mezzo-soprano

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Upcoming Performances

THE ROBOTS a World Premiere opera by Carolyn Chen
May
31
to Jun 2

THE ROBOTS a World Premiere opera by Carolyn Chen

Project [BLANK] | ROLE: Domin

This genre-bending operatic adaptation of an early sci-fi play from 1920 — Rossum’s Universal Robots by Karel Čapek — takes place on an isolated island where a workforce of mass-produced humanoid robots gradually gains self-awareness and revolts against the human creators. Čapek’s play first coined the term “robot” from the Czech word for “slave”, and was a strong condemnation of exploitative labor practices in the early 20th Century. Performed by a diverse cast of some of the best singers in the region, Chen’s exuberant and eclectic score will come to life in this revolutionary new production, immersing the entire audience into the action of the robot uprising!

Bread & Salt Gallery | www.projectblanksd.org

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Madama Butterfly by Giaccomo Puccini
Apr
28
2:00 PM14:00

Madama Butterfly by Giaccomo Puccini

San Diego Opera | ROLE: Geisha Chorus

Amidst the cherry blossoms of Nagasaki, a young woman makes a stand to support herself as a geisha after her disgraced father takes his life. Fate intervenes and brings her an American Naval Officer and she falls desperately in love. Unaware she is just a distraction to him, she believes they are married and renounces her religion as he sails away promising to return. And he does return, ready to take their child and raise him with his American wife.  With her broken heart, she must choose to live with dishonor or die with honor.

These performances star soprano Corinne Winters (last heard as Violetta in 2017’s La traviata) and tenor Adam Smith as Pinkerton in his Company debut. San Diego Opera’s Principal Conductor Yves Abel returns to lead the San Diego Symphony with Jose Maria Condemi directing these performances.

LANGUAGE – Sung in Italian with English and Spanish text projected above the stage

RUN TIME – 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission.

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Madama Butterfly by Giaccomo Puccini
Apr
26
7:30 PM19:30

Madama Butterfly by Giaccomo Puccini

San Diego Opera | ROLE: Geisha Chorus

Amidst the cherry blossoms of Nagasaki, a young woman makes a stand to support herself as a geisha after her disgraced father takes his life. Fate intervenes and brings her an American Naval Officer and she falls desperately in love. Unaware she is just a distraction to him, she believes they are married and renounces her religion as he sails away promising to return. And he does return, ready to take their child and raise him with his American wife.  With her broken heart, she must choose to live with dishonor or die with honor.

These performances star soprano Corinne Winters (last heard as Violetta in 2017’s La traviata) and tenor Adam Smith as Pinkerton in his Company debut. San Diego Opera’s Principal Conductor Yves Abel returns to lead the San Diego Symphony with Jose Maria Condemi directing these performances.

LANGUAGE – Sung in Italian with English and Spanish text projected above the stage

RUN TIME – 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission.

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OTTORINO RESPIGHI: IL TRAMONTO
Jan
21
to Jan 22

OTTORINO RESPIGHI: IL TRAMONTO

ROLE: soloist

I’m thrilled to be joining Quartet Nouveau for two performances of “Il Tramonto” by Ottorino Respighi Sunday, January 21 at 2 pm and Monday January 22 at 12 pm. Ticket information coming soon.

“In setting to music a poem by Shelley one would expect from the composer an outburst of exalted romanticism. Not so. Respighi was keenly aware of the predicament that the musical world faced at the turn of the century. The Verdian melodrama was giving way to the Verismo and Wagner’s influence was still considerable, while new musical trends were coming in from France and from Russia. Respighi observed, pondered, and gradually emerged as a composer in his own right.

Respighi composed Il Tramonto (‘The Sunset’) in 1918, two years after his first great achievement, The Fountains of Rome. It was a success from the start. It is written for mezzo-soprano and string quartet (with the addition of a double-bass part) or string orchestra, and it was in the latter form that it was premiered in Rome at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, with Bernardino Molinari conducting and Chiarina Fino Savio, to whom the work is dedicated, singing the solo part.

