Baltimore Opera Theatre is a new company founded by international opera impresario Giorgio Lalov and former opera singer and Baltimore native, Jenny Kelly. The couple’s aesthetic view of the arts is grounded in the philosophy that connecting with an audience is not based on huge budgets and grandiosity, but on artists and audience having a meaningful exchange that enriches their lives.
For its opening season, the company presented two full-scale productions at the Hippodrome Theatre: Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA was presented in October 2009 and Verdi's RIGOLETTO was presented in March 2010.
Baltimore Opera Theatre will present one full-scale productions at the Hippodrome Theatre of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center (Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY) in October 2010 and 2 full-scale productions at the Gordon Center for the Performing Arts (TBD) in February and March 2011. The productions will feature both European and American soloists in principal roles.
The company will engage local talent in comprimario roles and performing arts school students from the Baltimore area will participate as extras. The orchestra for the company will be musicians of Sofia Symphony Orchestra in combination with local Baltimore area musicians under the baton of Markam Thakar. Chorus master for the operas will be Jo-Anne Herrera who will assemble an outstanding professional chorus of European and American singers.
Founder and President, Jenny Kelly is a Baltimore native who attended the Peabody Preparatory as a middle school and high school student, studying voice with the late Thelma Viol. She graduated from the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ in 1981 (where she had been the recipient of two vocal scholarship awards and had been a member of the elite 40 voice Westminster Choir – the choir in residence at Spoleto Festival USA and Italy for four consecutive summers) with a degree in Voice Performance.
In 1982 she was awarded a four-year, full scholarship to the esteemed opera training school – the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, PA. She performed as a principal soloist in over 300 productions of operas throughout Europe and the USA until 1993 and was a top prizewinner in many national and international opera competitions including the Palm Beach Opera National Competition, the Baltimore Opera National Competition, the Luciano Pavarotti International Competition, The Metropolitan Opera National Council Awards, The Belvedere International Opera Competition in Vienna, and others. She was also the recipient of several scholarships from the Miss America Pageant Foundation.
Ms. Kelly has always had a love of the arts and writing. Her poetry has been published in several American anthologies including two anthologies published by Black Tie Press of Houston, TX. In August 1993 Jenny Kelly married Gueorgui Lalov (Giorgio), a Bulgarian opera impresario. In 1998 she established her own performing arts agency in the United States and has booked over 500 performances of opera and ballet at 105 different American theatres in the last ten years. She is responsible for making the proposals to the theaters who then present the productions on their performing arts series, scheduling the performance dates for the US tours (as many as 100 dates in a given season) and providing the marketing and program copy material needs for each of the theaters for her productions. Kelly has also successfully produced 3 performances of ballet and one performance of opera in Baltimore within the last 5 years at the Hippodrome Theatre and Lyric Opera House.
Her father, Spencer Thomas Kelly II, now age 89, was a professional child actor and performed at the Hippodrome Theatre with Uncle Jacks’ Kiddy Club! Her son, Christian Lalov, will be a freshman at The Carver School for the Arts in Towson this fall in the theatre department. Ms. Kelly’s mother Millicent Teague Kelly, ended her over 50 year career at Johns Hopkins Hospital as a nutritionist in Pediatric Neurology administering the controversial Ketogenic Diet that cures epilepsy without the use of drugs. Jenny Kelly enjoys home decorating, small breed dogs and is a collector of artwork of mythological and biblical themes.
Dr. Lazarov is a retired orthopedic surgeon who has lived in Baltimore for over 50 years. A well-educated patron of the arts, he has been a subscriber to opera in Baltimore and Washington for almost all of that time and he attends opera festivals in Eastern and Western Europe annually. Born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, he attended the French College of St. Augustin and the Pavlov Medical School there. He was an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at the Plovdiv Medical School until 1971. The following year he emigrated to the USA. Until 2005, he was in private practice as a hand surgeon at the Curtis Center in Baltimore. He is a sponsor of the St. George Foundation in Baltimore and the St. George Pobedonoosetz Foundation in Bulgaria. He has also sponsored many competitions for musicians and has commissioned several large works of art.
A professional singer in New York City for 25 years, Suszanne performed with he Andiamo Chamber Ensemble, the New York Choral Arts Society, The Bronx Opera, Regina Opera, Children’s Opera Theatre and many other chamber and religious performing ensembles at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The New School, and various venues. Suszanne earned her bachelor’s degree in Voice Performance from Westminster Choir College, where she was a member of the Zlite 24-voice Westminster Choir and spent summers in residency at the Spoleto Music Festival.
For her master’s degree in Voice Performance, Suszanne attended the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music on full scholarship. After graduate school, Suszanne moved to New York City, where she sang professionally and supplemented her singer’s income as a script coordinator at ABC News with Peter Jennings, 20/20 and Good Morning America. From there, she worked as a television reporter at an ABC affiliate in Shreveport, Louisiana, where she also shot and edited videotape. Back in New York, Suszanne freelanced at various jobs from secretary at Fortune 500 companies to a paralegal for class-action litigations lawsuits, to English writing tutor and copy editor for two manuscripts on military history.
