Synopsis

Time: the 1960s

Place: Rajaputana, India, and Chicago, United States

Act I

American millionaire Mr. Scattergood wants to marry his daughter Kitty to Kodanda, the son of the equally wealthy Marajaha of Rajaputana. However the Crown Prince is in love with Sardula, a servant in his household, who is in turn engaged to a local peasant, Abdul. Trying to marry Kitty off is further complicated by the fact that Kitty, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at Vassar College, refuses to think about marriage until she has proven the subject of her dissertation—namely that somewhere in India is an undiscovered, prehistoric tribe of men, untouched by modern civilization. In order to speed along the process of getting Kitty to marry, her father and the Maharaja follow the advice of the quick-witted Maharani and hire Abdul to pretend to be the “last savage.” Kitty is taken in by the ruse and is triumphant when she captures him. She makes plans to take Abdul back to Chicago and present him to the scientific and social community before delivering him to the New York Zoological Society.

Act II

Kitty’s efforts are bearing fruit, and she plans a grand cocktail party to reveal her success to the world. Meanwhile, in Rajaputana, Kodanda wrestles with his growing love for Sardula, despondent that he is trapped in a marriage to “that anthropologist.” At Kitty’s party, Kitty demonstrates Abdul’s progress, as representatives of “civilized” society vie for Abdul’s attention, vote, and allegiance. Disgusted by their pettiness and hypocrisy, Abdul flees the party and returns to India.

Act III

Kitty and her father search the jungle for Abdul, with the Maharaja and his entourage in tow. Despite her father’s claims that Abdul was only interested in the money, Kitty insists on finding him, while Kodanda struggles to find the courage to tell his father he will marry the servant Sardula rather than the wealthy heiress, Kitty. To secure a happy ending would require the sort of outrageous plot twist that one NEVER finds in an opera. (Well, hardly ever.)

by Ned Canty

I have read many, many program notes that begin by pointing out that whatever operatic masterpiece you are about to see (Carmen, Butterfly, etc.) was initially savaged by the critics. Luckily the good sense of the audiences won out, and here we all sit, oh the irony, aren’t critics silly, etc., etc. The Last Savage, however, was not one of those lucky pieces. Despite rapturous audience response, the brutal treatment visited on the piece by the critics condemned it to obscurity, with only two productions in the following five decades. Both of those productions were also huge hits with their audiences, and actually received positive notices, but neither of them was enough to rescue the piece from its undeserved reputation as a flop.

Enter The Santa Fe Opera. In 2011, they had the good sense and bravery to dismiss the naysayers and program the opera. Whatever the critics might have said in 1963, they knew that this opera has something that few possess—the capacity to delight an audience. Plenty of operas can make us cry, and many can make us laugh, but delight us? Surprisingly, few can do that. And these days, I believe that delight is more important than ever. It reminds us that the world can still change for the better, that fortune can still “wait in hiding to surprise us,” as the characters remark in their stunning Act III septet.

When I first started working on The Last Savage, my friends were all curious what the piece was like. I would say, “imagine if Donizetti and Puccini collaborated on the score of a Doris Day-Rock Hudson movie.” The opera premiered in the same year as their film Lover Come Back (which I would argue is the best of their collaborations), and it shares many of the same themes and obsessions about the shifting roles of women and men in both the workplace and the boudoir. More than that, the film and opera share a bedrock belief that, despite our foibles and follies, human beings are basically good. Menotti certainly doesn’t pull any punches in portraying “civilized” society as petty, hypocritical, and narcissistic. His swipes at modern art, music, and poetry are especially pointed. But the inherent humanity of the piece is always just behind each satirical jab, poised to swoop in and remind us that our similarities are always greater than our differences.

The piece has a rock-solid comic structure, on par with any of the great screwball comedies of its era. The plot twists, mistaken identities, and bizarre coincidences all unfold with an ease and inevitability that disguise the impeccable craft that went into creating the libretto. And while anyone who has ever seen any romantic comedy, well ...ever, will suspect that the right folks will end up with the right folks, the deliciously twisty way in which they do is not only funny, but deeply felt as well.

