JUDGE – DIANA SOVIERO

Diana Soviero is one of the most recognized American opera singers of the twentieth century. She created a gallery of unforgettable operatic portraits in performances at leading international opera houses including Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Théâtre national de l’Opéra de Paris, Hamburg Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Chicago Lyric Opera, and San Francisco Opera. Opera Magazine proclaimed Ms. Soviero as “One of the world’s great singing actresses”. She is particularly renowned for her interpretations of Puccini’s heroines including Mimi and Musetta in La Bohème, Liu in Turandot, and the title roles in Tosca, Manon Lescaut, and Suor Angelica. She is also esteemed for her work in such roles as Marquerite in Faust, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette and the title role in Manon. In addition, Ms. Soviero performed Madame Raquin in the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Thérèse Raquin. Recently, Ms. Soviero has dedicated herself to teaching young singers with the same passion that characterized her singing and acting career. She is currently one of the Metropolitan Opera’s official voice teachers and acting coaches of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, giving both private lessons as well as private/public Masterclasses.

Who better to stage this timeless blockbuster of the operatic repertoire than a legendary soprano who is intimately familiar with the score and characters: Renata Scotto, who has sung the roles of both Mimì and Musetta numerous times at all the major opera companies in the world throughout her career. 

Ms. Scotto has fond memories about many milestone productions of La Bohème. In a recent conversation with Daniel Biaggi, General Director of Palm Beach Opera, she said the work holds a special place in her heart as a constant companion through her life, and was happy to share some of her favorite anecdotes with Palm Beach Opera audiences. For her debut as Mimì at La Scala in Milan, Ms. Scotto designed her own costume. She even went to buy the fabric and, having also studied sewing while growing up in a convent, sat down at the sewing machine and created the costume herself. Another later memorable performance of La Bohème at La Scala saw her singing the role of the ailing heroine opposite 3 tenors in one evening: both Gianni Raimondi and Giuseppe di Stefano had to withdraw after one act, leaving Ms. Scotto with a last minute cover tenor to finish the performance. 

Her debut as Mimì in America took place at the Chicago Lyric Opera in 1960 with Richard Tucker in the role of Rodolfo. Ms. Scotto was still on her honeymoon after her recent marriage to Lorenzo Anselmi and remembers the period as a very happy moment in her life. After successful performances of the role also at the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Scotto sang Mimì in the first Metropolitan Opera telecast in 1967. Ms. Scotto, who was always interested in the dramatic development of the opera’s characters as well as the musical expression, later also sang the role of Musetta. “Singing Musetta helped me better understand the character of Mimì, and vice versa”, the soprano said. Her last performance as Mimì took place in 1987, with Franco Farina as her lover Rodolfo. 

She has since taken on a new role in La Bohème, the one of the director, and staged the work for the first time at Chicago Lyric Opera last fall. Palm Beach Opera is proud to have Renata Scotto return to the company direct La Bohème, where she has previously directed Madama Butterfly and served on the jury of the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition.

In recent years, TV executives have discovered they can get great ratings with programs that don’t require expensive stars, writers and highly-developed stories. Instead, the phenomenon known as “reality TV” gives us everyday people interacting in unscripted, real life situations — or at least as real as they can be with cameras recording the whole thing.

Back in the late 1800s, a group of opera composers, including Puccini, did something along the same lines, creating what might be called “reality opera.” Plainly, they didn’t drag everyday folks off the streets and put them in theaters to sing arias. What they did do was to change the shape of opera by introducing those “little souls” Puccini talked about.

For centuries, opera was dominated by larger-than-life characters: kings and queens, gods and goddesses, mythic figures holding the power of life and death over ordinary people.

Over time, as opera became a more and more popular form of entertainment, things changed. Composers started writing operas about ordinary people, instead of those who ruled over them. The new style was called verismo, and Puccini was among its finest practitioners.

Puccini’s operas thrive on the reality that, at some point in their lives, people everywhere — from Rome, to Paris, to Japan, to the American “Wild West” — all endure the same trials. They struggle with love, envy, betrayal, loss and heartbreak.

