Place: Paris    Time: Circa 1830

Act I

A garret shared by the four Bohemians. Christmas Eve.

It is Christmas Eve in the attic apartment shared by four Bohemians. Rodolfo, a poet, and Marcello, a painter, are at home, burning Rodolfo’s manuscript in order to stay warm. Colline, a philosopher, enters with some books he unsuccessfully tried to pawn. Soon, Schaunard, a musician, comes in bringing food, money, and fuel he earned playing for an eccentric Englishman. As the friends are celebrating, Benoit, the landlord, comes for the rent. The friends give Benoit wine, and he begins to brag about women he has been with other than his wife. Feigning outrage at his infidelity, they throw Benoit out of the attic without giving him any money for rent. Everyone but Rodolfo, who must write an article, leaves for the Café Momus. As soon as he is alone, Mimi knocks on the door asking for help because her candle has gone out. Collapsing from a fit of coughing, Mimi, after recovering, realizes that she has dropped her key. Soon after Rodolfo lights Mimi’s candle, a breeze extinguishes both candles. Mimi and Rodolfo both search for the key in the dark. Rodolfo finds the key, but he puts it in his pocket so he can spend more time with Mimi. Rodolfo’s friends call him from the street, and the first act ends with Mimi and Rodolfo having fallen in love almost at first sight.

Act II

The Café Momus in the Latin Quarter that same evening.

That same evening, Mimi and Rodolfo walk through a joyous Christmas Eve crowd to the Café Momus, where they join Rodolfo’s friends. Musetta, who used to be Marcello’s lover, enters with a wealthy old man, Alcindoro de Mittoneaux. Musetta sings a waltz in order to attract Marcello’s attention and make him jealous. Musetta, in a ploy to get rid of Alcindoro, then pretends that her shoe is hurting her and insists that Alcindoro go to the cobbler to get her a new pair. Before Alcindoro returns, the friends hurriedly leave the café.

Intermission

Act III

The Barriere d’enfer, a toll gate near the edge of the city. Later in the winter.

At dawn later that winter, Mimi, who is now very frail, makes her way to a toll gate near the edge of the city. She is looking for Marcello. Marcello asks Mimi to join him, Musetta, and Rodolfo inside the tavern. Mimi explains that she is afraid she can no longer be Rodolfo’s lover because he is so jealous. Rodolfo confides to Marcello that he wants to leave Mimi for a variety of reasons. He finally confesses that he is scared because she is so ill. Mimi, who has been hiding but listening to the conversation, coughs, and Rodolfo discovers her. They agree, regretfully, to end their affair. The sad farewell duet of Mimi and Rodolfo becomes a quartet as Musetta and Marcello continue their bickering.

Intermission

Act IV

The garret. The following spring.

That spring, back in the bohemians’ apartment, Rodolfo and Marcello sing about how they miss Mimi and Musetta, from whom they have parted. Schaunard tries to cheer everyone up by pretending to have champagne. Musetta comes in and tells them that Mimi is dying. Mimi is brought to the attic because she wishes to die near Rodolfo. Rodolfo helps Mimi to a cot and tries to warm her hands. Musetta sends Marcello to sell her earrings for medicine. Colline leaves to sell his coat for food. Musetta leaves to get a muff for Mimi, so Rodolfo and Mimi are left alone. They reminisce about their past and how much they love each other. Once their friends return, Mimi falls asleep, and then quietly dies.

by Jeffrey Buchman

Each time I return to La Bohème, I am amazed at the newness and freshness it offers. One might think that revisiting an old friend like this so often would dull the sparkle of this brilliant gem, but it is clear that Puccini’s masterpiece thrives on constant exploration. It is not surprising that its story of friendship, love, and loss feels as current now as it did in 1896, but what I find astounding, and what continues to draw me back to La Bohème, is how Puccini is able to take our emotions like an instrument in his hands and play it like a virtuoso. In his hands, the most simple melody is infused with emotion and drama. Directing La Bohème, I can almost feel Puccini guiding me to just lead the cast towards truth and honesty.

Of course, many of the master composers we know so well are great dramatists. But Puccini is something different. I see him as an actor of the highest caliber who just happens to express himself through music, and I don’t know of any composer who has found a richer synergy between music and emotion. Instead of using music to tell us where we are in our journey, he uses it to make us feel. With six simple notes, we sense Rodolfo and Mimi falling in love, gazing deeply into each other’s eyes.