I hope that after watching and listening you will agree with me that this is an opera unfairly relegated to the dusty archives of our art form. If you do agree, go out and tell everyone you meet! Who knows? Maybe 50 years from now, some director will be able to begin his or her director’s note: “Hard as it may be to believe, The Last Savage was battered by critics on its opening and sat neglected for close to 50 years. Thankfully, this wonderful opera reentered the standard rep due to the insight and bravery of The Santa Fe Opera and the Jacobs School of Music, much to the delight of audiences ever since.”

by Elizabeth Stoner

The Last Savage is Gian Carlo Menotti’s over-the-top slapstick gem. Unlike Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatic operas, The Consul (1950) and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1955), The Last Savage unapologetically blends vaudeville comedy with social commentary and tuneful melodies. The things about the work that charm us today damned it in its own time, though, and it was seldom performed until 2011 when the Santa Fe Opera revived it to great acclaim. Now, critics are giving it a second look, and it is finally receiving attention as a comedic stage work that can be measured against those of Gilbert and Sullivan, and Frank Loesser.

Menotti (1911-2007) came to America from Italy in 1927 and, after graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music and beginning a life-long professional relationship with Samuel Barber, established a reputation as an opera composer and librettist who could wed a distinctly American Broadway musical style to gripping stage drama. Television and the American stage were never far from Menotti’s creative thoughts, and he was one of the first composers to take advantage of twentieth-century broadcast technology. He composed The Old Maid and the Thief (1939) for radio performance and wrote the first opera for television, Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951), which has been a Christmas tradition ever since, making it perhaps his most successful work.

Menotti enjoyed critical and popular success until the late 1950s, when cutting-edge dissonances began to saturate new concert works and critics started to reconsider their fondness for Menotti’s accessible musical style and story-telling. Many European and American critics embraced serial and electronic music, which made Menotti’s tunes, inspired by Broadway melodies and Romantic harmonic idioms, seem decidedly obsolete. To critics, Menotti’s output was now “slick television and cinema of the 1960s wedded pretty much to music of the 1890s.”

In The Last Savage, Menotti criticizes the critics. Instead of changing his compositional style to appease them, Menotti obstinately holds fast to tonality—that is, until he chooses to poke fun at his naysayers, most notably in Act Two. Earlier, the heroine’s rich father and Abdul, the penniless Indian posing as the “last savage,” decide that it would be better for everyone if Abdul returned to India. The harmonies accompanying their dialogue are decidedly diatonic, the music commenting on this moment when two characters, from strikingly different cultures and economic stations, finally come to an agreement. Menotti follows this harmonically settled moment with shocking dissonances in the cocktail party scene. The party guests include poets, modern artists, and a composer who provides the music: an art song sung in a parody of atonal style. This is Menotti’s way of ridiculing the cocktail parties of urban sophisticates in New York City and Chicago that so often served as breeding grounds for certain artistic pretensions—in this case, avant-garde and 12-tone music. Critics probably understood that Menotti made a joke at their expense, but his sense of humor missed its mark.

The Last Savage premiered in America at the Metropolitan Opera in January 1964 to the displeasure of the critics, one of whom dubbed it “the operation of the mind of [a] ...pretentious fool.” The opera’s poor reception might have been more closely linked to recent social and political events than the opera itself. The collective American consciousness was preoccupied with the Civil Rights Movement and was still in shock from the Kennedy assassination; it was probably not the right time for zany farce about a rich young girl who abducts a poor boy to be her anthropological specimen and ends up falling in love with him.

Today, audiences are giving The Last Savage a second chance. It is hard not to fall in love with an opera that satisfies our modern nostalgia for the glamour of the 1960s—remember Mad Men?—while also satisfying our delight in comedic absurdity and beautifully crafted melodies. Menotti defended his music from the critics by saying, “To say of a piece that it is harsh, dry, acid, and unrelenting is to praise it. While to call it sweet and graceful is to damn it. For better or for worse, in The Last Savage, I have dared to do away completely with fashionable dissonance, and in a modest way, I have endeavored to rediscover the nobility of gracefulness and the pleasure of sweetness.” If we listen to Kitty’s aria “Just Look at Him” or Abdul’s “Only for You, Lovely Sardula,” we can hear how accessible, melodic, and Italianate Menotti’s music really is. It is as if we are hearing expansive Italian melodies but through a distinctly American filter. Menotti modeled his joyful satire on Rossini and Donizetti, and the same features that define those Italian comedies also abound in this American one: mistaken identity, love story, reconciliation, and, of course, wacky satire all come together to produce this charming story wrapped in beautiful melodies.