In 1999, she settled down to a full-time career as editor of financial reports at Wall St. investment firm, Sanford C. Bernstein. In 2003, Suszanne moved to Houston, Texas to be closer to family and began working as a Web editor at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. There she conceptualized and produced the Faculty Art series, a collection of on-line photographic galleries by members of the medical staff. She also created and installed a physical gallery and exhibition of Faculty Art prints.
Since making his debut, Chicagoan William Powers (website) has performed over 100 operatic roles with major opera companies in the United States, Europe, and South America. He has earned an enviable reputation as a "heavy" --due in large part to the dark, penetrating color of his voice--thus the portrayal of rogues and villains has dominated his career. His teachers and mentors, George London and Norman Treigle, have also added to the intensity of the acting aspect of Powers delivery – for which he has become well known.
Mr. Powers has been the creator of many new roles in world premieres...most recently the villain, Meyer Wolfsheim, for the premier of Harbison's THE GREAT GATSBY at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Other new creations have included Penderecki's PARADISE LOST for Chicago's Lyric, Herrmann's WUTHERING HEIGHTS for Portland and Copeland's HOLY BLOOD AND CRESCENT MOON for Cleveland.
Powers sang the role of Celio for the 50th Anniversary Production of Prokofiev's THE LOVE FOR THREE ORANGES in Chicago, and the French version of Donizetti's LA FAVORITE at the Theatre D'Champs-Elysees and the Opera Comique in Paris. He appeared in the Italian version of THE LADY MACBETH OF THE MTZENSK DISTRICT in Spoleto, and the American premier of G.F. Handel's PORO, RE DI INDIE at the Kennedy Center’s Handel Festival in Washington, DC. He has appeared with the major orchestras of Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Dallas, Paris, Cologne, Strasburg, Trieste, Prague, Bratislava, Lyon, Amsterdam, and Vienna.
Recent performances have included the Chicago premier of DER KAISER VON ATLANTIS and the TALES OF HOFFMANN for the Chicago Opera Theater; Massenet’s WERTHER for the Klangbogen Festival of Vienna, and the Basque National Opera of Bilbao; DEAD MAN WALKING for Cincinnati; THE DAMNATION OF FAUST for San Juan; an Opera Gala for the Festival of the Aegean in Greece, FAUST for Trieste, THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, for Charlotte and Buenos Aires and THE MAGIC FLUTE for Bozman.
William Powers' voice has been widely recorded and has been heard in hundreds of broadcasts. A solo CD, released on the Centaur Label as ROGUES and VILLIANS in 2000 has been followed with yet another collection of wicked evil-doers and miscreants entitled THE WORST OF WILLIAM POWERS in 2009 — the two discs contain dozens of arias from many of his under-handed characters. Does William Powers feel bad about the label of “evil” that has been hung upon him? Not at all! As a matter of fact, he delights in it! It is not often a person can act “as bad as he wants to be” and get away with it!
Eric Conway is currently the Director of the Morgan State University Choir as well as Chairperson of the Fine Arts Department. He has served as Associate Conductor and principal accompanist for the Morgan State University Choir for the past twenty years under the leadership of the late Nathan Carter.
He received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where he majored in Piano Performance and minored in Conducting. While at the Peabody, Conway was a recipient of the prestigious Liberace Scholarship, as well as a winner in the Yale Gordon Concerto Competition where earned the honor of playing Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra. Some of his significant accomplishments as pianist include, a tour of Eastern Africa, sponsored by the United States Information Agency. One of the highlights of the tour was a solo performance for Madagascan television and radio. He has performed as soloist with several orchestras including, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Concert Artists, Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, Georgetown University Orchestra, and the Millbrook Orchestra in Shepardstown, West Virginia. In January 2006 he performed Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to wide acclaim.
Linda Bloom’s career in the visual arts spans more than 25 years. She has undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine arts and art education museum studies from Ohio State University and Univ. of Cincinnati, and completed graduate coursework towards art history masters and doctorate degrees from Univ. of Illinois. Additional coursework was completed at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Columbus College of Art and Design and Maryland Institute of Art. She has served as a working artist, public school art educator, cultural arts director, gallery director, art historian and museum curator in Ohio, Illinois, and California.
She was engaged by the City and County of Sacramento, CA to manage the Art in Public Places program of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. During her 1996-2008 tenure, she administered a 5 million dollar annual budget for public art, facilitated more than 400 projects and supervised over 100 public exhibitions. She received awards from the City of Sacramento and the State of California for outstanding commitment and contributions to the arts.
Many of the public art projects she has facilitated, including artworks at the Sacramento International Airport, Sacramento City Hall, CAL- EPA Building and Sacramento Convention Center, have been named the most outstanding public art works in the United States by Art in America magazine and in other publications such as Sculpture magazine and Public Art Review. Her projects have also been sited at national conferences such as Americans for the Arts Public Art Year in Review. In addition, she has lectured regionally, nationally and internationally in Taiwan and China on the positive effects of public art in communities.
