Baltimore Opera Theatre, Inc.

DISTRIBUTION

Artists are subject to change without notice

CHORUS OF PEASANTS AND SOLDIERS

Time and Place:
Seville, Spain - 18th Century

PETAR DANAILOV (Figaro): German critics extol Danailov as a bel canto singer who has a deep and distinctive lyric baritone timbre with a full range of nuances. In 1995, he graduated from the Vladiguerov State Music Academy in Bulgaria and made his first stage appearances in Varna and Burgas. Since then, he has become a regular soloist at the Sofia National Opera House. In 2000, he won first prize at the Boris Christoff International Competition. From 2003-2005, he was a leading baritone soloist at the Opera Theatre in Bonn and he had a great triumph there as Macbeth. He was also featured there in Janacek’s FROM THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD, Verdi’s LA FORZA DEL DESTINO and Tchaikovsky’s EUGENE ONEGIN. Before that, he was in a production of Rossini’s THE BARBER OF SEVILLE directed by Dario Fo in Munich and in London.

Recently, he has sung Germont in LA TRAVIATA and Sharpless in MADAMA BUTTERFLY at the Staatsoper in Hamburg. For seven consecutive seasons he has been a guest soloist in Klagenfurt, Austria, singing Rodrigo in DON CARLO, Marcello in LA BOHEME, Taddeo in L’ITALIANA IN ALGERI, Ashton in LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, and Germont in LA TRAVIATA. At the Toscana Festival in Italy he took part in LA TRAVIATA, PAGLIACCI, CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA, IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA AND CARMEN. He is also a frequent guest artist at the Auditorium of Palma de Mallorca.

Danailov is also much sought after as a concert singer. He has had major successes in Orff’s CARMINA BURANA, Bach’s ST. MATTHEW PASSION and BRAHMS’ REQUIEM. He has recorded with Bulgarian National Radio and Television. In September of 2009, he sang the role of Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s TOSCA at the National Opera House of Kishnau, Moldova, and following that he sang the title role in Verdi’s RIGOLETTO at the Asta Opera Theatre in Malta.

VIARA ZHELEZOVA (Rosina): Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Viara Zhelezova was born in Varna and finished her secondary musical school training there. In 1984, she graduated from the Bulgarian State Musical Academy Pancho Vladigerov. During the period 1984 - 1986 Zhelezova was at the master class for chamber singing in the Bulgarian State Conservatory. From 1985 to 1994 she worked as a soloist at the Chamber Opera in Blagoevgrad. There, she sang roles by composers from various eras: Gluck, Rossini, Mussorgsky, Kalman, Stravinski, Johann Strauss, etc. Since 1992, Zhelezova has appeared in over 300 operatic performances in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Afghanistan, Egypt, Cyprus, Switzerland, Denmark, USA, England, Russia, Holland and others. In the USA, she has performed the role of Rosina in IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA to outstanding acclaim as well as Suzuki in MADAMA BUTTERLY, ZERLINA in DON GIOVANNI, CHERUBINO in LE NOZZE DI FIGARO and the title role of CARMEN.

BENJAMIN BRECHER (Count Almaviva): The American tenor Benjamin Brecher has gained great acclaim with his many performances on opera and concert stages. Mr. Brecher has performed with numerous Opera companies including: New York City Opera, Opera de Montreal, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Central City Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Lyric Opera of Cleveland, the Harrisburg Opera, Toledo Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, Berkshire Opera, Arizona Opera, Anchorage Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Skylight Opera Theatre, the Glimmerglass Opera, the Aspen Opera Theatre, and the Ohio Light Opera. He has performed various roles with The New York City Opera since 1997; appearing in their productions of IL VIAGGIO A REIMS, IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, DIE ZAUBERFLOTE, CARMEN, and the New York premiere of CENTRAL PARK. Other engagements include: LA SONNAMBULA, I CAPULETI E I MONTECCHI and OTELLO with Opera Orchestra of New York; Lindoro in L’ITALIANA IN ALGERI with Opera de Montreal and Opera de Nice.