Constantine Kitsopoulos has made a name for himself as a conductor whose musical experiences comfortably span the worlds of opera and symphony, where he conducts in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and Royal Albert Hall, and musical theater, where he can be found leading orchestras on Broadway. He is in his eighth year as music director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra and continues as general director of Chatham Opera, which he founded in 2005. He serves as music director of the Festival of the Arts BOCA, a multi-day cultural arts event for South Florida, and was most recently appointed artistic director of the OK Mozart Festival, Oklahoma’s premier music festival, where he led his second season this past June.

In addition to his ongoing music director commitments, in the 2014-15 season, Kitsopoulos leads the New York Philharmonic in holiday subscription concerts following a notable debut last season. He returns to the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, New Jersey, Houston, and North Carolina, and makes debuts with the Florida Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, and Toledo Symphony. A frequent guest conductor at Indiana University, he leads Menotti’s The Last Savage and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific this season.

Highlights of recent seasons include appearances with Baltimore, Colorado, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh symphony orchestras, as well as the Calgary Philharmonic, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the New York Pops Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Summer concerts have included Saratoga Performing Arts Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony, Blossom Festival with the Blossom Festival Orchestra, Sun Valley Festival, Atlanta Symphony, and Dallas Symphony. International appearances have seen him conduct China’s Macao Orchestra with Cuban band Tiempo Libre, the Tokyo Philharmonic, and the Russian National Orchestra.

Above and beyond his symphonic work, Kitsopoulos maintains a busy opera schedule. In recent seasons, he has led annual productions at Indiana University Opera Theater, including Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore (2013-14), Verdi’s Falstaff (2012-13), Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge (2011-2012), Strauss’s Die Fledermaus (2010-11), and Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella (2008-09).Previous seasons’ operatic highlights include the Dicapo Opera Theatre’s productions of Lehár’s The Merry Widow, Gounod’s Faust, and all three versions of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly; Chatham Opera’s debut production of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors; Hong Kong Municipal Opera’s production of Bizet’s Carmen in both Hong Kong and Beijing; and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at Alice Tully Hall. He also served as music director and created the orchestrations for the world premiere production of Ed Dixon’s Fanny Hill at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut.

Kitsopoulos has continued to show his ability and interest in performing new works and conducting a wide variety of genres. He conducted the Red Bull Artsehcro, an orchestra consisting of students from the top conservatories and university music programs in the country, in a concert at Carnegie Hall featuring a program of world premieres by Raul Yanez and Laura Karpman.

Also much in demand as a theater conductor, both on Broadway and nationwide, Kitsopoulos is currently music director and conductor of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella on Broadway. He most recently served as music director and conductor of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, the Tony-Award winning Broadway musical revival featuring Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis, which ran until September 2012. Prior to that, he was conductor and musical director of the Tony-nominated musical A Catered Affair, the Tony-nominated musical Coram Boy, and the American Conservatory Theatre’s production of Kurt Weill’s Happy End, for which he recorded the cast album at Skywalker Ranch.Other musical theater highlights include serving as music director and principal conductor of Baz Luhrmann’s highly acclaimed production of Puccini’s La Bohème, conducting the new musical The Mambo Kings in San Francisco, serving as music director of Frank Wildhorn’s Dracula and Les Misérables, and conducting Matthew Bourne’s Broadway production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

His most recent recording is the Grammy Award-winning original Broadway cast album of the Tony Award-winning Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, released in May 2012 on P.S. Classics. His first recording, Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Bohème, is available on Dreamworks. Also available are recordings of Happy End, the only English language recording of the work, and an original Broadway cast recording of A Catered Affair on P.S.Classics.