It is truly masterful the way his soaring melodies bring to the surface the raw emotions of our own experiences. In the final moment of the opera, when the cry of those powerful and chilling strings surge from the orchestra, Rodolfo is not alone as he heart-wrenchingly calls out for Mimi. We are right there with him, our hearts aching not only for his loss of his beloved Mimi, but at the same time, weeping for our own experiences of loss that we keep locked deep inside us. Puccini has the key to this lockbox. This is his genius. This is why directing La Bohème has been, yet again, such an emotionally rich and thoroughly rewarding experience, and this is why I am already longing for a next opportunity to visit with this old friend.

“Artistic Struggle and the Genesis of Puccini’s La Bohème”

by Matthew Leone

If one could create a list of operas that reflected Oscar Wilde’s famous saying “Life imitates art, more than art imitates life,” Puccini’s La Bohème would be near the top. At first glance, Puccini’s tale of love among struggling artists in mid-nineteenth-century Paris may seem like a curious candidate. While working on the opera between 1893 and 1895, the composer’s living circumstances hardly resembled those of the characters inhabiting Bohème’s squalid garrets and dingy cafes. Far from it—in addition to composing, Puccini also traveled extensively to promote his previous operatic success, the wildly popular Manon Lescaut. Furthermore, Manon’s success had made Puccini wealthy, and he could now pursue some of his favorite pastimes, including cycling and hunting trips.

Yet beneath these musical and financial successes, the reality was that Puccini’s life still imitated those of La Bohème’s characters: like the opera’s protagonists, Puccini and his collaborators struggled mightily to create a successful work of art. In some ways, it was no small miracle that the composer produced a finished opera at all. The history of La Bohème’s genesis is rife with multiple setbacks, creative differences, frustrations among the composer and librettists, and constant revisions to both plot and music that continued until opening night and beyond. Nevertheless, Puccini and his collaborators succeeded where Bohème’s characters could not, and their struggle makes for a story nearly as compelling as the opera itself.

The libretto for La Bohème created problems almost immediately. Puccini’s librettists, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based the opera’s scenario on the French author Henry Mürger’s novel Scenes de la vie de boheme, which was well known in Italy at the time. Mürger’s Scenes was filled with numerous characters and various unrelated subplots, and creating a libretto with dramatic continuity proved immensely difficult. Scenes were frequently added and discarded, and more than once, Giacosa complained about the “wearisome pedantry” of his work on Bohème’s scenario. The initial drafts did not yet contain a number of scenes now regarded as essential to the beloved opera, including the meeting between Rodolfo and Mimi at the end of Act I. The love story between Rodolfo and Mimi was not even at the center of the drama until almost a year into the project.

Puccini himself struggled the most with the creation of La Bohème, and his consummate perfectionism and obsessive revisions of both plot and music (sometimes behind the librettists’ backs) caused multiple problems. He disagreed completely with the librettists’ original ending and the details of Mimi’s death, and his stubbornness forced Illica to come up with three different scenarios for the final act. Illica eventually started to question every word he wrote, and he came to expect that Puccini would react negatively to his latest work. Giacosa’s complaints about Puccini’s constant requests for changes, expressed in a letter dated a year and a half after beginning the project, are perhaps most telling:

“I’m tired to death of this constant remaking, retouching, adding, correcting. . . . I’ve written this damned libretto from beginning to end three times and
certain sections four or five times. How am I supposed to finish at this rate?”

Indeed, Puccini’s collaboration with Giacosa had soured to the point that Bohème’s publisher and promoter, Giulio Ricordi, needed to smooth things over. His letter to Puccini, dated nearly two years after the project’s inception, bluntly summed up the difficulties: “It seems to me with your Bohème, that I am at a ball game in which the libretto is substituted for the ball.” Furthermore, with each revision of the libretto came new music, and Puccini’s drafts are filled with crossed out passages and reworkings of previous ideas. Whole sections of music and entire scenes were also discarded in the later stages of composition. Puccini even reworked the second act after the January 1896 premiere, and portions of Act III were revised as late as 1898.