On the concert stage Mr. Brecher has performed a wide range of repertoire with the world's finest symphonies, including the orchestras of: Chicago, Chautauqua, Mexico City, Rome, Budapest, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis, Knoxville, Ft. Worth, Pittsburgh, Seattle, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Detroit, Naples, Toledo, Omaha, Evansville, Baltimore, Seattle, Green Bay, Portland, Toronto, Buffalo, Ft. Wayne, Edmonton, Ft. Myers, and Milwaukee. He has also sung with The National Arts Orchestra of Ottawa and the National Symphony at The Kennedy Center. He has recorded IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA with The Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra.

During the 2009-10 season he is performing the world premiere of Stev Swartz’s first opera SEANCE in Santa Barbara and the Benjamin Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings in Wisconsin. He is singing Ernesto in DON PASQUALE at the Belle Isle Festival in France, and he is appearing in concerts with The Naples Philharmonic. In April of 2009 he sang the National Anthem at Camden yards for opening day. He is a graduate of The Juilliard Opera Center; New England Conservatory of Music and Bowling Green State University. He and his family live in Santa Barbara California where he is the Head of the Voice Area at University of California at Santa Barbara.

MIKHAIL KOLELISHVILI (Don Basilio): Georgian bass Mikhail Kolelishvili is a member of the Kirov Opera. He was born in Moscow in February 1974, and graduated from the V. Saradzhishvili State Conservatory of Tbilisi, Georgia with a master's degree in vocal performance. In 1997, he became a soloist at the Tbilisi State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet. Two years later he was a Laureate of the Republic Vocal Competition "Georgia-Tbilisi" and the next year he joined the Young Opera Singers' Academy of the Mariinski Theater. He won first prize at the Rimski-Korsakov Fifth International Competition for Young Opera Singers in 2002 and was a top prize winner in the Third International Elena Obraztsova Competition for Young Opera Singers in 2003. In 2004, he won the Monyushko Competition in Warsaw, Poland, as well as the Adamo Didur Prize for Bass. The following year he was a finalist in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in the United Kingdom. His repertoire includes all the bass roles in the Mozart and Verdi operas as well as Khan Koncha in Borodin's PRINCE IGOR, King Rene in Tchaikovsky's IOLANTA and the Tsar in Rimski-Korsakov's THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN.

HRISTO SARAFOV (Dr. Bartolo): Mr. Sarafov has been active on the stage for his entire adult life, as a soloist in operetta, opera, and as an actor. After graduating from the National Academy of Music in Sofia, he was immediately engaged by the Sofia National Opera for the role of Bartolo in Rossini’s IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA. He has performed in hundreds of performances of opera with Giorgio Lalov worldwide since 1990.

JO-ANNE HERRERO (Berta): Mezzo-soprano Jo-Anne Herrero holds a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from the Conservatory of Music in Puerto Rico and a masters degree in music from the University of Nevada at Reno. She has been a soloist with the Symphony Orchestra of Puerto Rico and has portrayed important roles with both of the island’s main opera companies: Teatro de la Opera and Opera de Puerto Rico. In addition, she has served as Chorus director for both of these opera companies and she has prepared various choruses for the Casals Festival.

Elaine Rinaldi (Harpsichord): Harpsichordist Elaine Rinaldi attended the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music on a full scholarship and went on to do her graduate work at the Mannes School of Music in New York City. She made a critically hailed professional solo recital debut at Gusman Concert Hall in Miami and has gone on to be an acclaimed recitalist.

She has held the positions of assistant or cover conductor at various United States regional opera companies, and for four seasons she was the principal guest conductor of the DiCapo Opera Theatre in New York. She has also served as resident associate conductor and chorus director with Florida Grand Opera. In addition to her work as a coach, choral director and conductor, Rinaldi frequently appears as an accompanist and solo harpsichordist.