Kitsopoulos studied conducting with his principal teacher Vincent La Selva, as well as Gustav Meier, Sergiu Commissiona, and Semyon Bychkov. He studied piano with Marienka Michna, Chandler Gregg, Ed Edson, and Sophia Rosoff.

Ned Canty is a taller-than-average stage director with credits from companies such as Glimmerglass Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Santa Fe Opera, and New York City Opera. The New York Times has described his stage direction as having “a startling combination of sensitivity and panache,” though others have held divergent opinions. Opera News cited his work as evidence that “The future of American opera is in good hands.”

Canty’s career in opera reflects a commitment to working with emerging artists. He has worked with hundreds of young singers at the Curtis Institute, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Academy of Vocal Arts, Israeli Vocal Arts Institute, and Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He has collaborated with a number of composers and librettists on the development of new works through American Opera Projects and has directed world premieres in New York and Tel Aviv. Last year, he oversaw the Opera Memphis commission of Ghosts of Crosstown, a series of four short operas inspired by the stories of Memphians who lived and worked at the iconic Sears Crosstown Building between 1927 and 1989. The operas were performed in the abandoned building at night, lit only by flashlights carried by the audience.

As general director of Opera Memphis since 2011, he has led a restructuring of the 58-year-old company, launching an annual chamber opera festival and introducing innovative new outreach programs. Foremost among them is 30 Days of Opera, a month-long festival of free performances throughout Memphis and the Midsouth. In its first three years, it has introduced opera to almost 100,000 Memphians in over 200 venues. Its success led to an invitation to join the Strategy Committee of Opera America, a group of thought leaders from across the nation who meet once a year to help shape the future of opera in America.

From 2005 to 2010, Canty was director of the New York Television Festival. Over the course of five years, he helped grow the festival into a nationally recognized forum for discovering new television talent and exploring digital and new media storytelling. He has also worked as an actor, director, and stuntman at Hartford Stage Company, The McCarter Theatre, and the New York Renaissance Festival, among others. He is a graduate of the Catholic University of America and completed postgraduate work in Shakespearean Performance with The Acting Company in London.

He lives in midtown Memphis with his wife, Karen, and three dogs.

Lee Fiskness is a Chicago-based lighting designer who has been the lighting director at The Santa Fe Opera for 14 seasons. His design credits include Camelot, Young Frankenstein (Drury Lane Theatre), Yellow Moon (Writers Theatre), Fredrick (Chicago Children’s Theatre), Gospel of Loving Kindness, L-Vis (Victory Gardens), Burnt Part Boys, Port (Griffin Theatre), You Never Can Tell, Changes of Hearts (Remy Bumppo Theatre), End Days (Next Theatre–Joseph Jefferson Nomination), Souvenirs (Northlight Theatre), Peter Pan (Lookinglass Theatre), Butcher of Barraboo (Red Orchid Theatre), Woyzeck (Hypocrites Theatre), Pony, and Flowers (About Face Theatre). Regional credits include The Ghosts of Versailles (Manhattan School of Music), Forever Plaid, Ring of Fire, Song Man Dance Man, Liberace, Soultime at the Apollo (Milwaukee Rep); Jacques Brel … (Two River Theatre), Bare, Tommy, and Convenience (Minneapolis Music Theatre). Fiskness also works in television, with credits including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Rosie Show, The Steve Harvey Show, Iyanla: Fix My Life, and Super Soul Sunday. He received an M.F.A. in Lighting Design from Northwestern University.

Kyle Lang has choreographed and assistant directed for Virginia Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Central City Opera, Opera Omaha, Tulsa Opera, and Opera Memphis, among others. He has directed Dead Man Walking for Opera Fayetteville. Lang is privileged to have danced as a soloist and in the corps de ballet with ZviDance, The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, The Santa Fe Opera, and with Christopher K. Morgan, performing in countries across Europe, South America, and the Middle East. He pursued music studies at the University of Southern Mississippi before earning a B.F.A. in dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Upcoming engagements for the 2014-15 include a return to Fort Worth Opera, as well as season residency with San Diego Opera.

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, The Italian Girl in Algiers, and La Bohème. 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.

