heard as Mario, Vidal. Germán, Joaquín, J. de Eguía, Juan Pedro, Juan en Los Gavilanes, Lázaro in El Cafetal, José Dolores Pimienta in Cecilia Valdés, and José Inocente in
María la O.
Abroad Nelson Martinez has been heard in opera and concert in Russia, Korea, China, France, Portugal and Spain on tour with the National Cuban Opera. He also appeared in Bogotá and Mexico City.
Nelson Martínez has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, among them the Grand Prize in the Ernesto Lecuona International Competition for Young Singers, and the Grand Prize in the Fourth National Rodrigo Prats in-memoriam Competition in Havana. He was also a winner in the Belle Voci Competition in Eugene, Oregon in 2004.
In the United States, Nelson Martinez has been heard as Figaro and Rigoletto with Miami Lyric Opera and with Sociedad Pro Arte Grateli, the leading zarzuela company in the United States, as Juan Pedro in la Rosa del Azafrán. Nelson Martínez will sing the title role in Rigoletto with Knoxville Opera in 2009.
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Eve Miedel, soprano ~ Eve Miedel, from Smithton, Pennsylvania, received a BFA in Vocal Performance from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA in 2007. At CMU she performed the roles of Morgana in Alcina, Anne in A Little Night Music, and Bobbie in A Chorus Line. She has also performed as soprano soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra in Vivaldi’s Gloria. Eve is currently pursuing her MM in Vocal Performance and Sacred music at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, NJ where she studies with Sharon Sweet. This past fall she performed La Princesse in L’enfant et les sortilège. As a member of Westminster’s early music choir, Kantorei, she recently performed Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic. She is also currently employed as chorister and children’s choir director for Princeton Presbyterian Church.
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Jorge Ocasio, bass-baritone ~ With his "deep, warm bass voice and an informed musicality" Jorge Ocasio is quickly becoming a favorite of audiences and critics. Jorge débuted as Osmin in Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio and in New York City as Bartolo in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. He has been heard as Leporello with El Dorado Opera in Los Angeles, and made his company début with Houston's Opera in the Heights as Dulcamara in 2007. He returned to Opera in the Heights where he reprised his appealing Leporello receiving glowing reviews. With Little Opera Company of NJ he performed his hilarious Dottor Bartolo in Barber of Seville, a role he reprised for Opera al Fresco in San Juan, Puerto Rico in August. Also in 2007, he returned to his home town where he was part of the historic debut in Puerto Rico of Puccini's Il Trittico singing Talpa in Il Tabarro and Simone in Gianni Schicchi.
Ocasio made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 2008 singing Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai with Distinguished Concerts International. He also reprised his acclaimed Dulcamara with Opera for Humanity in NYC and with Teatro de la Opera in San Juan, Puerto Rico and sang Bach’s Cantata 80 with Great Neck Choral Society.
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Nathan Resika, lyric bass ~ Raised in New York City by a musical family, lyric bass Nathan Resika sang, acted, and played classical & folk guitar from an early age. Since 2004, Nathan’s rising career has seen him performing roles with, among others, the Center for Contemporary Opera, New York Grand Opera, Connecticut Lyric Opera, the Belleayre Music Festival, Utah Festival Opera, and Opera Orchestra of New York’s Artist Program.
Highlights of this past year have been the title role in Le nozze di Figaro with Opera in the Heights (where the Houston Press praised his “sonorous voice and sprightly acting”) and Colline in New Jersey Verismo Opera’s La Bohème.
Other recently performed roles include Ferrando in Il Trovatore, Bartolo in Le nozze di Figaro, the Commendatore and Masetto in Don Giovanni, Ramfis in Aïda, Sparafucile and Monterone in Rigoletto, Padre Guardiano and Marchese di Calatrava in La forza del destino, Publio in La Clemenza di Tito, Police Sergeant in Pirates of Penzance, and Superintendent Budd in Britten’s Albert Herring.
Nathan has performed in concert in Hungary, Greece, throughout the United States, and has sung the national anthem at several sporting events. A chessmaster and tutor, Mr. Resika has been ranked among the top 200 players in the USA.
Nathan’s engagements this summer include The Commendatore with St.Petersburg Opera, as well as a featured role in NY Grand Opera’s La Traviata, live in Central Park.
