Act I

Fiorello and his clan arrive at the pre-determined time, anxious about the possibility of being discovered and jailed for loitering illegally in the courtyard of a nobleman. The Count wakes suddenly, and they accompany his serenade. When Rosina fails to appear, the Count crumbles in desperation, paying Fiorello much more than expected. This captures the interest of Fiorello’s entourage, who first thank the Count profusely, then rob him of his remaining gold.

Figaro, the infamous barber and surreptitious matchmaker of Seville, is preparing himself and his workers for their busiest time of the year, the Carnival season, when amorous intrigue and mayhem are the orders of the day.

The Count recognizes his former servant and decides to enlist his help, explaining his situation. When he points out the house of his beloved, Figaro explains that he has complete access as the barber and adds that Rosina is not the daughter of Bartolo but only his ward. The Count is overjoyed at this stroke of luck and promises Figaro untold wealth if he will help him win his beloved. Figaro clears his busy schedule, bumping this project up to high priority.

Act II

Rosina declares her love for Lindoro, the young student who has serenaded her beneath her balcony, and determines to be victorious over her tyrannical guardian and to marry Lindoro at all costs. She writes him a note professing her love and begins to scheme about how to get it delivered.

Her music teacher, Don Basilio, arrives with news for Doctor Bartolo. He has gotten wind that Count Almaviva is the secret suitor of Rosina and that the young nobleman has arrived in Seville to win her hand. This terrifies Doctor Bartolo: going up against such a powerful family could be dangerous. Basilio suggests a remedy, slander, which he has developed into a foolproof system capable of dispatching any adversary within a few days. Though intrigued, Bartolo decides he must move more quickly and marry the girl this very day to prevent Almaviva from succeeding in snatching away his beautiful ward. They begin drawing up the marriage contract.

Figaro, having overheard this dastardly plot, reports it to Rosina, who laughs it off as ridiculous. Besides, she has more pressing matters, like how to convey her feelings to her lover without seeming too forward. She and Figaro play a little cat and mouse game on this subject, and she finally reveals the note she has written, eliciting a promise from Figaro that he will deliver it.

Upon seeing Figaro with Rosina, Bartolo enters the room and begins questioning Rosina, suspecting that Figaro may be helping Almaviva gain access to her. She tells a series of lies, narrowly escaping each trap Bartolo lays out for her. Bartolo, in exasperation, finally threatens her with house arrest if she persists, unveiling a monstrous contraption he has been constructing for just that purpose. Rosina runs to her room, weeping.

A drunken soldier (Almaviva in disguise) arrives, producing a military billeting order to lodge in Bartolo’s house. Bartolo is stunned by this turn of events and produces an exemption he obtained from the royal court. This throws a monkey wrench into the Count’s plans, and he has to improvise. Complications mount, tempers flare, and the ensuing chaos brings the police force in to take action. After all witnesses have reported, the Sergeant at Arms decides it is the drunken soldier who must be arrested. In a coup de théâtre Almaviva privately reveals his true identity to the Sergeant, and the arrest order is reversed. Everyone is stunned. How could this have happened? This leads to even more chaos, and there is a fit of group insanity as the curtain falls on Act II.

Act III

Bartolo, completely baffled by the soldier episode, decides that Almaviva is somehow directly involved in this farce. Just then, a monk named Don Alonso (again, Almaviva in disguise) arrives, bestowing endless blessings upon the household. Bartolo knows he has seen his face somewhere before but cannot place it. When Alonso explains that he is a student of Basilio and is here to substitute for Rosina’s singing lesson due to the sudden illness of Basilio, Bartolo becomes suspicious and is about to throw the scoundrel out when Alonso produces the love note Rosina had written earlier. Bartolo is shocked. Alonso explains that he can solve Bartolo’s problem with Almaviva if he is permitted to speak with the girl in private. He will tell her that he got her note from the Count’s mistress and that the nobleman is only toying with her emotions in order to procure her sexually. Bartolo recognizes that this is slander but also a brilliant solution. He gives Alonso, his new trusted friend, carte blanche with the girl.

