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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
Gustav 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 in 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. |