Soprano Martha Eason is currently pursuing her Master of Music in Voice Performance at the Jacobs School of Music. She earned her bachelor’s degree in music and arts administration from the University of Virginia, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the McIntire Department of Music’s Distinguished Majors Program. She has performed as the Second Spirit in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Ash Lawn Opera and Eurydice in Offenbach’s Orfée aux Enfers with University of Virginia Opera Viva. Her recent credits at IU include Vespetta in Telemann’s Pimpinone, Sophie in Massenet’s Werther, Ms. Silverpeal in Mozart’s The Impresario, Serpina in Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, and Atalanta in Handel’s Xerxes. In July, she enjoyed her first full performance of Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate, under the direction of Dr. Betsey Burleigh for the IU Summer Music Festival. Eason also performs with the outreach group Reimagining Opera for Kids as the role of Fire in a new composition by Chappell Kingsland. She has performed as a featured soloist with the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra and the Oratorio Society of Virginia, most recently in a concert featuring BWV 140 and Handel’s Coronation Anthems. At IU, she has been heard as a soloist on several works, including Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Zelenka’s Misere Mei, Deus with Pro Arte, and Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor with the IU Summer Music Festival. Eason is a student of Costanza Cuccaro.

Coloratura soprano Angela Yoon, a native of South Korea, is currently pursuing her Doctor of Music degree at Indiana University, studying under Robert Harrison. She earned her master’s degree from Jacobs and is an assistant instructor in the Voice Department. Her bachelor’s degree is from Baylor University, where she studied with Robert Best. Prior to Baylor, she studied at McLennan Community College with Lise Uhl. Yoon has been named as a winner and a finalist in various competitions, including MTNA, Classical Singer’s Competition, Texoma NATS, and TMTA. She has performed roles in operas and scenes including Thi Mao (The Tale of Lady Thi Kính), Fairy Godmother (Cendrillon), Frasquita (Carmen), Madame Goldentrill (Impresario), Königin der Nacht (Die Zauberflöte), Sandman (Hansel and Gretel), Plaintiff (Trial by Jury), and Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance). As a soprano soloist, Yoon has been featured in Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Carmel Symphony Orchestra and Anderson Symphony Orchestra, and Handel’s Esther, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Willcock’s Magnificat, Allegri’s Miserere, Bach’s St. John Passion, Perez-Velazquez’s Idolos del Sueño, Goodall’s Eternal Light, and Haydn’s Missa Brevis St. Joannis de Deo. Yoon was invited as a guest artist by McLennan Community College to inaugurate the All-Steinway Concert Series and was requested to perform a full recital at the Dallas Steinway Hall. Most recently, she was a guest concert artist in Seoul, South Korea.

A native of Glen Head, N.Y., baritone Robert Gerold is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance as a junior at the Jacobs School of Music. Prior to transferring to the Jacobs School, his operatic credits included Il Mandarino in a concert production of Puccini’s Turandot with Coro Lirico, Le Premier Ministre in Massenet’s Cendrillon with SUNY Purchase Opera, and Peter (der Vater) in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, in German with SUNY Purchase Opera. With IU Opera Theater, Gerold has performed the role of Peter in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, in English. In April 2014, he premiered the dual roles of Retrograde/Asher in New Voices Opera’s premiere of Eric Lindsay’s Cosmic Ray and the Amazing Chris. Last summer, as part of the Oberlin in Italy Summer Program, Gerold performed the title role in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. He is a student of Andreas Poulimenos.

Eric Smedsrud, baritone, is thrilled to make his IU Opera debut as Abdul. Hailing from Eden Prairie, Minn., he recently completed his undergraduate studies in Vocal Performance at Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wis. He is a first-year master’s student studying with Robert Harrison. Recent roles include Frank Maurrant (Street Scene) and Sam (Trouble in Tahiti) at Lawrence University, and Herr Fluth (Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor) with Lyric Opera Studio Weimar in Weimar, Germany.

