| Gourmet concerts for opera connoisseurs |
| Micaele Sparacino General Director
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Cast and credits, Mary Stuart |
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SoloistsElizabeth I, Queen of England — Donna Darden,
soprano Chorus ensembleCora E. Alter, Chorus Master StaffMicaele Sparacino, General Director Board of DirectorsJames Shields, President AcknowledgmentsOpera Orchestra of New York Patrons and benefactorsDawn Bennett |
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Artists’ biographies |
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Donna Darden
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Ms. Darden, a specialist in the operas of Mozart and the Italian Bel Canto style, is a frequent guest artist for music festivals and orchestras throughout Europe and the United States. Ms. Darden is also passionately devoted to promoting American composers and premiering new works. Her repertoire includes the principal soprano roles in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, Zaida, The Impressario, Magic Flute (Pamina) and La Finta Giardiniera. In the Italian repertoire she sings Verdi’s La Traviata and Rigoletto, Donizetti's Don Pasquale and L’elisir d’amore. Ms. Darden recently appeared to great acclaim with the Rome Opera
Orchestra in the Italian premiere of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah
at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival. Under the baton of composer
Max Kinberg, she sang the premiere of his new opera, Sunset
Salome, at the Here Theater in New York City. In a lighter
vein, Donna has appeared with the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh in
An Evening of Rodgers and Hammerstein. She has received grants from Tito Capobianco and the Pittsburgh Opera Center, Joan Dornemann and the Israeli Vocal Arts Institute, and Claudia Pinza and the Ezio Pinza Council for American Singers of Opera. She holds a master’s of music in voice from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an Opera Artist Diploma from Duquesne University. |
Debra
Lawrence
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Ms. Lawrence, a frequent performer in the Washington area, is equally at home in opera, oratorio, concert and recital. She has appeared as soprano soloist with many area choral groups, including Cathedral Choral Society, Choral Arts Society of Washington, Laurel Oratorio Society, Masterworks Chorus, New Dominion Chorale and the Washington Chorus. Recent engagements include performances of Schubert’s Stabat Mater in Philadel-phia, the world premiere of Thomas Beveridge's Symphony of Peace in Alexandria, Virginia, and the Verdi Requiem with the Manchester Choral Society in New Hampshire and the Lancaster Symphony and Chorus in Pennsylvania. Ms. Lawrence has sung the operatic roles of Violetta, Rosalinda, Donna Elvira, Countess Almaviva, Dido, Savitri, Micaela and Mimi, and Gilbert & Sullivan heroines with the Washington Opera, Annapolis Opera, Northern Virginia Opera, Mount Vernon Opera, Opera Camerata, Victorian Lyric Opera, and the Washington Savoyards. She maintains a private voice studio, instructs aspiring young singers at the Patapsco High School Center for the Arts in Baltimore and teaches a course on the life and works of Giacomo Puccini for the Smithsonian Museum Resident Associates Program. She has taught master classes as a guest artist at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire and Millersville University in Pennsylvania. She is the cantor for the Church of the Annunciation in Washington, DC and solo quartet soprano at Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Virginia. Ms. Lawrence is also the soprano of the professional vocal quartet Cantiamo, whose performances can be heard in recital series throughout the metropolitan area. She was engaged to sing in Mozart's Requiem and Solemn Vespers in Florence, South Carolina, and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana with the Laurel Oratorio Society. She can be heard on the recent Trinity recording of Theodore Dubois’s Seven Last Words of Christ. Dan McLean of the Washington Post comments: “In today's world, there is no better balm for the spirit than a voice like Debra Lawrence's.” |
John
Day
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A graduate of the University of Colorado, Mr. Day has sung with many musical organizations in the Mid-Atlantic region, performing in opera, oratorio, musicals and recitals. He has appeared with the Boulder (Colorado) Symphony, Laurel (Maryland) Oratorio Society, New Dominion Chorale, Hartford (Connecticut) Opera, Prince Georges (Maryland) Civic Opera, Victorian Lyric Opera, Amici Opera and the Concert Opera of Philadelphia. His repertoire includes the principal tenor roles in La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Gianni Schicchi, Martha, La traviata, Il corsaro, Cendrillion, Die Fledermaus and The Merry Widow. He also sings The Student Prince and Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado, The Sorcerer and Trial by Jury. The Washington Post commented recently: “John Day unleashes a magnificent operatic voice that soars and induces goose bumps.” These performances mark his debut with Opera Bel Canto. |
Matthew
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Mr. Osifchin sang Alessio in OBC’s past production of La Sonnambula and debuted with the company last fall in Rigoletto. A native of Doylestown, Pa., he began studying voice with Neal Tracey and earned his bachelor’s degree at Indiana University, where he performed the roles of Melisso in Handel’s Alcina and a Señor in Bernstein’s Candide. He recently finished graduate work at the University of Maryland, where he studied with Francois Loup and Dominic Cossa. He performed the role of Don Alfonso in Cosi fan Tutte, as well as the Four Villains in Les Contes d'Hoffmann. |
Michael
Galizia