GIORGIO LALOV (Artistic Director and Stage Director): Born in Telesh, Bulgaria in 1958, Mr Lalov was a member of the International Young Artists Program of La Scala, Milan, where he made his operatic debut at age 25. He has directed and produced over 4,000 performances of full-scale opera, worldwide, since 1988 including over four hundred performances in the USA at one hundred and five different venues such as The New Jersey Performing Arts Center, The Kravis Center in Palm Beach, The Naples Philharmonic Center in Florida, The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts near Los Angeles in California, The Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center in St. Louis, Missouri, The Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, and The Majestic Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, where he has produced twelve performances of opera per season for each of the last eight years. Having been a singer, Lalov understands the operatic voice and singers' artistic temperament. He speaks English, French, Italian, Russian and Bulgarian fluently. Thus, he is able to stage operas involving soloists from many different countries without the use of a translator by addressing each artist in his or her own language. Lalov has a talent for dealing with artists and technicians and handling the many challenges of presenting opera with multiple artists from Europe and the USA in combination with a full orchestra and chorus while traveling on tour and maintaining a budget. A good businessman, he has never had to cancel a single performance in his over 20 years of work.

I'm not alone in hoping that Giorgio Lalov, the talented singer turned creator of Teatro Lirico D'Europa stays well, healthy and continues to bring us such magnificent productions. We can only hope to see more from this company in years to come.

ILLINOIS TIMES - Ann Kerr

The physical productions and Lalov’s stagings were reassuringly traditional and tell the story clearly. The solo and ensemble singing in all three operas was lusty, whole hearted, full-throated, and honest...something personal and passionate that is often missing from evenings of opera in prestigious venues...resounding chorus and experienced orchestra.

OPERA NEWS – Richard Dyer

MARKAND THAKAR (Conductor): Maestro Thakar is music director of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and principal conductor of the Duluth Festival Opera, has earned a wide reputation for orchestra building and innovative programming. He was cited by SYMPHONY magazine for "creative programming and rising artistic standards [that] fill the house," by New Yorker critic Alex Ross, who says, "On the subject of brilliant programming see this season's programs by the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra," and by the Baltimore Sun, which praises his "novel programming concepts" for the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and "one of the most successful examples of thematic programming heard around here in some time.”

With the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Thakar has recorded three CD's for the Naxos label, including disks of concertos by Classical Era masters Stamitz, Hoffmeister and Pleyel, and music by Jonathan Leshnoff on the American Classics imprint. In December of 2010 the BCO travels to China to perform a series of Viennese New Year's concerts.

Thakar's appearances in recent seasons include concerts and a national radio broadcast with the New York Philharmonic, and concerts with the National, San Antonio, Columbus, Alabama, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Charlotte, Knoxville, Richmond, Colorado Springs, Greensboro, Illinois, Kalamazoo, Windsor, Flint, Maryland, Ann Arbor, Waterbury, Annapolis, and Florida West Coast symphony orchestras; the Calgary and Long Island Philharmonics; and the Boston Pro Arte, National and Cleveland chamber orchestras. A frequent guest conductor at the Aspen Music Festival, Mr. Thakar has appeared with Yo-Yo Ma and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and with Itzhak Perlman and the Boulder Philharmonic, and is a winner of the Geraldine C. and Emory M. Ford Foundation Award. Familiar to national radio audiences as a frequent commentator for National Public Radio's Performance Today, he has appeared on CBS This Morning and CNN conducting the Colorado Symphony.

Formerly associate conductor of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and conductor of the Eugene Symphony's “NightMusic” pops series, Mr. Thakar was music director and conductor of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra in New York City, the Barnard-Columbia Philharmonia, the Classical Symphony of Cincinnati, the Penn's Woods Philharmonia, and the National Festival Orchestra of the Great Lakes Festival of Musical Arts.

Thakar was awarded a Fulbright fellowship for study of orchestral conducting in Europe, and is a past winner of the national Exxon Conductors Program auditions. He earned a bachelor's degree in composition and violin performance from The Juilliard School, a master's degree in music theory from Columbia University, and a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory, and he undertook special studies in orchestral conducting at the Curtis Institute and the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory in Bucharest, Romania. Other conducting studies were with Gustav Meier, Max Rudolf and Peter Perret.

Most significant was his work conducting the Munich Philharmonic under the mentorship of Sergiu Celibidache. “From Celibidache I came to understand that the 'magic moments' that we all experience from time to time can extend - even possibly from the very first sound of a movement through the very last. In such an extended 'magic moment' we experience a remarkable transcendence: we accept the sound, we absorb the sound, we become the sound, and in so doing we transcend everyday consciousness of time and space; we touch our conscious soul in a most remarkable way. My driving interest has been an exploration of the conditions - from the composer, from us performers, and from the listener - that allow this most profoundly exquisite, life-affirming experience.”