Summer Aebker is currently pursuing her D.M. in voice performance at the Jacobs School of Music, where she is an associate instructor and a student of Costanza Cuccaro. She earned her M.M. in voice performance from Bowling Green State University (BGSU), where she performed the roles of Iöle in Hercules and Phyllis in Iolanthe, and was a guest artist for the Bowling Green Philharmonia and Wolfe Center Gala Opening. Her B.M. is from the Cincinnati-College Conservatory. She performed the roles of Sandman in Ohio Project Columbus’s production of Too Many Sopranos and the Wedding Planner in OperaWorks’ improvisational production of Zombie-Apoco-lips in California. She is a first-place winner of NATS Great Lakes Regional, second-place winner of the Dr. Marjorie Conrad Art Song Competition, finalist in the Nicholas Loren Vocal Competition and the BGSU Concerto Competition, as well as third-place winner in the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Collegiate Scholarship Competition. Additionally, Aebker is a lecturer of music at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio, where she has performed in various faculty recitals. She maintains a private teaching studio in her hometown of Lima, Ohio.

Soprano Olivia Yokers, a native of Hamilton, Ohio, is in her first year of graduate studies at Indiana University. She recently completed her undergraduate studies in voice performance at IU, where she appeared as Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, LoLo in The Merry Widow, a daughter in Ahknaten, and as one of the wedding singers in Le Nozze di Figaro. She performed with the chorus in IU Opera Theater’s productions of La Bohème and Candide. Yokers was most recently seen performing the role of Celia in Iolanthe with the University Gilbert and Sullivan Society. In 2012, she won the title of Cincinnati Opera Idol and was a member of the Cincinnati Opera chorus for the 2012 and 2013 seasons. In 2013, she was awarded first place at the Indianapolis Musicale competition and the Dayton Opera Guild competition. Yokers is a student of Alice Hopper.

Edward Atkinson is a native of New Brunswick, Canada. In 2010, he completed his Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance at the Townsend School of Music at Mercer University in Georgia. He is currently pursuing a Performer Diploma at the Jacobs School of Music with Patricia Havranek. His past voice teachers include Virginia Zeani, Timothy Noble, and Marie Roberts. Atkinson is director of Sacred Music at Annunciation Church, director of Sacred Music at St. Paul the Apostle Church, and founder and director of the Saint Ambrose Schola Cantorum. He is also a retired professional poker player, having played the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour circuits for several years to fund his music education. He has most recently appeared as Don Ottavio (role), Tamino (scenes), and Belmonte (scenes) with Lawrence Opera Theatre and as a recitalist with one of Canada’s most prestigious young artist programs, Highlands Opera Studio. At Indiana University, Atkinson mostly recently sang as the tenor soloist in J.S. Bach’s cantata Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (BWV 61), as the tenor soloist in Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, and as the tenor soloist in Britten’s Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, and created the role of Al in Timothy Noble’s original musical, The Alamo.

Tenor Will Perkins returns to the IU Opera stage after appearing last season as Thien Si in The Tale of Lady Thi Kính. He has previously been seen here as Camille in The Merry Widow, the title role in Candide, and as Theo Van Gogh in Vincent. This fall, he founded the University Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and directed its first show, Iolanthe, in which he played the Lord Chancellor. Audiences may also recognize him from Cardinal Stage Company’s production of Next to Normal, where he played Dr. Madden and Dr. Fine. Originally from Salt Lake City, Perkins earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah. While there, he sang the roles of Danny in Street Scene, Tamino in The Magic Flute, The Governor and Vanderdendur in Candide, Major-General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance, Laurie in Little Women, and l’Aumonier in Dialogues des Carmélites. He spent two seasons at the Ohio Light Opera, where he sang the roles of Tolloller in Iolanthe, King Louis XV in Madame Pompadour by Leo Fall, the cannibal king, Courageous Rabbit, in Evening Wind by Jacques Offenbach, and Camille in The Merry Widow. Last summer, he performed with Utah Festival Opera as a Lackey in The Student Prince and Joly in Les Misérables, and covered Enjolras and Jean ValJean.

David Rugger, baritone, is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Musicology at the Jacobs School of Music, and holds an M.M. in Music History from Butler University. He has presented papers at the Cambridge Bach Colloquium and at the Midwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society. Recently, he performed with the American Bach Soloists as a part of its Summer Academy. At IU, Rugger performed the role of Mang Ong in the world premiere of The Tale of Lady Thi Kính. Upcoming performances include appearances with the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, Lafayette Bach Chorale, and Bloomington Bach Cantata Project. He is a student of Robert Harrison.