The whole work is pure musical poetry, intense in its expressiveness, crystalline yet colourful in its instrumentation, and delicate in its harmonies. But whether the mood is tender, contemplative, joyful or sad, the composer’s imagination never strays from the links of the basic conception. The main idea is masterfully unfolded and moulds the music to the very end.”

from notes by Alfredo Bonavera © 1988

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COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT: LAURE HIENDL
Nov
18
to Nov 19

COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT: LAURE HIENDL

ROLE: soloist and producer

Presented as part of the statewide California Festival: A Celebration of New Music, Project [BLANK]’s Composer Spotlight concert features recent chamber works by Laure Hiendl (b.1986, pronouns: they/he). Hiendl’s music is provocative, forward-thinking, and inherently political in the way that it considers the body in relation to music. Their eclectic influences pull from contemporary electronic dance music, taking digital sampling processes and recreating them with acoustic means. Central to the program is In Abeyance (2021), which takes the subtly shifting patterns produced by an electronic phasing sampler and produces them live with a lushly orchestrated chamber ensemble. Additionally, two works for voices and electronics will explore themes of gender, violence, and racial prejudice: 10 Bullets Through One Hole (2018), a challenging work that highlights the quasi-pornographic language used in firearm advertisements; and White Radiance TM (2020), a work for solo voice and instrumental ensemble that pulls its text from Jamaican philosopher and writer Sylvia Wynter’s meditation on Western standards of beauty – contrasting her powerful words with text taken from cosmetic advertisements.

Bread & Salt Gallery | www.projectblanksd.org

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No Exit by Andy Vores (Copy)
Jun
11
3:00 PM15:00

No Exit by Andy Vores (Copy)

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Inez Serrano

Three self-absorbed people who don't know each other and don't like each other trapped together in one room for eternity—literally. Perhaps not most people's idea of a naturally operatic plot, but Sartre's play is full of drama and sly comedy set in a tiny space packed with vast consequences. No Exit shows the first hour of their damnation; we see the veneer of civilized self-justification crack to reveal fear, spite, vanity, self-delusion. Imagine this same room in ten thousand years, twenty thousand, thirty thousand . . .

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No Exit by Andy Vores
Jun
10
8:00 PM20:00

No Exit by Andy Vores

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Inez Serrano

Three self-absorbed people who don't know each other and don't like each other trapped together in one room for eternity—literally. Perhaps not most people's idea of a naturally operatic plot, but Sartre's play is full of drama and sly comedy set in a tiny space packed with vast consequences. No Exit shows the first hour of their damnation; we see the veneer of civilized self-justification crack to reveal fear, spite, vanity, self-delusion. Imagine this same room in ten thousand years, twenty thousand, thirty thousand . . .

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No Exit by Andy Vores
Jun
9
8:00 PM20:00

No Exit by Andy Vores

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Inez Serrano

Three self-absorbed people who don't know each other and don't like each other trapped together in one room for eternity—literally. Perhaps not most people's idea of a naturally operatic plot, but Sartre's play is full of drama and sly comedy set in a tiny space packed with vast consequences. No Exit shows the first hour of their damnation; we see the veneer of civilized self-justification crack to reveal fear, spite, vanity, self-delusion. Imagine this same room in ten thousand years, twenty thousand, thirty thousand . . .

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Salty Series: VOXVOXVOX
May
13
8:00 PM20:00

Salty Series: VOXVOXVOX

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Producer/Performer

Project [BLANK] presents a semi-monthly series of experimental concerts in collaboration with Bread & Salt Gallery’s Second Tuesday openings. Come for the visual art, stay for the concert!

VOXVOXVOX is a night of works for unaccompanied voices curated by baritone Jonathan Nussman, featuring performances by Christopher Clarino, Leslie Ann Leytham, Mariana Flores-Bucio, and Miguel Zazueta Cervera.

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Bach Collegium: Scorchers
May
6
7:00 PM19:00

Bach Collegium: Scorchers

  • Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

@Bach Collegium San Diego

THE ORIGINAL GOLDEN OLDIES

Celebrating BCSD's twentieth anniversary season with a scorcher of a program featuring favorite and memorable repertoire performed over the last twenty seasons...how time flies!
Turn up the heat with excerpts from Bach's B minor Mass and Easter Oratorio, to arresting moments from Handel oratorios, by way of glorious Renaissance polyphony, to the sumptuousness of Rameau, plus much more!

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Bach Collegium: Scorchers
May
5
7:00 PM19:00

Bach Collegium: Scorchers

@Bach Collegium San Diego

THE ORIGINAL GOLDEN OLDIES

Celebrating BCSD's twentieth anniversary season with a scorcher of a program featuring favorite and memorable repertoire performed over the last twenty seasons...how time flies!
Turn up the heat with excerpts from Bach's B minor Mass and Easter Oratorio, to arresting moments from Handel oratorios, by way of glorious Renaissance polyphony, to the sumptuousness of Rameau, plus much more!