Thakar, who writes the entertaining monthly “Maestro's Musings” column in Duluth Superior Magazine, is the author two seminal books. Counterpoint: Fundamentals of Music Making (published in English by Yale University Press and in Italian by Rugginenti Editore) uses species counterpoint to promote an understanding of how both composer and performer contribute to this experience of musical beauty. And, described as a musical “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” the forthcoming Searching for the “Harp” Quartet, (University of Rochester Press, 2010) is a comprehensive philosophical romp through the experience of musical beauty from the standpoint of the composer, performer and listener. Thakar is co-director of the Graduate Conducting Program at the Peabody Conservatory with Gustav Meier, and lives in Baltimore with his wife, violist Victoria Chiang, and their son Oliver.

Act I

Scene 1. A small square in Seville before dawn

Disguised as a student, Count Almaviva serenades Rosina. He learns from Figaro, a former servant, now the city barber and general factotum, that she is Dr Bartolo's ward, and that he has access to the house. Rosina contrives to drop a note for Almaviva, sending her guardian on a wild-goose chase to pick it up and causing him to resolve to keep her under even closer guard. The letter asks for information about her unknown suitor's name, rank and intentions. When Bartolo has set off in search of his crony Don Basilio the music teacher to arrange his marriage to Rosina, Almaviva sings another serenade, telling her that he is a poor student called Lindoro.

Inspired by the Count's munificence, Figaro declares that he can get him into the house, disguised as a drunken soldier seeking a billet.

Scene 2. Inside Dr Bartolo's house

Rosina is determined to marry her unknown suitor, while Bartolo is set on marrying her himself. He tries to interrogate his servants about what has been going on in his house, but they can only yawn or sneeze, because Figaro has dosed them. Basilio tells Bartolo that Count Almaviva has been seen in Seville and advises getting rid of him by slander. They retire to work on the marriage contract. Figaro, who has overheard their plans, tells Rosina and urges her to write to his "poor cousin." The letter is already written and she gives it to him. Bartolo, suspecting that she has been writing, confronts her with the evidence. She has an answer to all his accusations, but he is not convinced and says he will lock her in her room when he goes out. Almaviva bursts in, disguised as a drunken soldier. In the confusion, he slips Rosina a note which is seen by Bartolo, but Rosina smartly substitutes the laundry list. The night watchmen arrive to quell the riot, but are awed by a document produced by Almaviva.

Act II

Inside Bartolo's house

Bartolo is voicing his suspicions about this soldier when Almaviva appears again, this time disguised as "Don Alonso," a supposed pupil of Don Basilio, who, he says, is indisposed and has sent him to give Rosina's music lesson. To allay Bartolo's suspicions, he produces Rosina's note, pretending it has fallen into his hands by accident and suggesting that Bartolo tell her it was given to him by a mistress of the Count, to prove that he is trifling with her affections. Rosina sings an aria to the Count's accompaniment and as Bartolo dozes off, the Count explains his plan for eloping with Rosina later that night.

Figaro appears to shave Bartolo and manages to get hold of the key to the balcony. Basilio arrives, but is told to go home because he looks so ill, advice he accepts the more readily because Almaviva slips him a bribe. Figaro begins to shave Bartolo, while Almaviva and Rosina continue to arrange the elopement. Bartolo realises what is going on and the Count and Figaro make their escape.

Basilio comes back with the unwelcome news that the unknown suitor is probably Almaviva himself, a conclusion he has reached because of the size of the bribe. Bartolo sends Basilio to bring the notary to perform the marriage with Rosina and, producing her letter to the Count, convinces her that her affections are being trifled with, so she tells him of the planned elopement and agrees to marry him. He goes to get the law to arrest Figaro and Almaviva.

During the storm Figaro and Almaviva climb a ladder to the balcony, only to be confronted by an angry Rosina, but the Count calms her fears by revealing his identity. Figaro urges haste, but the ladder has been taken. Basilio arrives with the notary and they get him to solemnise Almaviva's marriage to Rosina. Bartolo and the law arrive too late.