Reuben Walker is a first-year doctoral student at the Jacobs School of Music. He has been seen on the Indiana University Opera Theater stage in the roles of Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore, Le Bailli in Werther, and Pandolfe in Cendrillon. With New Voices Opera, he premiered the role of Captain Keeney in Ezra Donner’s Ile and the role of Richard Nixon in Chappell Kingsland’s Intoxication: America’s Love Affair with Oil. Walker is currently touring with IU’s outreach program Reimagining Opera for Kids (ROK), this year premiering the baritone roles in Chappell Kingsland’s Fire. Last year with ROK, he performed the dual role of El Duende and Payador in Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires. Last month, he performed Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder for IU Ballet’s Dark Elegies. Past concert performances at IU include Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with ad hoc orchestra and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs with the Symphonic Choir. He has performed numerous solo recitals in Western Washington, including complete performances of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin. He studies with Patricia Havranek.

Jeremy Gussin, bass-baritone, is a first-year doctoral student studying under Andreas Poulimenos. From Iowa City, Iowa, he completed undergraduate studies in music education at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC) in 2011. While at UWEC, Gussin performed as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte with UWEC Opera, sang with the DownBeat Award-winning Jazz Ensemble 1 under the direction of Bob Baca, and composed for and student-conducted the Singing Statesmen. A strong proponent of contemporary popular music, Gussin participated as a panelist in a discussion on vocal jazz and contemporary a cappella at the national American Choral Directors Association convention in 2013. While at Indiana, he has performed as a soloist for the Singing Hoosiers and the Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and in Falstaff (Pistola), Le Nozze di Figaro (Antonio), and The Tale of Lady Thi Kính (Ly Troung). He arranges music for high school and collegiate pop and choral ensembles around the Midwest.

Andrew Richardson, bass baritone, is a second-year doctoral student studying with Andreas Poulimenos. Richardson completed his master’s degree at Indiana University in 2012 and his bachelor’s degree at DePauw University in 2010. Past roles at IU include Peter in Hansel and Gretel, Ariodate in Xerxes, Benoit and Alcindoro in La Bohème, Antonio in Le Nozze di Figaro, the Notary in Rosenkavalier, and Wagner in Faust. Roles outside of IU include Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro, Sarastro in The Magic Flute, Colline in La Bohème, and Zuniga in Carmen. Richardson performed Winterreise during the Greencastle Music Festival with Tony Weinstein. He is from South Bend, Ind.

Mezzo-soprano Meghan Folkerts, a native of Scottsdale, Ariz., is a third-year master’s student of Mary Ann Hart, pursuing her degree in voice performance. Her IU credits include Hansel (Hansel and Gretel), Dido and First Witch (Dido and Aeneas), and Fifth Fairy (Cendrillon). This fall, she sang the title role in Iolanthe with the University Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and she is thrilled to be returning to the MAC stage this spring as the Third Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. She has performed opera scenes with IU Opera Workshops and Northwestern University under the direction of Heidi Grant Murphy, Patricia Stiles, and W. Stephen Smith. Favorite roles include Sesto (La Clemenza di Tito), Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Third Lady (Die Zauberflöte), and Mallika (Lakmé). She received her bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from Wisconsin Lutheran College (WLC), studying with Carolyn Fons. While at WLC, she performed roles in many theater productions, including Mopsa (The Winter’s Tale), the Doctor (New York), Lady Jedburgh (Lady Windermere’s Fan), and Anita (West Side Story). Folkerts frequently appeared as a concert soloist at WLC, including Mass in G Minor by Vaughan Williams, Liebeslieder, Op. 52 by Brahms, and Te Lucis Ante Terminum by McDermid.

Contralto/mezzo-soprano Olivia Thompson is a first-year voice performance graduate student. She obtained her undergraduate degree in voice performance from the University of Michigan. This December, she will perform the role of Auntie in a scene from Britten’s Peter Grimes and the role of L’amica in Menotti’s Amelia al Ballo in Carol Vaness’s Opera Workshop. In April 2015, she will appear with IU Opera Theater as Third Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. She is a student of Patricia Stiles.