AVA Opera Blog

We're not shy about compliments...

One of the goals of AVA is for the resident artists to have the ability to audition for professional arts organizations. Many of these groups as to come to AVA and hear the singers on their own ‘turf’, so to speak.

In the last few years AVA has hosted Deutsche Oper am Rhein , Fort Worth Opera , Chicago Opera Theater , New Jersey Opera, , Princeton Festival, Crested Butte Festival, Palm Beach Opera, AIMS Vocal Workshop, and Opera North, to name a few.

Generally we don’t hear from these groups unless one of the singers is offered a contract, which happens many times following the auditions. Denise Stuart, Director of PR and Marketing found a blog from the Utah Opera, who held auditions at AVA last week, and what a surprise to see that the resident artists were mentioned in their blog!

We don’t need to wait to see if any of the resident artists receive contracts, because Nina Yoshida Nelsen has already been contracted and will be singing Cherubino in their production of Le nozze di Figaro opening on March 14, 2009.

 

Singing in the suburbs...

This past Sunday the Bucks County Opera Association hosted a benefactor’s party for the upcoming production of Anna Bolena, which will be performed in Bucks County on November 22. Under the direction of co-chairs Barbara M. Donnelly and Susan Kane (pictured) this might have been one of the grandest cockatil parties yet!

The setting was Clairemont, the magnificent home of Claire Risoldi which is located just outside of Peddler’s Village in  New Hope. The food was provided by the opera association and, as always, the singing was by AVA resident artists Michelle Johnson, Joseph Demarest, Steven LaBrie and Jeremy Milner, under the direction of master vocal coach and pianist David Antony Lofton.

  The program had something for everyone, with music from Don Pasquale to Gershwin. The house was so glorious that it actually had a music salon (pictured) which was used for the performance. I caught Jeremy Milner enjoyed shopping for a winter coat of armor (see photo!)  
 
The  Bucks County Opera Association has supported the AVA opera since 1964 and we are grateful for all their help.

   

Photo #1 Joseph Demarest, Steven LaBrie, AVA board member Harold (Rick)Pitcairn and Michelle Johnson.
Photo #2 Master Vocal Coach David Lofton and AVA board member and Bucks County Opera Association member Ann Stephenson
Photo #3 BCOA members Diane Bochenek, AVA alum Virginia Hartman and Susan Kane

A view from the inside...

Metropolitan Opera bass Keith Miller is in his third season at the Metropolitan Opera, and I received a few calls from the local Met movie goers who saw Mr. Miller in Salome a few weeks past. This was not his first Met movie - he was also in their production of Madama Butterfly during the 06-07 season.

I caught up with Keith on a brief telephone call when he was setting up an audition in Philadelphia for the Crested Butte Music Festival, a summer festival in Montana in which he is affiliated.

Future engemants find Mr. Miller singing the title role in Le nozze di Figaro for Florida Grand Opera in early 2009, as well as finishing his season at the Met. As you all know from my blogs, Keith was married over the summer to soprano Joyce El-Khoury, who is also a member of the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann young artist program.

Keith writes, “Things are going very well in NY and we're keeping busy. I'm currently singing Bonze in Madama Butterfly and then getting ready to head off to Florida for Figaro. I received my schedule for next season and it's really exciting - I will be singing in Tosca at the Gala opening. Other great roles for me include The King in Aida, Zuniga in the new Carmen, and Astarotte in the new Armida. They are just some of the roles I have for the 09-10 season.
 
Joyce is doing very well and just had her first concert where she sang the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro.  Overall, everything is going well and we are both very excited and grateful. Take care and I hope you have another wonderful season at AVA!”

Sounds like things are going great for Keith and Joyce, Bravo!

Does he ever unpack...

The last time I caught up with tenor James Valenti was at a wedding we both attended this past August. We had just a few minutes alone and I asked him about his La Scala debut in June as Rodolfo in La boheme. A La scala debut is a high point in any career, but doing it around an Italian workers’ strike had to have been daunting!

He said that it wasn’t all that bad working between strikes, he was thrilled to be there, but was looking ahead to future performances. When I pulled up his schedule I was amazed to see just how busy he was. Work is good, but here’s hoping that he finds some time to relax.

In September Mr. Valenti was in Japan to sing Rodolfo in La boheme, October found him at Opera Carolina as the title character in Faust. He was also a guest soloist at the New Jersey Opera Gala on October 8, which meant he probably stopped home to see his family, who live in that area.