It’s hard to say which of Puccini’s many popular operas has been his greatest hit, but La Boheme is surely a prime candidate. It’s a simple drama, involving common people. But their feelings are portrayed so deeply, and so vividly, that their emotions soon become ours, and their heartbreaks seem as wrenching as our own.

Copyright NPR – World of Opera

Le Nozze di Figaro 2009

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Happy Holidays from Palm Beach Opera

Palm Beach Opera’s Resident Artist Program is Sponsored by Cathy and Marc Solomon.

SUSAN JEAN HELLMAN – Soprano
Soprano Susan Jean Hellman made her Palm Beach Opera debut last season as a Resident Artist. She appeared as Giannetta in the mainstage performance of L’Elisir d’Amore and Violetta in La Traviata One Opera in One Hour series.   She will return to Palm Beach in the 2008-2009 season as Mimi in La Bohème and Clotilda in Norma.  At Central City Opera she performed Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly and was awarded the Darla Mabee Larson Memorial Award. Most recently, Ms. Hellman was chosen as the soprano soloist for the 2007 World of Offenbach Spring Tour with Glimmerglass Opera, where she also sang the role of Minerva in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. Her other roles include L’Amour and Une Ombre Heureuse (Orphée et Eurydice), Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro), Betty Parris (The Crucible), and Princess Nicoletta (The Love for Three Oranges). Ms. Hellman has been an apprentice at Sarasota Opera, where she performed the role of Mimì in La Bohème. In addition, she has sung with the Opera Theater Festival of Lucca, Italy, the Ezio Pinza Council for American Singers of Opera in Oderzo, Italy, and performed the premiere of Allan Friedman’s With Perfect Faith with the Duke University Chorale. She received a BM from Indiana University in 2001, and MM from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 2004.  Ms. Hellman’s residency is sponsored by Cathy and Marc Solomon.

CARELLE FLORES – Soprano
Carelle Flores, soprano, makes her Palm Beach Opera debut this season as Musetta in La Bohème and Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro. She recently appeared as Mimi in La Bohème with Ashlawn Opera Festival and Adele in Die Fledermaus with Sarasota Opera, where she also covered the role of Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro during their 2006 season. In the spring of 2008 she covered the role of Lucia in Virginia Opera’s production of Lucia di Lammermoor. Other credits include Countess Ceprano and Page in Opera Carolina’s 2007 production of Rigoletto, Mimi with Florida Grand Opera’s ‘In-School Opera’ tour of La Bohème, and Mimi at Indiana University, where she also sang the roles of Constanze in Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio and Maria in Bernstein’s West Side Story. She was a Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Mid-South Regional Finalist in 2007, and she has performed with the Puerto Rico Chamber Orchestra in Handel’s Messiah, as well as in its ‘Festival de la Danza’.  Ms. Flores’ residency is sponsored by Meridian Capital Group.

IRENE ROBERTS – Mezzo Soprano
Japanese American Irene Roberts is a young lyric mezzo-soprano who has been praised for her rich, even timbre, natural stage presence and captivating beauty.  Ms. Roberts makes her debut this season as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, with Opera Western Reserve in Youngstown, Ohio.  This fall she is also performed Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, with the Opera Cleveland Outreach Program.  On November 1 she will perform in Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and in the world premiere of the Wilberg Requiem with the Fairfax Choral Society.  This concert will be conducted by Dr. Craig Jessop the conductor of the Morman Tabernacle Choir.  She has been selected to be a part of the resident artist program at Palm Beach Opera this season. She will begin with Giovanna in Verdi’s Rigoletto on the main stage and be in productions of Norma and Le Nozze di Figaro.  In March 2009, she will perform the title role in La Cenerentola with Townsend Opera Players in Modesto, California.  In 2008 Ms. Roberts received a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music where she received the Elizabeth Stoeckler Award in German Lieder.  During her studies at CIM, she was a student of Mary Schiller and Dean Southern.  Her most notable roles at CIM include Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Romeo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte, Mignon in Mignon and Idamante in Idomeneo.  Ms. Roberts holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.  Ms. Roberts has participated in numerous summer festivals including the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute and the University of Miami Frost School of Music at Salzburg College program.  While in Salzburg she received second place in the program’s annual vocal competition.  Ms. Roberts is an accomplished concert pianist and accompanist.  She is a native of Sacramento, California and currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio.