In light of all these revisions and collaborative difficulties, it is all the more remarkable that the “definitive” 1898 version of La Bohème is a work of impressive dramatic unity and musical economy. This dramatic unity is especially prevalent in the carefully constructed parallels between Acts I and IV: both acts take place in Rodolfo’s garret, and both acts conclude with a powerful romantic moment between Rodolfo and Mimi. Puccini’s music also reflects the libretto’s unity in its efficient reuse of various musical motives and themes. The score is meticulously constructed, with statements of previously heard melodies holding the entire musical and dramatic fabric together. Mimi’s farewell to Rodolfo in Act IV, “Sono andati,” is introduced by recalling the “love motif” from the Act I duet, “O suave fanciulla.” Mimi’s entrance in Act III is signaled by melodies from her Act I aria, “Mi chiamano Mimi.” Sometimes, this tight construction was a direct result of Puccini’s constant changes. Even in 1898, he revised Rodolfo’s entrance in Act III to include themes from his Act I aria, “Nei cieli bigi,” as well as fragments of “O suave fanciulla’s” love motif.

If anything, the numerous difficulties encountered by Puccini and his collaborators reveal that struggle can be a highly personal and relative sensation. The struggling artists in La Bohème endure constant hunger, poverty, and artistic setbacks—from their perspective, Puccini’s successful career and comfortable living conditions might seem like paradise. Yet for all his comforts, Puccini’s artistic difficulties with La Bohème caused him considerable distress. It is very possible that, from his own standpoint, creating an “ideal” Bohème was as much of a struggle as living the impoverished life of a Rodolfo or Mimi. Despite these vastly different circumstances, Puccini’s struggle to make La Bohème a successful work of art was very real. The most important difference between Puccini and Bohème’s struggling artists, however, is that in the end, Puccini triumphed.

Paul Nadler has distinguished himself as an exciting and highly respected operatic and symphonic conductor. Since his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1989, he has led the company in more than 60 performances. This past season at the Met, Nadler conducted Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka (starring Renée Fleming in the title role). In the coming season, he is scheduled to conduct a new production of Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow (again starring Fleming in the title role) as well as performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s Ernani. He will also be conducting the gala “Viva Verdi” opening concerts of Gulfshore Opera in November 2014.

Nadler recently conducted a highly successful series of Puccini’s Turandot at Opéra de Montréal as well as gala concerts with I Sing Beijing at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in 2011 and 2012, and in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in February 2013. In spring 2015, he again conducts the Bucharest Philharmonic and the Iasi Philharmonic Orchestras in Romania.

Performances at the Metropolitan Opera have featured stars such as Placido Domingo, Renée Fleming, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Anna Netrebko, Luciano Pavarotti, and Bryn Terfel. His repertoire at the Met includes Die Zauberflöte, Fidelio, Rigoletto, Aida, Don Carlo, La Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschera, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Tannhäuser, Andrea Chénier, Roméo et Juliette, Carmen, Eugene Onegin, and Stravinsky’s triple bill Le Sacre du Printemps/Le Rossignol/Oedipus Rex.

Nadler is conductor emeritus of the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Filarmonica de Stat Iasi (Romania). Co-founder and music director of the International Vocal Arts Institute, he returns each summer to this prestigious professional workshop. Early in his career, he won the Jerusalem Symphony Competition. In 1974, Nadler founded the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, where he remained as music director and conductor through 1983. He returned to the Chamber Orchestra in 2008 to lead a celebration in honor of its thirty-fifth season.

Opera News calls director Jeffrey Marc Buchman “a formidable talent,” and the South Florida Classical Review wrote “Buchman has mastered an art beyond the powers of many directors.” Following enormous success directing the premiere of Madama Butterfly for the National Theater in Managua, Nicaragua, Buchman returned to create a critically acclaimed production of La Bohème.

Last season, he created new productions of La Traviata for Indiana University, La Tragédie de Carmen for Syracuse Opera, Don Giovanni for UCLA, Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the Orlando Philharmonic, La Cenerentola for Green Mountain Opera Festival, Le Nozze di Figaro for the Miami Summer Music Festival, L’Elisir d’Amore for Cincinnati Conservatory of Music’s Summer Program, and No Exit for Florida Grand Opera. He also created the world premiere of Carson Kievman’s chamber opera Fairy Tales: Songs of the Dandelion Woman, which received rave reviews.