You can still catch him (if you run fast) as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly for Michigan Opera Theater opening November 19. A quick weekend in Norway to sing the Verdi Requiem with the Bergen Philharmonic on November 26, then back to sunny weather with Palm Beach Opera as the Duke in Rigoletto opening on December 12. Last but not least is Rodolfo in La boheme with Dallas Opera opening February 13, 2009.

I'm falling in love with operetta...

One type of music that seems old fashioned to most young opera singers is operetta. If they have seen those black & white movies they laugh and think what a silly genre.

Well ,I take it seriously, and so do the singers that I hired for Concert Operetta Theater, a group I founded in 2001. With a ready pool of AVA resident artists and alumni in Philadelphia, more than twenty have been called upon to recreate an operetta character, and I must say they all enjoyed the experience.

With the last two COT productions, I needed two stout-hearted men so tenor Joseph Demarest and baritone Steven LaBrie were asked to lend their talents to the music of Victor Herbert and Emmerich Kálmán.

Last June second year tenor Joseph Demarest took on the role of Captain Richard Warrington in Herbert’s Naughty Marietta.  He tramped through the forest, and fell in love with someone, who happen to be AVA front office associate Allison Hymel as Marietta. Joe was so good in the role, and knowing that the audience loves high notes, music director José Meléndez asked if he would add a high “C” to his last song, which he did to great success. To keep the show in the family, AVA alum Edward Albert was asked to take on the sinister role of Etienne Grandet (pictured).

Critic Tom Purdom wrote a wonderful review of the Naughty Marietta production, but what I was most proud of was when he wrote “I was especially impressed with the quality of the acting. There’s no reason, after all, why a vocalist who can hit high notes should be able to recite dialogue in a natural, effective manner.” 

Just last month Steven LaBrie was asked to sing the title male role in a 1914 Broadway operetta called Sári by Kálmán. It was a wonderful experience for Steven, and just a bit of a stretch for a twenty year old to play a man of a 'certain'  age with gout! Again with José Meléndez as music director and a wonderful cast of eight, the show was brought to life probably for the first time in the past half of century. Steven told me how much fun he had with the operetta, and was very pleased that his mom Angelica just happening to be visiting from Dallas during the production.

How many AVA alums does it take to sing Traviata...

The answer for the Florida Grand Opera is four! There are times that we see AVA singers paired off in concerts and opera productions with professional companies, but this takes the cake.

Double Violettas are Eglise Gutierrez, (pictured in blue) who had a recent success as Violetta with Cincinnati Opera this summer, and Ailyn Perez, (pictured in red) who received many accolades the previous summer when she sang the role with St. Louis Opera Theater.

Eglise’s Alfredo will be Stephen Costello, making his debut in the role, and his father (and a young one at that) will be played baritone Louis Ledesma.

What a line-up!

I will be in Miami for the November 21 & 22 performances. You know what I look like, so stop and say hello, and tell me mw how much you love the AVA singers.

Just a short drive down to Dixie...

Third year soprano Colleen Daly hails from Maryland and it seems her state has discovered her talents.

Last week Ms. Daly was one of the soloists for Annapolis Opera’s opening concert Dying Divas and Dastardly Dons. The Baltimore Sun said of her performance, “familiar to Annapolis Opera audiences who heard her spectacular Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte two seasons ago, Colleen Daly sang a moving 'Parigi, o cara' from Verdi's La traviata. She then impressively delivered Lucia's ‘Mad Scene,’ summoning Lucia's every conflicting emotion in this most famous aria while skillfully negotiating every high note. The soprano was the only artist to receive a standing ovation at the end of an aria with her Lucia di Lammermoor scene.”

Also on the program was fourth year bass Ben Wager and the critic mentioned, “he displayed a rich resonant voice and fitting swagger as he sang Don Giovanni's famous aria.” 

A few weeks before the Annapolis concert, Ms Daly sang with the Cathedral Choral Society of Washington DC. The Washington Post commented, “Colleen Daly, sang with a jewel's radiant beauty, especially in Dvorak's ‘Te Deum,’ Op. 103, where her voice soared over the layered melodies.”

Future concerts for Ms. Daly include Elijah at the Kennedy Center with the Master Chorale of Washington, DC and November 23 as well as the holiday concert with the Riverside Symphonia in Lambertville, NJ, where she will sing excerpts from Handel’s Messiah as well as traditional holiday music.

