Cast / Production Team

Kerri Marcinko, soprano
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Ms. Marcinko made her New York City Opera debut in 2006 as Micaëla in Carmen. In 2009, she was heard as Leonora in Il trovatore with San Antonio Opera. Other recent performances include a debut with Greek National Opera as Smaragda in The Masterbuilder, in Verdi’s Requiem with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, as Frasquita in Carmen with Los Angeles Opera, as Tosca with Opera East Texas, as Alice Ford in Falstaff and Antonia in Les Contes d’Hoffman at Festival Lyrique en Mer (France), as Mimi in La bohème with Nashville Opera and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at The Bellingham Festival of Music and with Spokane Opera. In 2007 Ms. Marcinko starred as Leonora in Toledo Opera’s production of Il trovatore.

Gaston Rivero, tenor
Uruguayan-American tenor Gaston Rivero made his professional debut in 2003 in Baz Luhrmann’s production of Puccini’s La bohème on Broadway. Mr. Rivero’s international credits on the operatic stage include the roles of Don José in Carmen with Deutsche Opera Berlin and l’Opéra de Lausanne (Japanese tour), Alfredo in La traviata with Palm Beach Opera, Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly at the Staatstheater Nurnberg; Roméo in Roméo et Juliette with Opera Carolina and in Portland, Maine. Mr. Rivero is the recipient of numerous awards, including from The Giulio Gari Foundation, The Caruso Vocal Competition and The Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation. He was the grand finalist in Placido Domingo’s Operalia Competition 2006 and in The BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Vocal Competition in 2005.

Mark McCrory, bass
A native of Dallas, Texas, Mr. McCrory has performed the Count in Le nozze di Figaro with Hawaii Opera Theater, Minnesota Opera, Opera Festival of New Jersey, and New Orleans Opera. With Opera Pacific, Wichita Grand Opera, and Madison Opera he has been heard in the title role in Don Giovanni. Other roles performed include Capellio in I Capuleti e I Montecchi with Opera Company of Philadelphia, Claudius in Hamlet with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Sparafucile in Rigoletto and both Nettuno and Tempo in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria with Glimmerglass Opera, Zuniga in Carmen for Florentine Opera and Baltimore Opera, Ferrando in Il trovatore and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor with Portland Opera, and Olin Blitch in Susannah for Hawaii Opera Theater. Mr. McCrory has won many competitions, including The Opera Index Competition, The George London Foundation Award and a Sullivan Foundation Award.

Thomas Conlin, conductor
Thomas Conlin is a regular guest conductor with symphony orchestras, ballet companies and opera companies on five continents, most recently in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Turkey and throughout the United States. Many of Conlin’s programs feature works by Barber, Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin and other fellow Americans, and he is a champion of music of our time, but his international career includes conducting Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov in Russia, Beethoven and Brahms in Germany, Mozart and Mahler in Austria, Debussy and Ravel in France, Verdi and Puccini in Italy, Grieg in Norway and Sibelius in Finland. In 2006 he led the Eastern European premiere of Bernstein’s West Side Story at the National Opera of Croatia, in Zagreb.  

Maestro Conlin’s recording of George Crumb’s Star-Child, on which he conducts the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. His music video, Symphonic Wonderworks, won the Gold Award (1st Prize) at the 1992 Houston International Film Festival and was nominated for a Telly Award. His CD of Crumb’s A Haunted Landscape was nominated for an Indie Award as Best Orchestral Recording of 2002, and his latest CD on the Bridge label, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Echoes of Time and the River, was released in 2004 to great acclaim. The first in a series of recordings of works by the Brazilian composer Camargo Guarnieri was released on the Naxos label last year and Volume II will be available in May.

Conlin has collaborated in opera and concert with renowned vocalists Kathleen Battle, Marilyn Horne, Robert Merrill, Sherrill Milnes, Roberta Peters, Giorgio Tozzi and Frederica von Stade, in ballet with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Edward Villella and Violette Verdi, and with instrumentalists Emanuel Ax, Alicia de Larrocha, James Galway, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern. For Toledo Opera he has conducted recent productions of Romeo and Juliet, Don Pasquale, The Turn of the Screw, La traviata, Sweeney Todd, Don Giovanni, La bohème, The Crucible, The Barber of Seville, Faust, Madama Butterfly, Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana, Il trovatore, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Marriage of Figaro, Tosca, Così fan tutte, Rigoletto, Candide and Salome, and eight of TO’s Opera Galas: Three Tenors! – the Next Generation, A Night in Old Vienna, The Greatest Wagner Concert Ever!, Opera Goes to the Movies, From Russia with Love, Richard Strauss: the Last Great Romantic, From Broadway to the Met and Viva Verdi!.