Zorro
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Il trovatore
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30th Anniversary Season 2023-2024
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Carmen
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direction
Kostis Protopapas
Conductor
Kostis Protopapas
Kostis Protopapas was named General Director of Opera Santa Barbara in December 2017, after two-and-a-half seasons as Artistic Director. During his time as Artistic Director and principal conductor, Kostis brought a unified vision to OSB’s musical and production values, strengthening the orchestra and chorus, engaging some of the country’s most promising young directors and singers, building a high-performing production team, and increasing focus on contemporary American opera. As General Director Kostis assembled Team OSB, a group of enthusiastic overachievers with a passion for innovation and the desire to strengthen the company’s bond with the community, who consistently exceed patrons’ expectations for programs, experiences and communications. Performance highlights from Kostis’ tenure include grand opera classics like Madama Butterfly, Manon, and Eugene Onegin as well as contemporary works like Daniel Catan’s Il Postino, the mariachi opera Cruzar la cara de la luna, and Laura Kaminsky’s As One. In the fall of 2022 the Santa Barbara Independent wrote: “From contemporary work to obscurities from the early 19th century, from staple repertoire to surprise elements, OSB continues to raise the bar on what an opera company can and should be, even in Santa Barbara.”
Between March 2020 and June 2021, under Kostis’ leadership Opera Santa Barbara remained active and fully staffed. It was the first performing arts organization in Santa Barbara to offer streaming programming, and one of only two opera companies in California to present three live operas in the 2020-21 season. Additionally, Opera Santa Barbara became an advocacy leader for the reopening of the performing arts, and funded live performances by local musicians through “Operation Eurydice”. For his work during the pandemic, Kostis was listed among the Santa Barbara Independent’s 2021 Local Heroes.
Before coming to Santa Barbara Kostis was the Artistic Director of Tulsa Opera since 2008. He previously was an Assistant Conductor with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, LA Opera and Santa Fe Opera. At the Lyric Opera of Chicago, he also served as Assistant Chorus Master under Donald Palumbo for two seasons.
Born in Athens, Greece, Kostis Protopapas studied Archaeology and History of Art at the University of Athens before coming to the United States in 1993, on an Onassis Foundation scholarship, to study piano at The Boston Conservatory and conducting at Boston University. He became an American citizen in 2011. He loves living in Santa Barbara, sits on the Board of the Santa Barbara University Club, and enjoys sailing on the Santa Barbara Channel.
Fenlon Lamb
Stage Director
Fenlon Lamb
Fenlon Lamb is continually praised for her dynamic and engaging productions in leading regional houses across the United States. She directed Arizona Opera’s world premiere and the subsequent remount of Riders of the Purple Sage which Broadway World called “epic” and “memorable…literally and figuratively blazing trails.” She recently returned to the company to mount a new production of Charlie Parker’s Yardbird. In previous seasons, Fenlon staged a “grand and gripping” Rigoletto and a “classic and stylish” Lucia di Lammermoor for her debut with the company in 2012.
A house favorite at Palm Beach Opera, Fenlon led a “fizzing and delightful” Il Barbiere di Siviglia for their 2013 International Season and her debut with the company. She has since directed La Bohème which highlighted her “superb theatrical instincts” and “an attractive and well-timed staging” of Don Pasquale which was hailed as “one of the companies best efforts” by Palm Beach News. Subsequent seasons included “a spiced up” Tosca and the Papermoon Opera Production of Hansel and Gretel for PBO’s family series at the Crest Theater.
Other notable productions include La traviata for her Madison and Toledo Opera debuts and a new production for Finger Lakes Opera. Fenlon directed a new production of Scalia/Ginsburg for Opera Delaware, Tosca with Jennifer Rowley in the title role, and The Pearlfishers for Dayton Opera. She has directed Carmen for North Carolina Opera, Mill City Summer Opera, Dayton Opera, Bar Harbor Music Festival and Annapolis Opera. She directed Werther and Hänsel und Gretel for Nightingale Opera Theater, Le nozze di Figaro for Orlando Philharmonic and Stephen Paulus’ To Be Certain of the Dawn with Lexington Symphony. Fenlon led a new production of Der Fliegende Holländer with Greer Grimsley in the title role for Opera Carolina that “balanced operatic polish, romantic beauty and feminist critique” and a “sympathetic production” of Werther for Mobile Opera starring Gran Wilson.
artists
TBA
Artist To Be Announced
Oriana Falla
Praised by Opera News for singing with “palpable purity” and by LA Opus for her “large, lovely, and vibrant [voice],” Colombian-American soprano Oriana Falla, 2022-2023 season includes a role debut as Adina in L’elisir d’amore with Pacific Opera Project and Opera in the Heights.
Previous engagements in the 2021-2022 season included a Concert for Peace for the Washington Concert Society and the soprano soloist for Handel's Messiah. Oriana also recorded for the soundtrack of Disney’s film Encanto. She also recorded and performed a table read of Marian, an original musical based on the life of famed contralto Marian Anderson.
In December 2020, Oriana sang Mimi in Pacific Opera Project’s drive-in performance of La Bohѐme; Opera News hailed the performance as sung with “rare clarity” and referred to her performance as having “plumbed the character’s emotional depths… the most heart wrenching moment of the performance.” In 2019, Falla made role debuts as Violetta in La Traviata with New Rochelle Opera and as the Infanta in Der Zwerg with Numi Opera Theater.
