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Who's Who at Chamber Opera Chicago
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Francis
Menotti (Stage Director) was born in Philadelphia
in 1938. After studying at the Goodman Theater in
Chicago and perfecting his craft with Lee Strasberg in
New York, he began his career with the American Shakespeare
Festival in New York. He has interpreted roles
ranging from the opera works of Gian
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Carlo
Menotti (and is famous for his portrayal of Toby in The
Medium) to the narrator in both Beethoven’s Egmont
in the Alice Tully Hall in New York and Schoenberg’s
Ode to Napoleon at the Charleston Festival. Following
in the footsteps of his adoptive father, Gian Carlo, Francis
Menotti took over much of the responsibility for the Festival
of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy and became its Artistic
Director in 1999. The festival has been revitalized
thanks to his spectacular artistic choices, and he has
also made artistic contributions to the organization of
more than 52 festivals throughout the United States, Italy,
and Australia. Francis will join COC this season
as the stage director for A Tribute to Gian Carlo
Menotti as well as Amahl and the Night Visitors. |
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Victoria
Bond (Conductor) is also a composer who has written
for every medium including opera, orchestra, ballet and
chamber music. Her works have been widely performed and
she has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, People magazine,
the New York Times, the East Hampton Star, the Southampton
Press, and on the NBC Today Show. Recent
commissions include the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra (2006);
Fontana Chamber Arts (2006), the Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra
(2007), |
Pianofest
(2005), and the American Society for Jewish Music (2005). She
has been commissioned by American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania
Ballet, Jacob’s
Pillow Dance Festival, the Shanghai Symphony, the Houston
Symphony, the Women’s Philharmonic, the Saint Paul
Chamber Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Joy
in Singing, Symphony Space, and the Audubon Quartet. Her
operas, Mrs. Satan and A More Perfect Union, were
presented as part of the New York City Opera’s VOX
and Friends. Her numerous works for young audiences
include a musical, Everyone is Good for Something,
commissioned by Stage One in Louisville, KY, and two works
for Sesame Street’s Bob McGrath, The Frog Prince and What’s
the Point of Counterpoint? Bond has guest conducted
the Houston, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Richmond, Utah, Albany,
Buffalo, Dallas, Honolulu, Wuhan, Hunan and Shanghai Symphonies,
the Central Opera in Beijing, and Opera Carolina. She
has recorded with the Shanghai Symphony and the Cleveland
Chamber Symphony and has served as Music Director of the
Roanoke Symphony, Opera Roanoke, the Bel Canto Opera,
Harrisburg Opera, and the New Amsterdam Symphony, and
is Music Advisor of the Wuhan Symphony in China. The
first woman to be awarded a doctorate in orchestral conducting
from the Juilliard School, Bond worked with Roger Sessions,
Pierre Boulez, Sixten Ehrling, Jean Morel, and Herbert
von Karajan. She also has Honorary Doctorates from
Hollins College, Roanoke College, and Washington & Lee
University. Bond is the President and Artistic Director
of Welltone New Music, Inc. and produces Cutting Edge
Concerts, a new music series at Symphony Space in
New York. She has conducted previous COC productions of The
Consul, The Medium, and The Telephone as
well as the Menotti gala.In 2007, she recorded Menotti’s The
Old Maid and the Thief in Dallas. |
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John
Boesche (Projected
Scene Design) was the highly acclaimed scene designer
for COC’s 2007 production of The Crucible and
will return this season for our productions of A
Menotti Tribute, Te Amo, and Carmen. He
has also had his scenic and projection designs for theater
seen by Chicago audiences at the Chicago Shakespeare
Theater, Goodman Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Marriott
Lincolnshire Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, and others. Broadway
credits include The Glass Menagerie at Roundabout
Theatre, directed by Frank Galati. |
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his work has been seen at Arizona Theatre Company, Asolo
Theatre (Sarasota), Denver Center Theatre Company, McCarter
Theatre (Princeton), Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, New
York Shakespeare Festival (NYC), Seattle Repertory Theatre,
Shakespeare at the Folger (Washington D.C.), South Coast
Repertory (Costa Mesa), and Theater On The Square (San
Francisco), among others. Mr. Boesche received
a Joseph Jefferson Special Award for projection design