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Bodhi Tree Concerts: Brahms & Beer!
Apr
29
7:00 PM19:00

Bodhi Tree Concerts: Brahms & Beer!

@Bodhi Tree Concerts

Brahms & Beer, what could be better?

Join Bodhi Tree favorites Leslie Ann Leytham, (mezzo-soprano) Walter DuMelle, (bass) Bryan Verhoye, (piano) and Mark Danisovzky (accordion) in an evening of gorgeous art songs followed by rowdy drinking songs.

ACT 1 - BRAHMS

Opus 7 (Sechs Gesange) & Opus 121 (Four Serious Songs)

Act 2 - DRINKING SONGS

Beer Barrel Polka , Margaritaville and Pour oh Pour the Pirate Sherry, Moon of Alabama, Brindisi, Red Red Wine...just to name a few

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Quartet for the End of Time
Apr
14
to Apr 16

Quartet for the End of Time

  • St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Director

In an immersive concert and theatrical experience built around Olivier Messiaen’s apocalyptic chamber masterpiece, Quartet for the End of Time, a mysterious visitor from another world arrives to give voice to a harrowing personal history. Conceived and created by Project [BLANK] Co-Founder and General Director Brendan Nguyen, THE TRAGEDIES OF SPACE TRAVEL is an exploration of second-generation Vietnamese experience and the echoing ramifications of violence, displacement, and war. It employs “alien invasion” sci-fi tropes and otherworldly soundscapes as allegory for the perception of displaced refugees and immigrants.

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Tosca by Giaccomo Puccini
Mar
25
to Apr 2

Tosca by Giaccomo Puccini

SAN DIEGO OPERA

Role: Chorus

Tosca is Giacomo Puccini’s gripping drama filled with torture, treachery, lust, execution, and suicide. Scarpia, the chief of police, wants only two things: to recapture the escaped prisoner Angelotti and to seduce Tosca, an opera singer of incredible voice and beauty. Tosca is in love with Cavaradossi, an artist and sympathizer of Angelotti. After arresting Cavaradossi for harboring Angelotti, Scarpia plays with Tosca’s emotions, promising to free Cavaradossi if Tosca will succumb to Scarpia’s desires. But Tosca has a plan of her own, all of which unfolds with tragic consequences from which no one can escape. Soaring and sensuous, filled with such beautiful arias as Tosca’s “Vissi d’arte”, Cavaradossi’s “Recondita armonia” and the powerful choral piece “Te Deum”, Tosca has some of opera’s most beloved music, and one of opera’s most gripping plots.

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Salty Series: Lingua Franca
Mar
11
8:00 PM20:00

Salty Series: Lingua Franca

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Curator

Project [BLANK] presents a semi-monthly series of experimental concerts in collaboration with Bread & Salt Gallery’s Second Tuesday openings. Come for the visual art, stay for the concert!

LINGUA FRANCA is a concert of music that asks musical artists from a wide variety of genres, styles, and traditions to consider their relationship to pop music. Batya Macadam-Somer will weave her violin and voice together, presenting an improvised set inspired by songs from some of her favorite pop artists. Dom Cooper will perform recents works for voice, prepared tape, piano, and electronics. Sound artist Joe Cantrell will create soundscapes based on recorded vocal content including a reading of “The Winter of Ending," a poem by his mother, Anita Van Tellingen. These altered vocal sounds will be complimented by live performance on acoustic instruments and obsolete/broken electronics. Julien Cantelm (drums) and Lexi Pulido (voice) will present some of their collaborative explorations of genre-crossing music with influences in Brazilian jazz and popular styles.

WITH PERFORMANCES BY: Joe Cantrell, Dom Cooper, Batya MacAdam-Somer, and Lexi Pulido with Julien Cantelm

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Salty Series: Space Time
Feb
11
8:00 PM20:00

Salty Series: Space Time

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Producer

Project [BLANK] presents a semi-monthly series of experimental concerts in collaboration with Bread & Salt Gallery’s Second Tuesday openings. Come for the visual art, stay for the concert!

SPACE TIME is pleased to present a program of “illuminated music,*” featuring various methods of real-time image and sound manipulation. The program will begin with a screening of Studies by video art pioneers Steina and Woody Vasulka. “The Vasulkas' investigations into analog and digital processes and their development of electronic imaging tools, which began in the early 1970s, place them among the primary architects of an expressive electronic vocabulary of image-making.**” In 1971, The Vasulkas founded The Kitchen in NYC, which has served as a model for multidisciplinary arts organizations, including Space Time and Project [BLANK].