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Mr. Galizia is one one of the most active performers in the Washington area, regularly featured with such companies as the Victorian Lyric Opera Company, the Washington Savoyards Ltd., the Rockville Little Theater, the Columbia Community Players and the Diamond Head Theater Company. He is a founding member of the Forgotten Opera Company, where he recently appeared in the title role of Mozart’s Les Nozze di Figaro. Mr. Galizia has appeared with the Hawaii Opera Theater, the Hartford Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Manhattan School of Music and, for diversity, an episode of the TV program Baywatch. Mr. Galizia is particularly noted for his expertise in the bass roles of Gilbert & Sullivan. His extensive repertoire includes Pooh-Bah, the Pirate King and Don Alhambra del Bolero. |
Malinda
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Ms. Dix-Hunt has received extraordinary press notices though she has not been singing for long. After her performances in Madama Butterfly at Catholic University, Joseph McLellan wrote in the Washington Post that he was “witnessing an early step in a major career.” She has received numerous awards and scholarships from such prestigious
organizations as the American Opera Scholarship Society and the
Daughters of the American Revolution. |
Micaele Sparacino
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Maestro Sparacino is a specialist in 19th century Italian bel canto, noted for his expertise and research in the forgotten operas of Gaetano Donizetti. In collaboration with the Milanese publishing house, Ricordi, and the Fondazione Donizetti of Bergamo, Maestro Sparacino has presented the American premieres of the new critical editions of Donizetti’s Poliuto, Marin Faliero, Maria di Rohan and Lucrezia Borgia, as well as Mary Stuart. He presented the world premiere of his own critical edition of La Favorita, which restores much of its original music, including a hitherto unknown cabaletta for the heroine Leonora and the original Italian ending, which was lost for more than a century. Maestro Sparacino was trained in singing and conducting at the Catholic University of America, working with his mentors Michael Cordovana, James Perdue and Gerald F. Muller. As a tenor he made his professional debut at the Kennedy Center in 1976, singing the title role in Handel’s Judas Maccabeus. Engagements followed with the Wolf Trap Company, the Washington Opera, the Boston Opera, the New York City Opera Mostly Mozart Festival and the San Francisco Opera. His repertoire included Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Don Basilio (Les Nozze di Figaro), The Impresario, Almaviva (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Elvino (La Sonnambula), Goro (Madama Butterfly), Guillot de Morfontaine (Manon), Sandor Barinkay (Gypsy Baron), and the Evangelist (Saint Matthew Passion). He proudly counts in his repertoire all of the principal tenor roles of Gilbert & Sullivan. For 21 seasons he was the principal tenor of the Washington Savoyards. In the 1980s George London introduced him to Maestro Mario Salerno of La Scala Opera. Maestro Salerno convinced the tenor that his true talent was in conducting and he began to make the transition shortly thereafter. Donizetti authority William Ashbrook persuaded him to delve into the Donizetti canon. The conductor’s repertoire also includes the operas of Rossini, Bellini, Verdi, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Cilea, Giordano, Massenet, Debussy, Gounod, Meyerbeer, Tschaikovsky and Gluck. Maestro Sparacino has served as Music Director of the Maryland State Opera Company and the Victorian Lyric Opera Company. He founded and directed the Opera Camerata of Washington for 11 seasons and now heads OBC as it concludes its second full season. |
Cora Alter |
Ms. Alter has been a professional musician for more than 40 years. As a performer, she has appeared with the Washington Opera, the professional chorus of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Opera Camerata of Washington, the Shir Chadash Chorale and other groups. She also has been a church and synagogue soloist. Ms. Alter has played cello in various orchestras and has conducted choral and orchestral groups. She was Chorus Master for the Shir Cha-dash Chorale and for Opera Camerata of Washington, and has been Musical Director for productions by Montgomery Playhouse and Rockville Musical Theater. She has produced and sung at the Kennedy Center and performed with the Washington Opera at the White House during the administration of President Kennedy, likely the only time there has been a staged opera production there. Ms. Alter began her formal music training at the Dalcroze School of Music, continuing at the High School of Music & Art, both in New York City. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music education at Queens College, City University of New York, and has done graduate study in voice at the Douglas College of Music, Rutgers University, and the Chicago Conservatory of Music, Roosevelt University, and has studied with several private teachers. A strong advocate of musical experiences for children, Ms. Alter for many years was a music specialist and then director for the Arts Day Program of the Roundhouse Theater, Montgomery County, Md. This program provides creative arts experiences for children of elementary school age. She also teaches classes about opera and operetta for the Institute for Learning in Retirement at Frederick Community College. |
Leeza Wildgen |
Ms. Wildgen is a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, where she studied piano at the famed Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. Now a Washington-area resident, she works with the Levine School of Music and the Rome School of Music at Catholic University. She is also the pianist for Cedar Lane Unitarian Church. She accompanies the vocal students of Maestro Sparacino in his studio and is often called upon to coach the students in Russian diction and vocal repertoire. |
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