Rosina is brought in for her music lesson, and Alonso reveals his true identity to her, along with the plot Figaro and he have created to come to her balcony at midnight and rescue her from Bartolo. But he has no opportunity to warn her about the lie he had to invent regarding her love note. Chaos once again begins to mount as Figaro enters to give Bartolo a distracting shave, stealing from him the key that unlocks Rosina’s balcony grating. Suddenly, who should appear but Don Basilio to give the beautiful Rosina her lesson. Bartolo is confused again until Alonso tells him that Basilio knows nothing about the love note plot and that Basilio must be kept in the dark, or their plan will be destroyed. Bartolo sees the wisdom of this course of action and plays along with the others in trying to get rid of Basilio. Sensing that something is up, Basilio takes advantage of the situation by blackmailing each participant in exchange for his leaving the house. Once he is gone, the love note slander is back on track. Just as Alonso is about to finally explain that aberration to Rosina, Bartolo discovers the treachery and explodes in fury. Figaro and Almaviva barely escape his wrath.

Bartolo meets with Basilio, who explains that Alonso was not working for the Count but was actually the Count himself. In a panic, Bartolo sends Basilio to get the notary to execute his marriage to Rosina immediately. Bartolo also slanders Lindoro in order to destroy any love Rosina might have for Lindoro. When he breaks the news to Rosina, she is crushed and, in an act of vengeance, agrees to marry Bartolo, who is thrilled. A violent thunderstorm erupts.

Figaro and the Count arrive at Rosina’s balcony to begin the elopement proceedings. Rosina rebuffs them both, revealing that she now knows her beloved Lindoro was only acting as a pimp for the lecherous Count. Though stunned, the Count asks whether Rosina truly loved her Lindoro. She admits the depth of her feeling for him and the pain she now feels. Overjoyed at having won her sincere love, the Count now reveals his true identity, and all is cleared up between them. Suddenly, the young ward will become a Countess.

The celebrations are cut short by the arrival of Basilio and the Notary. Figaro suggests they depart by way of the ladder that they used to enter Rosina’s balcony, but they soon discover the ladder is missing. In a stroke of genius, Figaro co-opts the Notary into wedding the Count and Rosina on the spot. When Bartolo breaks into the room with the police force, he insists the intruders must be arrested. Once again Count Almaviva reveals his identity and the fact that Rosina is now his wife. Bartolo capitulates and gives his blessing on their union. All celebrate as the clock strikes twelve and Carnival begins.

He Who Laughs Last

by Garnett Bruce

Figaro might owe his fame to the operas of Rossini and Mozart, but he owes his creation to the revolutionary work of French playwright Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799).

One of the eighteenth century’s greatest men of letters, Beaumarchais rose from modest origins, worked as a watchmaker and publisher, and yet he not only crafted the conscience of the day into his writings, he negotiated with monarchs (Louis XV and XVI) to spy on England, support the American revolution, and champion the ideas of liberty. But he was far from a rebel or revolutionary—to Beaumarchais, it was survival. Detailed in Maurice Lever’s biography, the death of his first wife left him in debt. Working back channels and personal connections with charisma and confidence, he arranged a job at Versailles which would lead to a royal appointment, and with it, a secure place in French society.

When The Barber of Seville was given at the Comédie-Française in 1775 (after a delay of some two years because of Beaumarchais’ legal troubles), the premiere was a flop. But in two days’ time, the traditional five-act play became a precise and concise four acts that has left audiences cheering ever since. Beaumarchais was a pragmatic man above all, not unlike his signature character, Figaro.

The basic plot follows the ancient story of the servant outwitting the master (in this case, Dr. Bartolo), but under the cloak of exotic Seville, satire of eighteenth-century France pours from every page, poking fun at fashion and philosophy. Our stealthy barber knows his way in and out of the best houses, is up on the latest news, and is easily able to manipulate a disguise. He’s also quick on his feet, knowing when to bluster an opponent or manipulate a situation.

The play originally included Spanish songs, but they were among the elements eliminated on the road to success. How ironic that 40 years later, Rossini and Sterbini (following other composers before them, to be sure!) embroidered a bel canto comic opera on the skeleton of Beaumarchais’ Barber. Now we have a French character, set in Spain, being sung in Italian. The humor expands exponentially: Italian comic traditions of the commedia seeped into this French farce and brought laughter and light-heartedness to Rome in 1816. An earthy character, Figaro has enough zing to amuse patron and peasant alike, with music that transcends its genre—repetition is followed with invention, invention with ornament, and ornament with glorious ensemble.