in 2005. Projection design accompanying the performance
of music includes the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Eos
Orchestra (New York), and the Ravinia Festival Chicago. Projection
designs for dance include Liz Lerman Dance Exchange,
Mordine and Company, and Lucky Plush dance, among others. His
designs for opera have been seen at Austin Lyric Opera,
Barbican Theatre Centre (London), Brooklyn Academy of
Music, Canadian Opera Company (Toronto), Dallas Opera,
Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera Lyon,
Opera Pacifica, Portland Opera, Salt Lake Opera, San
Francisco Opera, Theatre de la Monnaie (Brussels), Washington
Opera (D.C.), and Vancouver Opera, among others. In
addition to his work in theater, Mr. Boesche designs
media for his own gallery installations, history museums,
and outdoor events. |
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Beaumont
Glass (Musical/Stage Director) is equally recognized
as a stage director (58 operas staged in 81 productions
in the US and Europe), opera coach, concert accompanist,
author, lecturer, and university professor. After
receiving a degree from the U.S. Naval Academy, with further
graduate studies at UC/Berkeley, his professional career
in opera began in 1956 with the Northwest Grand Opera in
Seattle. |
He
has been equally involved in the musical and dramatic sides
of opera as a coach and stage director.During two decades
in Europe, Glass was a leading coach and eventually “Studienleiter” (Director
of Musical Studies, head of the coaching staff and director
of musical preparation and rehearsal schedules for the entire
repertoire) at the Zurich Opera in Switzerland. He
was also a coach and accompanist at the Festival of Aix-en-Provence
in France and a stage director for the International Opera
Center in Zurich. From 1980 to 1998, he was the Director
of Opera at the University of Iowa, where he was the stage
director, artistic supervisor, and coach for 36 highly successful
opera productions with symphony orchestra, ballet, and excellent
technical facilities in an auditorium seating 2,864. Since
2001, he has been the stage director of four productions
for Maine Grand Opera. Other stage directing credits
include the Utah Opera, the Cedar Rapids Symphony, Rutgers
University, and University of Maine at Orono. He has
written more than 20 translations of complete operas, which
have been used in numerous operation productions in the
U.S. Besides his work in opera, Glass has also made
a life-long study of German Lieder and French art song,
and has accompanied such well-known artists as Grace Bumbry,
Martina Arroyo, and Simon Estes in song recitals all over
Europe and North America, as well as in the Salzburg and
Holland Festivals. Seven of his books on German Lieder
are currently available through Leyerle Publications, including
the complete song texts of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf,
and Strauss, with word-for-word translations, international
phonetic alphabet transcriptions, and commentary. His
biography of the famous singer, Lotte Lehmann (he was her
assistant at the Music Academy of the West) was published
in 1988 by Capra Press of Santa Barbara. His latest
book, The Memoirs of an Opera Bug, was published
in 2006 by Leyerle Publications. |
Evangeline
Noël Glass (Assistant Stage Director) has
sung leading soprano roles in several important European
opera houses including Brussels, Cologne, Rouen, Zurich,
Geneva, Bern, Koblenz, and the Teatro San Carlo in Naples,
as well as in the Salzburg Festival. The operatic
roles she has performed range from Musetta to Isolde. She
has sung the role of “Vita Mondana” in the
premiere of Rappresentazione di anima e di corpo in
the Salzburg Festival, the Countess in Le Nozze di
Figaro, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier,
Nedda, Santuzza, Marguerite in Faust, the title
role in Thaïs, Gerhilde in Die Walküre,
and Jenny in Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. She
studied opera and Lieder with the legendary soprano Lotte
Lehmann at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara
and again in Vienna and Salzburg during Lehmann’s
annual visits to Europe. She also studied with the
distinguished Italian-American soprano Dusolina Giannini,
with John Charles Thomas, and with Paul Althouse. Evangeline
has sung recitals in Europe and the United States and
is currently active as a recitalist in her home state
of Maine, specializing in German Lieder and French art
songs, both in the original languages and in new English
versions by her husband and accompanist, Beaumont Glass. Mr.
and Mrs. Glass have coached as a team the past seven summers
at the American Institute of Musical Studies ("AIMS")
in Graz, Austria and coach singers both at their home
and at a studio in Portland, Maine. Together, they
directed the COC production of The Crucible in
January, 2007. |
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