Look for Ms. Daly as Lucia in AVA’s spring production of Lucia di Lammermoor.

 

Our boys overseas...

No, AVA is not going to war, but we have recently had three of our alumni singing in Europe and Ireland.

  Tenor Bryan Hymel and baritone John Packard were both stars of the Wexford Festival in Ireland last month. Bryan sang the role of Tsar Berendey in Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) by Rimsky-Korsakov, and John the title character of Braxton/Sherrin in The Mines of Sulphur by Richard Rodney Bennett.

My roving reporter Pam Packard had some great information for me in her recent email. She said "we had a very good time in Wexford, the shows all went great, and the critics seemed to like the Mines of Sulphur, saying it was the most intensive dramatically with a well-blended cast. In fact, Cardiff's Millennium Center picked it up for next November, asking everyone in the cast to recreate their roles. Also stage director Rosetta Cucchi offered John a contract to perform Sweeny Toddin Lugo, Modena, Piacenza and Bologna, Italy."

She ended her email by saying that the Wexford festival had "a wonderful camaraderie among the casts, truly an international village."

John will be back in Europe in the spring of 2009 singing the role of Joseph de Rocher in Dead Man Walkingby Jake Heggie at Semper Opera, Dresden. Bryan is off to Athens to sing in Alexander von  Zemlinsky’s Eine florentinische Tragödie with the Greek National Opera.

I just heard from alum Jose Adan Perez(known to all his friends as Adan). He recently performed in a Zarzuela evening called Pasiónin Theater Basel in Switzerland.  He’s back in Los Angeles where  he is a member of the Los Angeles Opera. Recent husband to AVA alumna Kimberly Henshaw, there was no time for a honeymoon because he had to be in Aspen, Colorado four days after the wedding to sing Dandini in La cenerentola. The Financial Times said of Perez's singing, "The voice if firm and agreeable, his Italian is fluent, without overacting, he amusingly made Dandini into the ham he is meant to be when impersonation the Prince."

When I caught up with him via email, he said that he had a great time in Switzerland but was missing La-La land, and his wife.

What's a party without music...

he Main Line Committee of The Academy of Vocal Arts had their annual reception and cocktail party a few weeks ago at the lovely home of Dr. Peter and Sally Sharkey in Villanova. This event in particular was in loving memory of Sally Paxson Davis, AVA chairman of the board who passed away in July. She was a resident of Radnor and a major supporter of the Main Line group.

  Event co-chairs Kay Bossone and Jane Carton (pictured) did an amazing job with the help of the whole committee, and although I wasn’t there, I heard the 125 or so guests loved the event. Kevin McDowell, Robert Lyon and Denise Stuart were on hand to answer any questions for the guests.

As always AVA supplied the musical diversion with their talented singers. Soprano Jan Cornelius (pictured), mezzo-soprano Cynthia Cook, tenors Cody Austin and Taylor Stayton, and bass Ben Wager, under the direction of master vocal coach Richard Raub, wowed the guests.

There was an extra treat for everyone when Ben Wager was presented with the Gordon K. Greenfield Fellowship, established by the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation. 
 
To see more of the photos from this event, click here, or visit the AVA web site.

It's good to be queen...

…even if you get you head cut off at the end of the opera! But it has to be worth it when you sing the glorious music of Donizetti.  That’s just what will happen to soprano Angela Meade when AVA’s production of Anna Bolena opens this Saturday night.

It’s also good to be recognized locally for your musical work and Angela was the focus of a lovely article by local arts critic David Patrick Stearns of the Philadelphia Inquirer.  I have known Angela since her first day at AVA, but this article really makes you understand her better. Graphing her rehearsal and learning schedule? You’ll just have to read it in the article for yourself.

I would be amiss if I didn’t mention Angela’s first place competition wins just in 2008 alone, which include the Jose Iturbi International Competition, Marguerite McCammon Voice Competition, Eleanor Lieber Competition, Richard Tucker Career Grant, George London Foundation, Gerda Lissner Foundation and the Sullivan Foundation.

The buzz for Anna Bolena, let alone the whole season has completely sold out every seat in the lovely, but small downtown theater at AVA. No, don’t beat yourself up for not getting your tickets earlier. Since we travel with the shows to Montgomery, Bucks and Camden Counties, seats are still available in those theaters.