A Los Angeles native, she attended UCLA, where she studied with renowned baritone Vladimir Chernov. There she was the featured soprano soloist for Vaughan William’s Dona Nobis Pacem in Royce Hall, Orff's Carmina Burana with the UCLA Philharmonia ,and La Fée in Massenet’s Cendrillon. She is an Opera Buffs’ grant recipient and sang the role of Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen with them. Falla is a soloist with the Long Beach Camerata singers where she sang Orff’s Carmina Burana and Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem. Oriana currently studies voice with internationally acclaimed soprano Joyce El-Khoury.
read more www.orianafalla.com
Kelly Guerra
Mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra makes her Opera Omaha debut in Suor Angelica as La Zelatrice. Most recently, she performed the title role in Astor Piazzolla’s María de Buenos Aires with Kentucky Opera, reprised the role of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Derrick Wang’s comic opera Scalia/Ginsburg at the Princeton Festival, debuted with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of John Adams in the Noon to Midnight Contemporary Festival, and premiered Katherine Balch’s orchestral song cycle Illuminate with the California Symphony. In the 2021-2022 season she toured …(Iphigenia) by Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding, appearing as Iphigenia Unbound. Upcoming engagements include Cruzar la Cara de la Luna with West Edge Opera and a return to the Princeton Festival as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia.
A strikingly versatile performer, Kelly feels at home with many styles and eras of vocal music from Mozart to Héctor Lavoe. Kelly was lauded as “brilliant” by the Santa Barbara Independent for her performance as Lupita in the mariachi opera Cruzar la Cara de la Luna with Opera Santa Barbara (2021).
Guerra won first place in Santa Barbara’s Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation competition in 2018, prior to her residency as a Young Artist with the Opera Santa Barbara Chrisman studio, where she prepared the roles of Suzuki (Madama Butterfly), Donna Rosa (ll Postino) and Stéphano (Roméo et Juliette). Also in 2018, Kelly was a recipient of a travel grant to Germany for language study from the Max Kade Foundation while completing her DMA at UC Santa Barbara. There Guerra "created a sensation" (BravoCalifornia) singing the role of Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro.
As a recitalist, Guerra has been featured at the Lucerne Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Bard Music Festival. Guerra has performed as a soloist with several ensembles including the Albany Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Opera Hispánica, Garden State Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, Contemporaneous, Opera Parallèle and BluePrint.
She holds a D.M.A from UC Santa Barbara, her master’s in music from the Bard College Conservatory, and her bachelor’s from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she graduated with an award of Vocal Excellence.
A first-generation American and native of Southern California, Kelly champions Spanish language repertoire to welcome more diverse audiences into the concert hall.
kellyguerramezzo.com2019-20 Chrisman Studio Artist
Bernardo Bermudez
Mexican-Venezuelan American BariTenor Bernardo Bermudez has been praised for his exceptional vocal range. His repertoire and roles have expanded to recently include Pleasure in the world premiere of The Romance of The Rose by Kate Soper, as well as both the roles of Laurentino and Mark in Cruzar la Cara De La Luna, and Don Jose in Carmen, among others. He has had the opportunity to perform in a variety of productions and concerts with esteemed companies such as San Diego Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Long Beach Opera, Anchorage Opera, Portland Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, El Paso Opera, Pacific Opera Project, Opera North, Union Avenue Opera, The San Diego Symphony, La Jolla Symphony, and Livermore Valley Opera.
Bermudez’s notable roles include Diego Rivera in Frida, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, Danilo in The Merry Widow, the title role in Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, and Vidal in Luisa Fernanda. He has also participated in several Summer Festivals, including Opera North, Opera NEO, and The Music Academy of the West.
Bernardo’s passion for music has not gone unnoticed, as he has been recognized with several notable awards and grants including, The Opera Buffs grant, semifinalist in the Loren L. Zachary Competition, most recently he received the Music Academy of the West Alumni Enterprise Award in 2019 and 2020.
Apart from his accomplishments as an opera singer, Bermudez is a co-founder of Opera4Kids, a non-profit organization that aims to inspire young minds through live vocal and classical music performances, as well as digital programming. This organization seeks to make Classical music and Opera accessible to all, regardless of their socio-economic background. For further information, please visit www.Opera4Kids.com.
Jessica Gonzalez-Rodriguez
An alumnus of the 2021-2022 Chrisman Studio Artist program with Opera Santa Barbara and a three-time Opera Buffs grant recipient. Highlight engagements include Renata in Cruzar la Cara de la Luna in her mainstage debut with Opera Santa Barbara, Marcellina with the 2021 International Summer Opera Festival of Morelia where she studied with superstar Soprano, Jennifer Rowley, the role debut of Frida Kahlo in Frida with the 2019 Opera Steamboat Summer Intensive, Prince Orlofsky in Vienna, Austria with the 2019 Vienna Summer Music Festival and as Marcellina with the 2018 Prague Summer Nights Festival, in collaboration with world-renowned tenor, Lawrence Brownlee and contralto, Rosalind Plowright.
She has sung the roles of Peggy in Lee Hoiby’s This is the Rill Speaking, Suor Dolcina in Suor Angelica, the Third Witch in Verdi’s Macbeth, in The Merry Widow as Olga, Praskowia and Zozo, Antonia’s Mother and Nicklausse in The Tales of Hoffman and as Hansel in Hansel and Gretel. She performed the role of Nancy in Albert Herring as part of the LA Opera Britten/100 celebration with the Repertory Opera Company. She made her Chicago debut in the 2015 Chicago Summer Opera Program, in the role of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
After making her debut with the Redlands Opera Theatre as Siebel in their production of Faust, she was featured as a Resident Artist for their 2016-2017 season in the roles of La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi and Mercedes in Carmen.
read more www.jessicagonzalezrodriguez.com