After the ultimate success of his Barber, Beaumarchais would not sit idly by writing letters and plays. With revolution afoot on both sides of the Atlantic, he activated his network of back channels and other smooth operators. At times he was disguised as a Spanish merchant or a French chevalier, becoming simultaneously one of France’s best ambassadors and notorious rogues, celebrated by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and the American Congress, and hunted by the Third Estate. Despite Beaumarchais’ ties to the royals, he managed to outlive the French revolution. One of the leading newspapers in France today is Le Figaro, and, most delicious of all, Beaumarchais had a successful sequel: The Marriage of Figaro.

by Kirby Haugland

Duke Francesco Sforza Cesarini commissioned Rossini to write an opera on Beaumarchais’s play Le Barbier de Séville in late 1815. Barbier premiered in Paris in 1775, the first of the playwright’s three “Figaro” plays. It had originally been conceived as an opera libretto and was successfully set to music by Giovanni Paisiello in St. Petersburg in 1782. Paisiello’s opera was still popular decades later when Rossini’s adaptation, with libretto by Cesare Sterbini, opened at Rome’s Teatro Argentina during Carnival, so they advertised it with the title Almaviva to placate the elderly composer’s devotees. Despite this measure, the first performance, on February 20, was a disaster: Sforza Cesarini had died from a seizure days before, injuries and stray cats onstage marred the production, and the Paisiellisti raged throughout. Rossini refused to direct the second night, locking himself in his hotel room. That performance was a resounding success, but when Manuel García, the original Count, came to congratulate the composer, Rossini cursed and refused to come out.

Today the opera’s snappy wit and catchy tunes make it easy to forget that rocky origin. Both Beaumarchais’s original play and Rossini’s opera are full of commentary on politics and clever references to music and acting. The plot draws from the commedia dell’arte, a tradition of Italian semi-improvised theater, using stock characters like the crafty valet, the greedy doctor, and the music teacher. It also draws from the Spanish picaresque novel, which told adventures of wily low-class rogues called pícaros, a possible source for Figaro’s name. Figaro is presented as a creator, a puller of strings, and the smartest man in town, always prepared to wink knowingly at the audience.

Much of the opera’s humor has to do with music itself. The traitorous music teacher Basilio uses musical metaphors to describe the power of slanderous gossip in his aria “La calunnia è un venticello” (which Rossini gracefully executes in two orchestral tidal waves), and when overwhelmed in the Act I finale, he is reduced to singing solfège. Figaro’s famous introductory aria, “Largo al factotum,” boisterously proclaiming his skills as barber, surgeon, and jack-of-all-trades, has its origins in one of the play’s original musical numbers. Beaumarchais’s Figaro enters the stage with paper and pencil, composing a love song and lamenting that comic opera composers seem to only set meritless texts. He, like the audience, is ready for something a little more interesting in his opera. Figaro’s self-assuredness contrasts with the frustration of the Count, who in the opera has just paid a gang of musicians to accompany his nocturnal serenade to the absent Rosina. While Figaro is in control of his destiny, the Count’s musicians run wild (to a raucous Rossini crescendo), and he sullenly dismisses them: “I have no more need for sounds or music.”

Other musical jokes run throughout the opera. When Rosina first sees the disguised Count Almaviva from her window, she drops him a letter. She hastily tells her suspicious guardian that it was just the words to an aria from a new opera called Inutil precauzione, the futile precaution, which happens to be the subtitle of Barber itself. Despite Doctor Bartolo’s locked doors and scheming, Rosina has already begun her escape, imagining herself as the heroine of an opera. When Almaviva regains entry disguised as substitute music teacher Don Alonso in Act II, Rosina’s lesson features her performance of an aria from that same “new” work. The aria blends the fictional opera with the one on stage. In its highly ornamented cantabile, Rosina sings generically of the triumph of love and the fall of a tyrant, putting a bored Bartolo to sleep. His doze gives her the chance to shift to words about her beloved “Lindoro” and their escape from the sleeping tyrant across the room. Bartolo’s subsequent nostalgic arietta “from his youth” is a minuet ludicrously out of date, a jab directly from Beaumarchais rendered by Rossini in music typical of Paisiello’s generation. The “futile precaution” returns once more in the opera’s finale, when Figaro quips that the Doctor’s schemes have only aided the couple’s triumph.

The opera’s many ensembles let Rossini deftly turn conflicts into a counterpoint of musical styles. After Figaro convinces the highborn Count to become a drunken soldier in “All’idea di quell metallo,” they simultaneously sing of their separate motivations: inflamed love and clinking coins. Larger ensembles like the Act I finale and the quintet “Don Basilio!” in Act II stack up even more layers as characters struggle to handle their competing intrigues (in the latter case cooperating for entirely contradictory reasons). Sterbini’s dialogue and Rossini’s music manage to transform an already witty comedy into a masterpiece of humorous theater, outshining both Paisiello’s opera and Beaumarchais’s play.