In the 2012-13 season, Buchman made his debut with Atlanta Opera directing Carmen, made a triumphant return to Florida Grand Opera with a new production of The Magic Flute, and created productions of Romeo et Juliette for Intermountain Opera and Cold Sassy Tree for Sugar Creek Symphony & Song. Other recent highlights include directing a very popular Rigoletto for Florida Grand Opera, Turandot for Mobile Opera, South Pacific for Anchorage Opera, Il Trovatore for Opera Naples, Hansel and Gretel for Sarasota Opera, The Bartered Bride for the New World School of the Arts, L’Elisir d’Amore for Toledo Opera, and a new production of Faust for Opera Naples, which critics claimed “has set a new standard for the company.”

Buchman’s work with young singers has been extensive. In addition to working with IU Opera Theater and UCLA, he has created productions for the young artist programs of the Seattle Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and Tulsa Opera, as well as working with apprentices at both Sarasota Opera and Chautauqua Opera. For five years, he served as stage director for the opera department of the New World School of the Arts, where he created acclaimed productions of The Magic Flute, Hansel and Gretel, Amelia Goes to the Ball, La Divina, Die Fledermaus, and Così fan tutte. This season, he will create new productions of Gianni Schicchi and Suor Angelica for the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music.

Winner of the prestigious Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, Buchman began his work in opera as an acclaimed singer, noted for his ability to merge acting and singing. Other prizes include first prize in the National Voice Competition of the National Society of Arts and Letters and a Richard F. Gold career grant from the Shoshana Foundation. He began his music studies at the Baltimore School for the Arts and continued at the Interlochen Arts Academy. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Opera degree from the Boston Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music in Voice degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in his native city of Baltimore, Md. He studied German at the Goethe Institut in Prien am Chiemsee and Germany and Spanish at the Instituto Cervantes. Buchman trained in the Young Artist Program of the Florida Grand Opera, where he later was honored with the company’s Evelyn P. Gilbert Award, and also in the Studio and Apprentice Artist Programs of Central City Opera, where he was awarded their Studio Artist of the Year award.

Born in Bloomington, Ind., and raised not two blocks from campus, C. David Higgins started his theatrical studies at IU intent on becoming an actor/dancer before he discovered his love for scenic design. He studied with the famous C. Mario Cristini and became proficient in the Romantic-Realist style of scenic design and painting. After earning his master’s degree, he joined the staff of Indiana University Opera Theater and worked there as master scenic artist from the time the Musical Arts Center opened in 1971 until his retirement in December 2011. He was appointed to the faculty in 1976 and served as chair of the Opera Studies Department and principal designer for Opera Theater. His design credits throughout the United States include the San Antonio Festival, Memphis Opera, Norfolk Opera, Louisville Opera, Detroit Symphony, Canton Ballet, and Sarasota Ballet, as well as many other venues. His Indiana University productions have been seen throughout North America as rentals by major regional opera companies.

His many international credits include the Icelandic National Theater; Ballet San Juan de Puerto Rico; Korean National Opera; Seoul City Opera; Korean National Ballet; Dorset Opera (England); Teatro la Paz de Belém, Brazil; and the Teatro National de São Paulo, Brazil. He has designed the scenery for the world premiere of Our Town (Ned Rorem), the American premieres of Jeppe (Sandström) and The Devils of Loudun (Penderecki), and the collegiate premières of Nixon in China (Adams) and The Ghosts of Versailles (Corigliano), as well as many other operas and ballets. Known for his Italianate painting style, Opera News magazine has referred to Higgins as one of the finest American scenic artists today.

Patrick Mero is the head of lighting for IU Opera and Ballet Theater. He has designed the lighting for La Traviata, H.M.S. Pinafore, Le Nozze di Figaro, Werther, Falstaff, Xerxes, Don Giovanni, Albert Herring, La Bohème, Tosca, L’Italiana in Algeri, West Side Story, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi. He has also done extensive design work for the Jacobs School of Music Ballet Department, the African American Art Institute’s Dance Ensemble, and Cardinal Stage Company. In addition to his work in Bloomington, he has worked at the Spoleto Festival USA. Mero originally hails from Charleston, S.C., but calls Bloomington home.

Along with his responsibilities as professor of choral conducting and faculty director of opera choruses at the Jacobs School of Music, Walter Huff continues his duties as Atlanta Opera chorus master. He has been chorus master for The Atlanta Opera since 1988, preparing the chorus in more than 100 productions, receiving critical acclaim in the United States and abroad. Huff received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory and his Master of Music degree from Peabody Conservatory (Johns Hopkins). He studied piano with Sarah Martin, Peter Takacs, and Lillian Freundlich, and voice with Flore Wend. After serving as a fellow at Tanglewood Music Center, he received Tanglewood’s C. D. Jackson Master Award for Excellence.

