Toledo Opera Announces Its 2010-2011 Season
Toledo Opera kicks off its 52nd season with Richard Strauss’s comic masterpiece Ariadne auf Naxos, boasting the most delectable melodies and an amazingly clever and hilarious story. This enchanting opera spoofs the Greek myth of Ariadne (King Minos’s daughter) abandoned by Theseus (who slew the Minotaur) and pits characters from the Italian street theater against operatic stereotypes.
In the title role is soprano Barbara Quintiliani, who had the Toledo Opera audience on its feet for a prolonged standing ovation when she starred in last season’s Opera Gala, Viva Verdi! Ms. Quintiliani recently returned from a triumph at the Wexford Festival (Ireland). Opera News said “The evening belonged, thrillingly and unequivocally, to Barbara Quintiliani. Her voice has a rock-solid core and a warm, slightly dark tone …with a remarkable range of color.” Starring opposite Ms. Quintiliani in the role of The Composer is mezzo-soprano Stacey Rishoi, who has garnered an international reputation for the beauty and power of her voice. Following her debut as Adalgisa in Norma, The Washington Post stated, “Rishoi’s Adalgisa nearly stole the show with a performance that was convincing and unwavering from start to finish. Rishoi commanded the stage with a lustrous voice graced with natural expression and a surprising clarion projection.”
Performances of Ariadne auf Naxos will be at The Valentine Theatre on Friday, October 8, 2010 at 8:00pm and October 10, at 2:00pm. Sung in German with projected English translations.
The season continues with Igor Stravinsky’s masterpiece, The Rake’s Progress, the only full-length opera by this towering twentieth-century genius. Set in the 18th century, Stravinsky wrote a style of music deliberately like music from the Baroque and Classical periods. Inspired by William Hogarth’s series of eight paintings of the same name, The Rake’s Progress, the opera charts the life of Tom Rakewell, who heads down a path of self-destructive vice after inheriting a fortune from an uncle. Rakewell has pledged his love to Anne Trulove, who waits for his return to the countryside while he discovers the pleasures of London. Overcome with worry, Anne heads to the city to rescue Tom and arrives to find him married to the bearded lady from the circus. Tom is forced to confront the darkness of his soul, from which his only salvation lies in Anne’s steadfast unconditional love.
Starring in the role of Nick Shadow, the “uncle” who leads Tom Rakewell astray, is Norwegian-American bass Gus Andreassen, who has performed to great acclaim with major opera companies and orchestras throughout North American and Europe. For his recent portrayal of Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Opera News stated: “The extraordinary potent bass of Gustav Andreassen was all black tone – sonorous, distinctive, with fine musicianship and dramatic flair.”
Exuberantly bizarre and heartbreakingly tender, The Rake's Progress is part fairy tale, part cautionary fable. At once a love story and a zany adventure, it is also an ode to the redemptive power of love and music – and a fabulous theatrical romp. Stravinsky's score is a revelation, quirky, and seductive. Astonishingly sweet and lyrical, spiked with idiosyncratic twists of harmony and rhythm, this music and the characters are irresistible.
Performances of The Rake’s Progress are Friday, November 12, 2010 at 8:00pm and Sunday, November 14 at 2:00pm at the Valentine Theatre. Sung in English.
On February 12, 2011 the Toledo Opera Gala: The Romance of the Ring will be onstage in the beautiful Peristyle at the Toledo Museum of Art. On the program are popular excerpts from Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung, including The Entrance of the gods into Valhalla, Siegfried's Rhine Journey, Brunnhilde's Immolation, and Wotan's Farewell, and, of course, The Ride of the Valkyries. Wagner’s music is full of passion and conveys great emotion using larger-than-life characters from Norse mythology. The Opera Gala will feature three singers known for their definitive interpretation of Wagner’s music. Conducted by Grammy Award-winning Maestro Thomas Conlin, the orchestra will be heard in the magnificent original scoring of Wagner’s majestic masterpieces.
Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata closes the season with performances on Friday, April 1, 2011 at 8:00pm & April 3 at 2:00pm, at the Valentine Theatre. Sung in Italian with projected English translations.
At one of the most creative periods of his career Verdi adapted Alexandre Dumas’s novel La dame aux camellias (The Lady of the Camillias). La traviata utilizes beautiful singing, exciting choruses, exuberant dancing and brilliant orchestration to relate a passionate, heartbreaking love story. Since its debut in 1853, the story of the worldly Parisian courtesan Violetta who must sacrifice her happiness to spare her lover from scandal has enraptured audiences, becoming one the world’s most performed operas. Today Violetta lives on as one of the immortals among opera heroines—unable to escape her past, her selfless act of devotion and the tragic outcome that pierces the heart. La traviata is a staggering musical and dramatic experience.
The role of Violetta will be interpeted by Inna Dukach, who recently returned from a triumphant engagement at London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden as Musetta in La bohème. The New Russian Word wrote that Ms. Dukach has “A deep, strong, beautiful voice of unusual timbre and wonderful artistry.” Previous operatic engagments include Mimi in La bohème with the New York City Opera, Lake George Opera and Sarasota Opera, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Orlando Opera and with Opera Carolina, and as Violetta in La Traviata Zagreb (Croatia). Germont, her lover’s father, will be sung by Scott Bearden, who recently scored an enormous success in Toledo Opera’s production of Falstaff. Career highlights have included the title role in Falstaff at the Tanglewood Music Festival under the baton of Maestro Seiji Ozawa, Tonio in Pagliacci, Germont in La traviata with Mississippi Opera; the title role in Rigoletto with Opera Theater of Connecticut and Eugene Opera, Scarpia in Tosca with Opera Theater of Connecticut and West Bay Opera, Renato in Un ballo in maschera with Opera Memphis, Amonasro in Aida with Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, Michele in Il Tabarro with the International Vocal Arts Institute, Don Alfonso in Cosi fan tutte with the Sanibel Music Festival, Marcello in La bohème with Opera San Jose and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly.
Subscriptions go on sale in March, with early subscribers receiving a special discount incentive. Subscriptions may be purchased by calling 419-255-7464 or on the web at www.ToledoOpera.org.
Press Release Contact Name: Scott Baker
Press Release Contact Email: [email protected]
Press Release Contact Phone: 419-255-SING
Organization Name: Toledo Opera
Website or Link: www.toledoopera.org
Organization Address: 425 Jefferson Ave., Suite 601, Toledo, OH, 43604