Program Notes for Rossini’s BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA

by Lloyd Schwartz, Classical Music Editor of the Boston Phoenix and classical music critic for NPR.

People who have never been to an opera or think they know nothing about it, know at least one aria: the “Largo al factotum” from Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia—The Barber of Seville. It’s the ultimate tongue-twisting patter song (where would Gilbert & Sullivan be without it?), and even inadequate performances have brought down the house. In many ways, though it comes early in the opera, it’s the opera’s centerpiece: “Figaro here! Figaro there! Figaro up! Figaro down!” Everyone wants a piece of this clever barber, and it’s the nature of farcical hysteria that the hero has to be in more than one place at a time. Rossini’s opera, with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini, was a musicalization of the first of three plays featuring the barber Figaro and his master, the Count Almaviva, by the 18th-century French playwright Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. Le Barbier de Séville, ou la precaution inutil (“the useless precaution”), written in 1773, 16 years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, is the least serious, least political, most farcical, and most traditional of the trilogy. By 1782, Giovanni Paisiello, living in St. Petersburg, had turned it into an opera for Catherine the Great; five years later he revised it for a performance in Naples. By 1796, there was yet another version, composed by the 21-year-old Maltese-French composer Nicholas Isouard. In the meantime, in 1782, Mozart had one of his greatest successes with his opera based on the second play of the trilogy, Le mariage de Figaro, which was psychologically more complex and politically riskier (because closer to the Revolution and dealing with a commoner getting the upper hand over an aristocrat).

So by 1816, when Rossini got around to his Barber, he was working with a well-known commodity. And although opening night was not a success, within a decade the opera was so popular, it may have been the very first Italian opera produced in America (Opera America says it’s the fifth most frequently-performed opera in North America). And while the machinery of the farce is sometimes effortful, the music is irresistibly buoyant. After Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, Rossini’s Barber of Seville Overture is probably the archetypal music of comic machinations, which is ironic, because Rossini actually wrote it for a more serious opera, Aureliano in Palmira, and then recycled it for yet another serious historical opera, Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra. Perhaps one of the reasons it works so brilliantly in Barber is that some darker, more ominous rhythmic undercurrents run beneath the rapid-fire busyness of its main tunes, and set us up for some flash of real feeling within the comedy. One of the most marvelous appearances of the overture outside the opera itself is in Fellini’s 8 1/2, where the composer, Nino Rota, takes full advantage of its mixture of the farcical and the portentous.

The most fully developed character in the opera, however, is not Figaro himself, but Rosina, the heroine, whose elderly guardian, Dr. Bartolo, is keeping under wraps so he can marry her himself, even though she has fallen secretly in love with a poor student named Lindoro (Count Almaviva in disguise, of course—and more disguises will come later). Her entrance aria, “Una voce poco fa” (“There’s a little voice resounding in my heart”), is one of opera’s greatest pieces of self-definition. “I am docile, obedient, I can be guided. BUT—if you cross me, I can turn into a viper!” Even though they don’t sing exactly what’s written in the score, several truly imaginative and witty singers (though Rosina was written for a coloratura mezzo-soprano, the role is often sung by a soprano), like Maria Callas or the great Spanish mezzo Conchita Supervia (who started the major 20th-century Rossini revival in the mid-1910s; she died in childbirth in 1936, at the age of 40), will hold on to the “m” in the Italian word “ma” (“but”): “m-m-m-m-m-m-A!”—a pointed warning that she will not tolerate being crossed.

The other famous arias in Barber are Almaviva’s lovely opening tenor serenade, “Ecco ridente” (“Behold, laughing in the sky”), and “La Calunnia” (“The Calumny”), the busybody music teacher Don Basilio’s cynical advice to Dr. Bartolo to spread malicious rumors about his ward’s suitor, in which the music imitates the swelling tornado of gossip (in my favorite English translation, Stephen Hanan rhymes “slander” with “propaganda”). There are also scintillating duets, breathless ensembles, and a brilliant interlude in which Rossini turns the orchestra into a lightning storm. The Barber of Seville may not have the deep humanity of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, or Mozart’s profound musicality, but it’s a dazzling and hilarious concoction—one of the most delightful comic musicals the opera-going public ever took to its collective heart.