TANNER KNIGHT – Tenor
Coming Soon!

ROLANDO SANZ – Tenor
Cuban-American tenor Rolando Sanz is quickly gaining recognition for his “sensitive” and “luminous” portrayals of such roles as Tamnio, Nemorino, Alfredo, Pinkerton and Le Prince Charmant. In the 2007-2008 season, Rolando debuted with Opera Idaho as Nemorino in L’elisir d’Amore, and returned to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis to sing Nathaniel in The Tales of Hoffmann under Stephen Lord as well as to cover Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly.  Recent engagements include Alfredo in La Traviata, conducted by Julius Rudel and L’Aumônier in Dialogues des Carmélites under the baton of James Conlon with the Aspen Opera Theater Center. Other Aspen appearances include  Mozart in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart & Salieri and Lippo Florentino in Street Scene.  As a Gerdine Young Artist with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Mr. Sanz covered the role of Stiva in their premiere of Anna Karenina. Other recent engagements include Peter Doyle in the west coast premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s Miss Lonelyhearts, for which the Los Angeles Times reported: “Rolando Sanz, as Doyle, gave the best hint of the score’s expressive possibilities.” Mr. Sanz has also appeared as Basilio in Le Nozze di Figaro and covered Carlo in I Masnadieri with Sarasota Opera.  In 2005, Mr. Sanz was a resident artist at the Music Academy of the West under the tutelage of Marilyn Horne and Warren Jones. He also made his Washington, DC debut as Le Prince Charmant in Summer Opera Theatre Company’s production of Massenet’s Cendrillon.  Rolando has also distinguished himself as a gifted concert performer and recitalist. He will sing his first Beethoven Ninth Symphony with the American Youth Symphony in Los Angeles in 2008. Most recently, he appeared as tenor soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the New Jersey Philharmonic. Mr. Sanz was also featured as tenor soloist in Stravinsky’s Les Noces with the Yale Camerata as well as at the Aspen Music Fesitval under the baton of Michael Stern. He made his Yale Philharmonia debut as the winner of the Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition, performing Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. Additional soloist engagements include the Mozart C-minor Mass and Requiem, Saint-Saëns Christmas Oratorio, Randall Thompson’s Nativity according to St. Luke, Honegger’s Le Roi David and Handel Ode to St. Cecilia and Messiah, as well as the Washington, DC premiere of the Donizetti Requiem.

DAVID LARA – Baritone
Coming Soon!

DAVID LOWELL YOUNG – Bass
David Young is in his fist year as Resident Artist at the Palm Beach Opera, where he will sing Monterone in Rigoletto, Antonio in Le Nozze di Figaro, as well as Colline in Palm Beach Opera’s Family Matinee production of La Bohème. He spent the past summer at the prestigious apprentice program at the Santa Fe Opera. David was a Young Artist with Chicago Opera Theater for 2 seasons, covering the role of the Commendatore in Don Giovanni singing in the ensemble of John Adam’s new opera, A Flowering Tree, as well as appearing in COT’s productions of Beatrice et Benedict and Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria.  In previous seasons he’s appeared as The Commendatore in Don Giovanni with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra and Southern Illinois Music Festival, Don Basilio in Barber of Seville with the Janiec Opera Company, and Sarastro in The Magic Flute with Operafestival di Roma.  Mr. Young has twice been a district winner and regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions and also won awards from the Bel Canto Foundation.

Palm Beach Opera is pleased to announce an exciting 2008/2009 season of Passion, Betrayal and Atonement! Our season begins in December with Verdi’s ever popular Rigoletto, the tragic story of the hunchback court jester and his beautiful daughter. January brings Bellini’s Norma, a favorite of Maestro Aprea, and a continuation of Palm Beach Opera’s tradition of presenting bel canto operas in splendid productions. In late February, we continue with Mozart’s comic opera Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) a lighthearted, poignant, and ultimately touching satire of aristocracy prior to the French Revolution. Finally we end the season in April with the timeless love story of La Bohème, one of Puccini’s most popular and emotionally powerful works.