Paul Nadler has distinguished himself as an exciting and highly respected symphonic and operatic conductor. Since his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1989, he has led the company in more than 60 performances. Most recently at the Met, he conducted a new production of Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, starring Renée Fleming in the title role, as well as performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s Ernani. Recently, Nadler conducted Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Met, as well as a highly successful series of Puccini’s Turandot at Opéra de Montréal. After concerts this spring with the Bucharest Philharmonic and Iasi Philharmonic Orchestras in Romania, followed by a double bill of Mascagni’s L’Amico Fritz and Zanetto at the Montréal Vocal Arts Festival, Nadler returns to the Jacobs School of Music for this production of The Barber of Seville and a series of four symphony concerts during the 2015-16 season.

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, Ernani, La Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschera, The Barber of Seville, Tannhäuser, Andrea Chenier, Roméo et Juliette, Carmen, Die Fledermaus, Rusalka, The Merry Widow, 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, he 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.

Garnett Bruce has a rich body of work that includes opera companies across the country, such as Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, and Houston Grand Opera, and his European opera debut, staging Turandot for the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. He was the artistic adviser and principal stage director for Opera Omaha from 2008 to 2011, where he led a cycle of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas.

Beginning in 2004, he led three productions as a guest artist at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University receiving a continuing faculty appointment in 2006 leading productions including La Traviata, The Rake’s Progress, The Abduction from the Seraglio, and this season, the U.S. stage premiere of Paul Crabtree’s Ghost Train. Bruce has had a long association with Aspen Music Festival and School, since 1993, and with the opera directing faculty since 1997.

Born in Washington, D.C., he was a choirboy at Washington National Cathedral and holds degrees in English and drama from Tufts University. Initial internships withHarold Prince (Faust, Metropolitan Opera) and Leonard Bernstein (1989 performances and recording of Candide) led to staging staff positions with The Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, The Dallas Opera, and Opera Colorado in the early 1990s. His award-winning production of La Cenerentola for Kansas City has traveled to Austin, Orlando, and Madison, and his work with Wolf Trap Opera has included La Clemenza Di Tito and Street Scene. Known especially for his large-scale work of the standard repertoire, his stagings of Turandot, Carmen, Tosca, Aida, Pagliacci, and La Bohème have been seen coast to coast.

In addition to Barber, highlights in the 2015-16 season include Madama Butterfly for Opera San Antonio, Aida at Utah Symphony & Opera, Madama Butterfly for San Diego Opera, and The Magic Flute for Michigan Opera Theatre.

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, Gianni Schicchi, and Alcina. 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 and 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 Takács, 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, La Bohème, The Last Savage, South Pacific, and Die Zauberflöte. 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.

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, Curtis Institute of Music, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, 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 SarahLawrence 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.

Soprano Martha Eason is pursuing her Performer Diploma at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. This past summer, she performed the role of Blondchen in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Opera North in New Hampshire. Her recent roles at IU include Kitty in Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage, 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. Eason recently enjoyed giving her first recital performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., near her alma mater, the University of Virginia, where she earned her B.A. in Music. She is a student of Costanza Cuccaro.

Soprano Monica Dewey, from Atlanta, Ga., is pursuing a Master of Music degree as a student of Carol Vaness at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Dewey is well versed in a variety of operatic and concert repertoire. Most recently, she performed Dalinda in Handel’s Ariodante with the Chautauqua Voice Institute and Morgana in Handel’s Alcina with IU Opera Theater. She is a recipient of the Arleen Auger Memorial Scholarship and was the 2014 first-place winner of The American Prize Competition in Voice.

A native of Poseyville, Ind., tenor Lucas Wassmer is a second-year master’s student studying with Brian Horne. He received his bachelor’s degree from DePauw University, where he studied with Caroline Smith. In 2013, he won DePauw University’s Concerto Competition and was a finalist in both the Franco-American Vocal Academy’s Grand Concours de Chant and the Tri-State College Vocal Competition. He has worked with Intimate Opera of Indianapolis, College Light Opera Company, and La Musica Lirica and Opera in the Ozarks, and sang the role of Lindoro in IU’s 2014 production of The Italian Girl in Algiers. Other recent stage credits include Count Belfiore (La finta giardiniera), Lord Tolloller (Iolanthe), Alfred (Die Fledermaus), and the title role in Albert Herring.