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Sandra Schwarzhaupt, mezzo-soprano ~ Sandra Schwarzhaupt began her professional singing career at age ten. She performed in a gala benefit concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and in many other venues throughout Europe and the United States. At age twelve, Sandra was awarded the prestigious Jugendförderpreis in Dresden, for outstanding young artists.
Sandra was invited to sing Mahler’s Fourth Symphony in the Musikverein in Vienna, with Fabio Luisi, conductor. Performances followed in Rome at the Accademia Santa Cecilia, where Sandra debuted as Adele in Die Fledermaus. In Torino, she sang the role of Woglinde in Götterdämmerung, with the Orchestra della Rai and conductor, Eliahu Inbal. In Dresden she was invited to sing in a gala concert at the Semper Opera, as well as an open-air event with Agnes Baltsa and Neil Shicoff.
Among the many albums Sandra has recorded is an album of Mozart concert arias with the Salzburg Chamber Orchestra and Boris Belkin, violinist, and a live recording of her Carnegie Hall Mozart Recital.
One of her latest recordings is the contemporary one-person opera by Grigori Frid, The Diary of Anne Frank. Sandra created this role and performed it many times in Austria and Germany. A European tour of this piece is planned for 2009.
Presently, Sandra is coaching in New York with her teacher Sonja Karlsen. She was recently part of a Carmen production with Espresso Opera, in the role of Mercedes and as understudy for Carmen.
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Christian Šebek, tenor ~ Since his tenor debut, Christian Šebek has received exciting reviews. The New York Times praised him as “possessing a marvelous voice,” while the Houston Chronicle extolled his Rodolfo: “His singing was full of visceral excitement.” In Il Trovatore the Chronicle proclaimed his Manrico was sung with “stentorian authority, and clarity, forcefulness and ring that were the standard for others to meet or miss.”
In 2003, Mr. Šebek created the lead role of Nathaniel in Thomas Cabaniss’s Off-Broadway contemporary opera The Sandman. Later that year he debuted as Cavaradossi in Tosca with Opera Idaho. Mr. Šebek has performed Radames in Aida, Calaf in Turandot and Alfredo in La Traviata with Boheme Opera of NJ and Rodolfo in La Bohème with Center City Opera Theater, Opera in the Heights and Opera Western Reserve. Additional credits include the title roles in Otello and Samson and Delilah with One World Symphony, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with The Treasure Coast Opera and Center City Opera Theater, Canio in I Pagliacci with Opera Western Reserve, and Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana with The Chelsea Opera.
Christian Šebek has sung numerous times in concert at Carnegie Hall. He has performed in both classical and contemporary opera throughout the United States and appeared as soloist in major choral works around the metropolitan New York area. He was the recipient of the Brigit Nilsson award while attending the Manhattan School of Music.
Future engagements include singing the role of Enrico Sabatini in the I Jacobs Phantom of the Opera on tour throughout Europe in the fall.
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Matthew Treviño, bass-baritone ~ Matthew Treviño is being hailed as a “…bass of rare talent” (San Francisco Chronicle), whose voice ”achieves nobility and sonorous resonance…” (Opera News). As a leading young American opera singer, Mr. Treviño is quickly garnering attention for his wonderful stagecraft and his elegant, powerful voice.
In the 2008/2009 season Mr. Treviño will debut with Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Fresno Grand Opera as Colline in La Bohème. He has recently been seen in Salome with Dallas Opera, Turandot with Michigan Opera Theatre, Aida with Nevada Opera, Rigoletto and Un ballo in maschera with Opera Santa Barbara, and Così fan tutte with the Mendocino Music Festival.
He has portrayed a wide variety of characters including the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, Don Alfonso and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Bartolo and Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Simone in Gianni Schicchi, Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte, Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore, Ramfis in Aida, Police Sergeant in Pirates of Penzance, among many others. As a concert artist, Mr. Treviño has performed with noted symphony orchestras around the country in new and standard works including Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Handel’s Messiah, Verdi’s Requiem, Bach’s Magnificat, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Durufle’s Requiem, and Bernstein’s Dybbuk with the San Francisco Ballet.
Mr. Treviño has won prizes in the Zachary Foundation Competition, Dallas Opera Guild Competition, McCammon Competition of Fort Worth Opera, Shreveport Opera’s Singer of the Year Competition, and was the recipient of the Thomas Stewart Award for Vocal Excellence at Baylor University in Waco, TX.
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