Huff served as coach with the Peabody Opera Theatre and Washington Opera, and has been musical director for The Atlanta Opera Studio, Georgia State University Opera, and Actor’s Express (Atlanta, Ga.). He also has worked as chorus master with San Diego Opera. He served on the faculty at Georgia State University for four years as assistant professor, guest lecturer, and conductor for the Georgia State University Choral Society. Recently, he was one of four Atlanta artists chosen for the first Loridans Arts Awards, given to Atlanta artists who have made exceptional contributions to the arts life of Atlanta over a long period of time. While serving as chorus master for The Atlanta Opera, Huff has been the music director for The Atlanta Opera High School Opera Institute, a nine-month training program for talented, classically trained high school singers. He has served as chorus master for the IU Opera Theater productions of Don Giovanni, The Merry Widow, Akhnaten, Le Nozze di Figaro, Lady Thi Kính, H.M.S. Pinafore, La Traviata, and The Italian Girl in Algiers. This past June, Huff served as choral instructor and conductor for the Sacred Music Intensive, a workshop inaugurated by the Organ and Choral departments at the Jacobs School. In addition, he maintains a busy vocal coaching studio in Atlanta.

Brent Gault has taught elementary and early childhood music courses in Texas, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. He specializes in elementary general music education, early childhood music education, and Kodály-inspired methodology. Gault also has training in both the Orff and Dalcroze approaches to music education.

He has presented sessions and research at conferences of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association, the Dalcroze Society of America, the International Kodály Society, the International Society for Music Education, the Organization of American Kodály Educators, and MENC: The National Association for Music Education. In addition, he has served as a presenter and guest lecturer for colleges and music education organizations in the United States and China.

Articles by Gault have been published in various music education periodicals, including the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, the Journal of Research in Music Education, Music Educators Journal, General Music Today, the Kodály Envoy, the Orff Echo, and the American Dalcroze Journal.

In addition to his duties with the Music Education Department, Gault serves as the program director for the Indiana University Children’s Choir, where he conducts the Allegro Choir. He is a past president of the Organization of American Kodály Educators.

Daniela Siena brings many years of experience in teaching Italian diction and language to singers. She was introduced to operatic diction by Boris Goldovsky, who was seeking a native speaker without teaching experience to work with singers according to his own pedagogical principles. Siena went on to teach in a number of operatic settings (among them, the Curtis Institute of Music, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, and Seattle Opera). Over the years, she worked with a number of well-known singers, including Samuel Ramey, Justino Díaz, Carol Vaness, Wolfgang Brendel, June Anderson, Gianna Rolandi, and Jerry Hadley. The conductors, coaches, and stage directors with whom she has worked include Otto Guth, Max Rudolf, Edoardo Müller, David Effron, Arthur Fagen, Anthony Pappano, Anthony Manoli, Terry Lusk, Dino Yannopoulos, Tito Capobianco, Andrei Șerban, John Cox, and John Copley. At New York City Opera, Siena worked closely with Beverly Sills—as her executive assistant, as a diction coach, and as the creator of English supertitles for a dozen operas. More recently, she worked for two years as a coach for the Young Artists Program of the Los Angeles Opera and, for the past six years, she has taught in Dolora Zajick’s summer Institute for Young Dramatic Voices. Born in Florence, Italy, to an Italian mother and a Russian émigré father, Siena arrived in the United States at age seven. She received a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and, in her twenties, worked for two years in Italy as secretary to the president of the Olivetti Company. Many years later, she continued her education, earned a master’s degree, and became licensed as a psychotherapist by the state of California, where she practiced for 15 years. The mother of two grown children, she moved to Bloomington to be near her son, who lives here with his wife and two young daughters.