Tenor Issa Ransom, from Bronx, N.Y., made his debut with IU Opera Theater as Oronte in Handel’s Alcina in February 2015. He is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Voice Performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and has studied with tenors Paul Elliot and Brian Horne. He earned his Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance at Lawrence University, where he studied with Steven Paul Spears. While at Lawrence, he was heard as a soloist in J. S. Bach’s Cantata 191, Lully’s Te Deum, and Handel’s Messiah, and performed the title role in Britten’s Albert Herring.

Baritone Heeseung Chae, from South Korea, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Seoul National University and is in the second year of his performance studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He has performed in La Bohème (2012) and Rigoletto (2008) and as Falstaff in a 2011 Verdi gala concert. He has sung Haly in The Italian Girl in Algiers (2014) and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte (2015) with IU Opera Theater. He is a student of Andreas Poulimenos.

A native of Glen Head, N.Y., baritone Robert Gerold is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance as a senior at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Prior to transferring to Jacobs, 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 OperaTheater, he has performed the role of Peter (the father) in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, the title role of Abdul (the Savage) in Menotti’s The Last Savage, and Lieutenant Buzz Adams in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific. In April 2014, Gerold premiered the dual roles of Retrograde/Asher in New Voices Opera’s premiere of Eric Lindsay’s Cosmic Ray and the Amazing Chris. He has also performed the title role in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with the Oberlin in Italy program in Arezzo, Italy. He is a student of Andreas Poulimenos.

Brazilian bass-baritone Rafael Porto most recently performed Sarastro in all 4 shows of Mozart’s Magic Flute this past April, the male lead role of Mustafa in Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers last fall with IU Opera Theater, and Dulcamara in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. He made his Indiana University Opera Theater debut as Bartolo in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and performed the lead male role of Su Cu in the world premiere production of The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh with the company in 2014. A master’s student, Porto studies with Timothy Noble and has previously studied with Thomas Studebaker, François Loup, and Mark Gilgallon, in addition to receiving guidance from Mary Anne Spangler Scott. Combining his undergraduate work at Butler University and music festival productions in Italy, Porto has sung 18 different roles in the past five years. With Indianapolis Opera, he has been seen as Jose Castro and Billy Jackrabbit in La Fanciulla del West, the Imperial Commissioner in Madame Butterfly, and other comprimario roles. He has worked with artists including conductors Alberto Zedda, Joseph Rescigno, Paul Nadler, Emanuele Andrizzi, Arthur Fagen, Marzio Conti, and David Effron; stage directors Candace Evans, Garnett Bruce, Chris Alexander, and Julia Pevzner; and coaches Mark Phelps, Daniela Siena, Ubaldo Fabbri, and Kevin Murphy. Porto is the winner of a Georgina Joshi International Fellowship and the prestigious Wilfred C. Bain Opera Fellowship. He is currently an Associate Instructor of voice at the Jacobs School of Music.

Mitchell Jones, baritone, is a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Jacobs School of Music pursuing a degree in voice performance. He has performed with the Atlanta Opera Chorus in productions of Tosca, L’Italiana in Algeri, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Carmen. He studies with Timothy Noble.

Connor Lidell, 23, is a first-year master’s student at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music studying vocal performance with Andreas Poulimenos. From Arlington, Texas, Lidell has been seen in multiple shows on the IU Opera Theater stage, most recently as Taddeo in The Italian Girl in Algiers. In spring 2014, he was seen as Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore. He made his debut on the IU stage in his sophomore year as Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. He has been involved with many student organizations focusing on the production of new opera. He premiered the role ofCharlie in Chappell Kingsland’s Intoxication: America’s Love Affair with Oil, produced by New Voices Opera, an IU Student Organization. He premiered a one-man concert opera by IU composer Patricia Wallinga called Tarrare. He has coached with and worked with Gary Arvin, Sylvia McNair, Ed Bak, Roger Vignoles, Chris Crans, and others. He has sung under the batons of Arthur Fagen, Z. Randall Stroope, David Effron, and Marzio Conti, to name a few. He has been directed by Candace Evans, Chris Alexander, James Marvel, Michael Shell, and others during the past five years. In addition to musical accomplishment, he is a 4.0 GPA honors student and an IU Founder’s Scholar.