Currently, Ms. Bloom is President of Linda Bloom Art Consulting, Inc. facilitating the development of Public Art Master Plans, Museum Strategic Planning and facilitation of public art projects for governments, developers, arts agencies and private entities. Client projects include development of a Public Art Master Plan, along with Azimuth Studios of Coral Gables, FL; for the City of Tamarac, FL. Other projects include a streetscape redevelopment public art project in Sacramento, CA and the implementation of arts plans and five public art projects at a library and two health and social service centers for Solano County, CA.
Ms. Bloom continues her strong dedication to enhancing our quality of life through the arts, making the arts accessible to all, as well as issues of tolerance, diversity and understanding.
Linda Bloom is married to Rabbi Brad L. Bloom, spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Yam, Hilton Head, SC. They have a daughter in college.
The son of Ruth and Oscar Bloom, Rabbi Brad Bloom was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. For the past twenty-five years he has served as a spiritual leader in California, Illinois and Florida. Recently, he has become the new leader of Congregation Beth Yam on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
He has served as an adjunct professor of Religious Studies at several colleges, including California State University at Sacramento, and has been active in establishing programs for Jewish youth. He has worked in the field of Religion and Aging as well, and has written a popular newspaper column. Most importantly, he has been in the forefront of dealing with issues pertaining to understanding the impact that hate crimes have on American society.
About ten years ago, three synagogues in Sacramento, CA, were firebombed in the early morning hours. Congregation B’nai Israel’s sanctuary was damaged and its huge library was destroyed. That night, B’nai Israel’s Rabbi, Brad Bloom, held Shabbat services at a local community center, encouraging the congregation to come together and create a stronger community. The following day, Bloom got a phone call telling him that his father had died.
From his post on Hilton Head Island, Bloom now looks back on those days in Sacramento as some of the most defining of his life. At the time, he contemplated a concept that the congregation had been discussing called “tikkun olam,” Hebrew for “repair the world.” Over the following weeks, he thought about his father, a World War II veteran, and men like him who had gone to battle to make this country a better place. He also thought of those in the community who had offered support after the fire bombings.
Bloom set out on a mission to repair the chasms in the soul of a society that had become mired in hatred and violence. In the Sacramento area, he became a leader with a reputation for fighting hate crimes and promoting interfaith understanding. He was honored for his work by President Bill Clinton. Two years after the attack on B’nai Israel, Bloom stood in a Sacramento mosque in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, telling its members, “We recognize how you feel.” Terrorists had used their religion for acts of hatred, and now the law-abiding citizens of that same faith were the targets of bigotry.
Rabbi Bloom has served on boards of groups that fought hate crimes and promoted interfaith understanding. He helped found Faith in Action, a program that brings together people of many faiths to help the needy. Now, he is in Hilton Head during a different time of rebuilding. Congregation Beth Yam off Main Street is in the midst of a construction project that will more than double the size of its facilities, expanding the sanctuary and social hall. The new synagogue is scheduled to open next month. Temple leaders saw in Bloom someone who could strengthen its already tightly knit but diverse congregation and branch it out further into the community. As he has done before, the rabbi plans to reach out to other religious leaders and local dignitaries to make sure that the congregation and the community continue to thrive.
Bloom, who plays the flute well and writes important poetry, is married to Public Art Consultant Linda Bloom. They have a daughter, Leah, who attends college in Arizona. Although the rabbi had little knowledge of the island when he first came, he immediately fell in love with the Spanish moss-draped trees, the secluded marshes and he has become active preserving the local environment for which Hilton Head is well known. With the arrival of the new synagogue, he thinks that this congregation is primed to become the Jewish center of the Low Country.
He arrives on Hilton Head not in a time of tragedy, as with Sacramento, but in a time of celebration. However, he maintains that the lessons learned from the dark days 10 years ago can still be applied here. “If no man is an island,” he said, “then no synagogue or church is an island.”
Mr. Lalov has directed and produced over 4,000 performances of full-scale operas worldwide since 1988 including over 500 performances in the USA at 105 different venues, among them; the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, The Kravis Center in Palm Beach, Florida, The Naples Philharmonic Center, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, CA, The Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center in St. Louis, Merrill Auditorium in Portland, ME, and the Majestic Theatre in Boston where he and Jenny Kelly have produced 12 performances of opera and ballet per season for the last 8 years.
Mr. Lalov is a former opera singer who made his debut at La Scala, Milan, at the age of 25 while attending the Young International Artists Program. At La Scala he observed many famous stage directors at work and is an advocate of the traditional Italian style of stage direction. Lalov understands the operatic voice and artistic temperament. He speaks English, French, Italian, Russian and Bulgarian fluently and is able to stage operas involving soloists from many different countries without the use of a translator, addressing each artist in his or her own language.
Lalov has a talent for dealing with stage technicians and handling the many challenges of presenting opera with an international cast. A good businessman, he has never had to cancel a single performance in over 20 years. Mr. Lalov is the son of the late Dr. Lalo Lalov and Stoiyanka Kostadinova of Telish, Bulgaria. He is a gourmet cook and enjoys gardening