Stage director Vincent Liotta has been both a professional stage director and a dedicated educator for more than 40 years. He is currently chair of the Opera Studies Department in the Jacobs School of Music, where he teaches stage directing, acting, and operatic literature. As a stage director, he has been involved in creating many world premiere productions. Most recently, he conceived and directed the much-acclaimed premiere of Vincent by composer Bernard Rands and librettist J. D. McClatchy for IU Opera Theater. Among other notable premieres in which he has taken a creative lead are Coyote Tales by Henry Mollicone and Too Many Sopranos by Jacobs composer Edwin Penhorwood. His professional projects have been seen on four continents—including Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Puccini’s La Bohème in Seoul, Korea; the eastern-European premiere of Bernstein’s Candide for the Romanian National Opera in Cluj-Napoca; Puccini’s Madama Butterfly for Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and La fanciulla del West at the Canadian National Opera Cin Toronto. Liotta’s operatic repertory covers the entire history of opera, from Cavalli to John Corigliano. In 1993, he co-founded the Utah Festival Opera. In addition to directing, he has authored and translated works for the musical theater, including a new libretto for Victor Herbert’s operetta, Naughty Marietta, and Viva Verdi, an original biographical evening about the life and work of Giuseppe Verdi. He has done new English translations for The Merry Wives of Windsor and Orlando Paladino in addition to a new libretto for The Merry Widow. For many years, Liotta has collaborated with Harold Prince on productions of Turandot and Don Giovanni, as well as on the world premiere of Willie Stark.

Andrew Marks Maughan, tenor, is from Salt Lake City, Utah. After studying Italian in Northern Italy for two years, he attended The University of Utah as a student of Robert Breault. In 2011 and 2013, Maughan received encouragement awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. In the summers of 2011-14, he joined the Ohio Light Opera (OLO). Some highlights from OLO include singing the roles of Alfred in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus; Freddy in Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady; Fredric in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance; Sandor Barinkay in Johann Strauss’s The Gypsy Baron; Fritz in Offenbach’s The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein; Camille in Lehár’s The Merry Widow, and several others. While attending The University of Utah, he had the pleasure of singing many roles, including Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff, Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Sam Polk in Floyd’s Susannah, Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and Le Chevalier in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. He sang the role of Alfredo in IU Opera Theater’s spring 2014 production of Verdi’s La Traviata. Maughan received his M.M. in Voice Performance in 2013 from the University of Utah and is currently pursuing his D.M. in Voice Performance at IU. He is a student of Costanza Cuccaro.

Derrek Stark is a native of Bath, N.Y., where he began studies in voice and piano, eventually culminating in a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Mansfield University, where he studied with Todd Ranney. Stark is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Jacobs School of Music, where he studies with Carol Vaness. Past roles at IU include Fenton in Falstaff and Alfredo in La Traviata. This past summer, he participated as a young artist in the Opera Experience Southeast and Opera Maya festivals. Additionally, he performed in the world premiere of K’hatun, a piece written in Mayan and composed by IU alumnus Jonathan Metzinger. Always an active musician and collaborator, Stark has served as accompanist for local theater groups playing piano for Aida, Cabaret, The Pajama Game, Mame, John and Jen, and others. His stage performance credits include Billy Bigelow in Carousel, Don Basilio in La Nozze di Figaro, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Tommy Innocent in The Outcasts of Poker Flats, Fenton in Falstaff, Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, and Alfredo in La Traviata.

Soprano Sooyeon Kim, a native of South Korea, received her B.M. degree from The Juilliard School and is pursuing her M.M. degree under Costanza Cuccaro at IU. Her opera performances include Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), Violetta (La Traviata), and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) with Seoul Metropolitan Opera. She also sang in Armide, a production with the Metropolitan Opera and Juilliard, and in La Finta Giardiniera as Sandrina at Juilliard. At IU last season, she sang Sung Ba in the world premiere of The Tale of Lady Thi Kính. Her recent concerts include the soprano solo in Deutsche Radio Philharmonic’s performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 conducted

by Karel Chichon in Seoul. Last April, she sang with the Moravian Philharmonic at Smetana Hall, Prague, and in July, she appeared at the Seoul Arts Center to sing with the Seoul Philharmonic in its twenty-third anniversary concert. The same month, she was invited by the International Cesky Krumlov Music Festival to sing with tenor Jonas Kaufmann in its open-air opening gala concert, with the president of the Czech Republic in the audience. In 2015, Kim will record selected orchestral songs with the Nürnberg Symphony in Germany. She will also sing Suor Angelica at the Opera House Palacio de Congresos, Spain, and will appear as soloist in Messiah at Suntori Hall, Japan, in May. In June, Kim will sing with tenor Ramon Vargas in opera gala concerts in five cities in Austria, which will be broadcast by Hungarian National Television. The concerts will feature Ferenc Rosza conducting the Hungarian National Philharmonic and Choir.