Soprano Emily Baker is a Performance Diploma student at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music studying with Teresa Kubiak. A native of Feeding Hills, Mass., Baker earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music Education degrees at Boston University. She earned a Master of Music in Voice Performance from the Jacobs School of Music this past spring. In 2014, she performed the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Nella in Gianni Schicchi as an apprentice artist at Opera in the Ozarks. Additionally, she won an Encouragement Award at the Indiana District Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. This past summer, Baker worked as a studio artist with Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, where she covered Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro and performed in the company’s International Recital Series.

Eileen Jennings, from Cleveland, Miss., is a mezzo-soprano studying with Patricia Havranek at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She is pursuing a Doctor of Music in Vocal Performance. This past summer, Jennings performed the Witch in Sondheim’s Into the Woods with the Santa Fe Trail School for the Performing Arts Professional Summer Season, a Two Pigs Production. She has previously appeared in IU Opera Theater productions as Bloody Mary in South Pacific, Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore, Dame Quickly in Falstaff, Madame de la Haltiere in Cendrillon, Florence Pike in Albert Herring, Princess Clarissa in The Love for Three Oranges, and Ilona Ritter in She Loves Me. She is a private voice instructor and music teacher for the Janice Wyatt Summer Arts Institute in Cleveland, Miss.

Baritone and New Jersey native James Conrad Smith is currently pursuing his Master of Music from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of soprano Teresa Kubiak. He has appeared in the choruses of the recent IU Opera Theater productions of South Pacific and The Last Savage; in the latter, in the comprimario role of the American Tailor. Also at Jacobs this year, he will be involved with Reimagining Opera for Kids as Papageno/Sarastro in a children’s version of The Magic Flute. Other roles include Don Giovanni, Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Marco (Gianni Schicchi), Major-General Stanley (Pirates of Penzance), Le Marquis (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Maximilian (Candide), and Slook (La cambiale di matrimonio). In March2014, his choral composition “Reflection: Innocent Thoughts on Peace” was premiered at Carnegie Hall by Vocal Accord, the premier vocal ensemble of his undergraduate institution, the John J. Cali School of Music (N.J.). Smith is founder of The Young Artist’s Initiative, a company for aspiring college-age singers in New Jersey. He directed and produced productions of Don Giovanni and The Pirates of Penzance in 2013-14.

Brazilian baritone Bruno Sandes is pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance as a former student of Robert Harrison and a current student of Carol Vaness. He is a recipient of the Barbara and David Jacobs Scholarship. Sandes earned a degree in interior design at the Federal Institute of Alagoas, Brazil, before relocating to Bloomington, Ind. His recent roles with IU Opera Theater include Emile de Becque in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific, Taddeo in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algieri, Le Surintendant des Plaisirs in Massenet’s Cendrillon, and Sùng Ông in the world premiere of P. Q. Phan’s The Tale of Lady Thi Kính. Sandes also performed the roles of Steward in Ezra Donner’s Ile, Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and Joly in Schönberg’s Les Misérables. He sang on tour through Austria, Italy, and Germany. He won first place in the XI Maracanto International Voice Competition and was one of the winners of the 2013 Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Competition, selected as a semifinalist in the IX Maria Callas International Voice Competition, one of six singers from around the world in the 42^nd International Winter Festival of Campos do Jordão (largest classical music festival in Latin America), and chosen in 2010 as the best classical singer of the Northeast of Brazil by the Art and Culture Critics Association. Sandes recorded a CD of Brazilian chamber songs based on folk and love themes, Minha Terra (My Land), with pianist Shelley Hanmo as grand winners of the 2014 IU Latin American Music Center Recording Competition.

Deiran Manning is a first-year master’s student in piano performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He studies voice with Wolfgang Brendel. Manning made his IU Opera Theater debut this past spring as the professor in South Pacific. He has sung the role of the Lord Chancellor with the University Gilbert & Sullivan Society as well as Papageno from Die Zauberflöte and Guglielmo from Così fan tutte in an IU Opera workshop. He has also performed in the Winter Harbor Music Festival Opera workshop, singing the roles Pedrillo from Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Lord Chancellor from Iolanthe, and Major General Stanley from The Pirates of Penzance. In addition, Manning has performed as a member of the chorus at dell’Arte Opera in New York City and in IU Opera Theater productions of Faust, Candide, La Bohème, Falstaff, and H.M.S. Pinafore.