*The term “illuminated music” is taken from another video synthesis pioneer, Stephen Beck.

**Text from Electronic Arts Intermix (NYC), www.eai.org

WITH PERFORMANCES BY: Helixhand and Kevin Schwenkler

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Suor Angelica by Giaccomo Puccini
Feb
11
to Feb 19

Suor Angelica by Giaccomo Puccini

  • San Diego Civic Theater (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

SAN DIEGO OPERA

Role: Chorus

This evening, which we are calling The Puccini Duo, brings to life two great Puccini one-act operas. Suor Angelica tells the story of a woman (Marina Costa-Jackson) who bears a child out of wedlock and is sent to a convent for penance. After seven years, she is visited by her aunt, the Principessa, who brings tragic news of her son, which sets in motion a series of dire actions that ultimately result in tragedy, forgiveness, and peace. The comic-opera Gianni Schicchi begins with the death of wealthy Florentine Buoso Donati, and his distraught family who are upset about being forgotten in his will. So they enlist the help of fixer Gianni Schicchi who helps turn the tables, but not in the way they expect. Considered a comic masterpiece, this is a dark satire based on a real story mentioned in Dante’s Inferno and includes the famous aria “O mio babbino caro.” Making a welcome return for these performances is mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, who will sing the role of the Principessa in Suor Angelica, and will take on the title role of Gianni Schicchi, a role traditionally sung by a baritone, for an opera first! Directed by Paul Curran and conducted by Yves Abel, San Diego Opera’s Principal Conductor.

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Salty Series: Treatise on Violence
Jan
14
8:00 PM20:00

Salty Series: Treatise on Violence

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Producer/Curator

Project [BLANK] presents a semi-monthly series of experimental concerts in collaboration with Bread & Salt Gallery’s Second Tuesday openings. Come for the visual art, stay for the concert!

Francisco Eme’s Treatise of Violence: The Invention of Us is a powerful and immersive multimedia experience featuring operatic singing, instrumental and electronic music, sound installations, field recordings, sculptures, and photographs. The performance explores legalized violent practices in our modern society created in the name of civilization, highlighting the violent ways in which capitalist, misogynist, racist, and imperialist systems function.

WITH PERFORMANCES BY: Francisco Eme, Monica Camacho, Bonnie Lander, Leslie Ann Leytham, and Wilfrido Terrazas.

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Working Title
Jan
5
to Jan 7

Working Title

  • St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Producer/Performer

Large-scale art installation and concert presented at St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in San Diego. 20 visual artists and 10 musical acts convert the Cathedral into a modern Sistine Chapel — for one weekend only!

Project [BLANK]’s annual group art show returns after a pandemic-induced hiatus! WORKING TITLE is a three-day, community-based exhibition of new works by painters, sculptors, sound artists, video artists, performance artists, composers, and musicians from throughout the greater San Diego area and Tijuana. Transforming the public spaces of the historic St. Paul's Cathedral in Bankers Hill into a living, breathing Sistine Chapel, these local artists will present works that dialogue respectfully and reverently with this beautiful space, while interrogating ideas of ritual, sacredness, and religious belief.

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Salty Series: Machine Music
Dec
10
8:00 PM20:00

Salty Series: Machine Music

@ PROJECT [BLANK]

Role: Producer/Curator

Project [BLANK] presents a semi-monthly series of experimental concerts in collaboration with Bread & Salt Gallery’s Second Tuesday openings. Come for the visual art, stay for the concert!

MACHINE MUSIC is an evening of music never touched by human hands, featuring a diverse group of artists who create artistic sound worlds by electronic or electromechanical means. These vary from digital computer processing, to modular analog synthesizers, to 3D ambisonic speaker arrays. Join us for an evening of uncanny electronic performances that will dazzle with fascinating soundscapes and textures.

WITH PERFORMANCES BY: Joe Cantrell, Haydee Jimenez, Xareni Lizarraga, Michelle Lou, and Starvelab aka Michael Trigilio.

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El último sueño de Frida y Diego
Oct
29
to Nov 6

El último sueño de Frida y Diego

SAN DIEGO OPERA

Role: Third Frida

World premiere of El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego) by Grammy Award-winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Nilo Cruz. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have inspired generations of artists and this new opera explores the relationship between these two great Mexican visionaries.

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