Lacy Sauter hails from Scottsdale, Ariz., and is a Performer Diploma student under the tutelage of Carol Vaness. Past roles at IU include Violetta in La Traviata, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette. She recently made her debut as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire with Union Avenue Opera in St. Louis. In 2013, she completed her tenure as a young artist at the Florida Grand Opera, where she sang First Lady in Die Zauberflöte, Flora in La Traviata, and Bianca in La Rondine, and covered the roles of Mimi and Musetta in La Bohème, Violetta in La Traviata, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Magda in La Rondine, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette. Sauter spent two summers as an apprentice singer with The Santa Fe Opera, singing Albina in La Donna del Lago and covering Wanda in the Grand Duchess ofGerolstein and Violetta in La Traviata. Other young artist program credits include Chautauqua Opera, Utah Festival Opera, and The Glimmerglass Festival. She was also an active performer with Arizona Opera, where she sang the role of the First Bridesmaid in Le Nozze di Figaro and performed for various outreach programs. Sauter was a winner of the Arizona and the Middle-East Tennessee Districts of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, second-place winner in the Orpheus Vocal Competition, and honored to be nominated for a Sara Tucker Study Grant.

Ross Coughanour is a baritone from Santaquin, Utah. He graduated with a B.A. in Vocal Performance from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 2013. While at BYU, he performed such roles as Papageno in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Ben in Menotti’s The Telephone, Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Dr. Stone in Menotti’s Help! Help! The Globolinks!, Somarone and Leonato in Berlioz’s Beatrice et Benedict, and the Duke of Plazatoro in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers. Outside of school, Coughanour played the Marquiz in Verdi’s La Traviata with the Utah Lyric Opera, Uncle Bonze in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with the Utah Lyric Opera, and Edwin in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury with Snow College Opera. At IU, he was featured as Mang Ong in the world premiere of P. Q. Phan’s The Tale of Lady Thi Kính. He currently studies with Carlos Montane at Indiana University.

Jaeho Lee was born in Daejeon, South Korea, and is currently an undergraduate student in his first year at the Jacobs School of Music. He is pursuing a Performer Diploma in Voice with Wolfgang Brendel. Lee studied singing in Altidona, Marche, Italy for two years with Rossella Marcantoni.

Chelsea Hart, soprano and native of Coldwater, Mich., is completing her Performance Diploma at Indiana University, studying with Heidi Grant Murphy. Hart received her master’s degree from The Ohio State University, where she performed the roles of Female Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia) and Micaëla (Carmen). Hart has recently sung Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte) with the Bay View Music Festival and Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi) with Opera Project Columbus. Hart received her bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University, where she performed numerous roles, including Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Mimi (La Bohème), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), and Papagena (Die Zauberflöte). She has sung with the Ohio Light Opera, Opera Project Columbus, Midland Symphony, Amherst Symphony Orchestra, Central Michigan Orchestra, and Ohio State Orchestra. Hart will be performing Vier letzte Lieder with the Amherst Symphony Orchestra this December and will be featured in the Verdi Requiem this Spring in Columbus, Ohio.

Meagan Sill, soprano, is from Northern Virginia and is currently in the second year of her master’s degree studies at Indiana University. She graduated from James Madison University (JMU) with her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and a minor in jazz studies. While at JMU, Sill performed the roles of Adina (L’Elisir d’Amore), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Frasquita (Carmen), Monica (The Medium), Yum-yum (The Mikado), and Mabel (Pirates of Penzance). She also performed with Luray Opera Theater as Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel and has appeared as a soloist in Vivaldi’s Gloria and Brahms’ Ein deutches Requiem. Sill appeared in the chorus of The Tale of Lady Thi Kính last year with IU Opera Theater and holds an Artistic Excellence Award from the Jacobs School of Music. She is a student of Carol Vaness.

Steven Berlanga, bass-baritone, comes to the Jacobs School of Music from Salinas, Calif. He is currently in his second year pursuing a D.M. in Choral Conducting and last year, performed the role of Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore with IU Opera Theater. He has also performed in Tales of Hoffmann (Villains) with the California State University–Long Beach (CSULB) Opera Institute and in Jesus Christ Superstar (Caiaphas) with Cabrillo Stage. Berlanga completed his M.M. degree at College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati (UC), where he served as director of the UC Cabaret Singers and assistant conductor of the UC Men’s Chorus. He holds a B.M. in Vocal Performance degree from CSULB, where he was assistant conductor for the University and Chamber choirs, director of the CSULB Women’s Chorus, and chorus master of the Bob Cole Conservatoryof Music Opera Institute. He received his A.A. in Music degree from Cabrillo College and directed the Dolce section of the Cabrillo Youth Chorus. Berlanga has appeared as soloist in Vaughan William’s Dona Nobis Pacem with the Santa Cruz Symphony and in Hindemith’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d with the Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus. As a professional chorister, he has sung with the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati. He is currently a student of Robert Harrison.

Marcus Simmons is a native of Philadelphia, Pa., and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Music in Voice Performance at Indiana University. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Music Performance and Music Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and his Master of Music degree from Miami University. Simmons has performed the roles of Usher in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury, Pirate King in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Tom/John in Mollicone’s The Face on the Barroom Floor, Dulcamara in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, Bob in Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, and Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. At IU, he performed the title role in Gianni Schicchi under the direction of Carol Vaness and is pleased to be making his debut with IU Opera Theater as Colline. At IU, Simmons has studied with Carol Vaness and Wolfgang Brendel and has coached with Mark Phelps and Kevin Murphy. Simmons has served as an apprentice artist with the International Opera Theatre and the Des Moines Metro Opera. He has concert scene experience as Porgy from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Ping from Puccini’s Turandot, Talbot from Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Achilla from Handel’s Giulio Cesare, and Father Palmer from Puts’s Silent Night and has been a soloist in Bach’s Wachet Auf, Dubois’ Seven Last Words, Faure’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem, and Schubert’s Mass in G.

Baritone Erik Krohg, a native of Bloomington, Minn., is performing his second role with Indiana University Opera Theater. He is an associate instructor of voice at Indiana University, where he is pursuing his Master of Music in Voice Performance as a student of Timothy Noble. At Indiana, Krohg has been heard as Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore and as the bass soloist in Haydn’s Paukenmesse in a performance with the University Singers. In November, he will be heard as the baritone soloist in a performance of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with the IU Oratorio Chorus and the Philharmonic Orchestra. Krohg earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance summa cum laude degree from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., where he studied with Peter Halverson and was a frequent soloist with the Concordia Choir. At Concordia, he was heard as Jesus in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and as a baritone soloist in Carmina Burana. In 2011, Krohg performed as the baritone soloist in a performance of René Clausen’s Memorial with the Northern Symphony Orchestra with the composer conducting. He has performed in several productions with the Fargo-Moorhead Opera Company, including Il Barbiere di Siviglia, in which he sang the role of Fiorello. In 2013, he was an associate fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he performed in Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River and Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas under the direction of Mark Morris and conducted by Stefan Asbury.

Keith Schwartz, baritone, is a native of the Washington, D.C., area. He is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Voice Performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music as a student of Timothy Noble. He is a current member of the Reimagining Opera for Kids outreach program at IU and is performing the baritone roles in Chappell Kingsland’s newly commissioned children’s opera, The Firebringers. This past summer, he was seen as Antonio in Le Nozze di Figaro and Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte with the Miami Summer Music Festival. Last year, Schwartz was seen as Johann in Werther and Il Commissario in La Traviata with IU Opera Theater as well as Marco in Gianni Schicchi in the Opera Workshop class taught by Carol Vaness. His previous credits include Horemhab in Akhnaten with IU Opera in collaboration with Indianapolis Opera. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Delaware, where he performed the title role in Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro with the University of Delaware Opera Theater.

A senior from Avon, Ind., Christopher Seefeldt is finishing degrees in voice performance from the Jacobs School of Music and Germanic studies from the College of Arts and Sciences. As a chorus member with IU Opera Theater, Seefeldt has appeared in La Bohème, Candide, Don Giovanni, Cendrillon, Xerxes, Le Nozze di Figaro, and La Traviata. This production of La Bohème is his second time appearing as a principal soloist for IU Opera, having previously performed the role of Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore. In addition to his work with IU Opera, Seefeldt has also performed as bass soloist in Michael Haydn’s Missa Sancti Gabrielis for the Jacobs Symphonic Choir and in Mozart’s Requiem as part of the Jacobs Summer Music series. With the Bloomingvoce Summer Opera Workshop, he performed the role of Sarastro in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and previously premiered the role of Joseph in Kevin Garza’s What We Learn in Between with New Voices Opera. Seefeldt is a student of Timothy Noble.