Time: The Napoleonic Wars, early nineteenth century
Place: The Swiss Tyrol

Act I

The Marquise of Berkenfield is traveling in the Tyrols with her companion Hortensius. There is fighting all around and she fears, as do the villagers in nearby towns, for their lives. But all rejoice as it seems the French army is retreating. Alas, war is a terrible thing to endure for a lady of such standing as herself, sings the Marquise.Suddenly, who should appear but Sergeant Sulpice of the Twenty-First Regiment of the French army, who, although the villagers and the Marquise are alarmed, assures them that the French army shall restore peace and order to the region.

Marie, the canteen girl and beloved mascot of the regiment enters. Sulpice, whom she claims as one of her adopted fathers, is pleased to see her but concerned because she has been seen with a young man whom she identifies as Tonio, a young Tyrolean. At that moment, Tonio is brought in as a prisoner of the soldiers who have captured him prowling around the camp. The soldiers call for his death, but Marie saves him by explaining that he had saved her life when she fell while mountain climbing. The soldiers all rejoice and congratulate Tonio, who pledges allegiance to France as Marie sings the regimental song. Sulpice leads his soldiers and Tonio off, but Tonio breaks away and returns to Marie, who tells him that if she is to be with him she must have the approval of her adopted fathers ...the entire regiment.After all, she says, it was the regiment that found her on the battlefield as a baby and adopted and cared for her during her childhood. While at first skeptical of Tonio’s intentions, the young couple nonetheless express their love for each other.

Sulpice meets the Marquise and Hortensius and upon hearing the name Berkenfield, recognizes it from a letter found with Marie as an infant. It is determined that she is Marie’s long-lost aunt, who now insists upon taking Marie home with her to be raised as a “proper lady.” As Marie is preparing to leave with her aunt, Tonio arrives, having enlisted in the regiment and proclaiming his love for Marie and his intentions to marry her. The regiment informs him that she is leaving, and Tonio becomes enraged.

Act II

Marie has been living in the Marquise’s castle for several months. In a conversation with Sulpice, the Marquise describes how she has been grooming Marie to marry her nephew, the Duke of Crakentorp. The Marquise asks Sulpice to help Marie accept her fate, and ultimately Marie agrees to the marriage.

Marie is reconciled to her fate, when, unexpectedly, the regiment arrives with Tonio, now an officer. All are joyfully reunited, when the horrified Marquise enters. Tonio asks for Marie’s hand in marriage, as he has risked his life to join the regiment so they can be together. The Marquise scornfully rebukes him, and all leave saddened by her refusal to allow the marriage. It is when Sulpice is alone with the Marquise that the truth is revealed: Marie is actually the illegitimate daughter of the Marquise. Learning this, Sulpice agrees that Marie must obey her mother’s wishes and marry the Duke of Crakentorp.

The Duchess of Crakentorp and her nephew arrive, and Marie enters with Sulpice. Marie, knowing now about the Marquise, embraces her and decides she must obey. But at the last minute the soldiers of the Regiment rush in and sing about how their little daughter needs their help. They sing of how war threw into their arms a baby whom they all love and care for as fathers. When it is revealed that she was a canteen girl, the Duchess becomes enraged and leaves as Marie in turn sings about her debt to the regiment. The Marquise is moved deeply, admits to all that she is the mother of Marie, and consents to her marriage to Tonio.

“Donizetti, Paris, and La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment)”

by Kirby Haugland
Musicology Ph.D. Student

Gaetano Donizetti arrived in Paris in 1838, freed from a stifling life in Naples. His latest compositions had been censored by the king, he had failed to receive an expected appointment as director of the Naples Conservatory, and he was still reeling from the loss of his wife and newborn child little more than a year before. Paris offered him greater freedom and new commissions from its many opera companies. The Théâtre-Italien welcomed Lucia di Lammermoor into its repertoire in December 1837, and multiple contracts awaited Donizetti when he arrived the following year. After La Fille du Régiment premiered at the Opéra-Comique on February 14, 1840, composer and critic Hector Berlioz wrote a scathing—and partially libelous—review, complaining that Donizetti had two commissions with the Opéra, two with the Théâtre de la Renaissance, two with the Opéra-Comique, and another with the Théâtre-Italien. Berlioz raged that “One can no longer speak of the opera houses of Paris, but only of the opera houses of M.Donizetti.” Although reviews were mixed because of the absurd plot and a poor performance from the original Tonio, Mécène Marié de l’Isle, the opera quickly gained popularity, with 50 performances in its first year and 1,000 from the Opéra-Comique alone by 1914. Its success derives in part from a perfect mix of Donizetti’s Italian style and the opéra-comique idiom.

The libretto includes a number of common tropes from Italian opera buffa that should be recognizable to audience members: the blustering military officer and his troops, the aristocrat and her servant, a music lesson, the revelation of family ties, and lovers separated and united. Other details, such as the plot’s Napoleonic setting of French-occupied Austria and its unabashedly patriotic finale “Salut à la France!” would never have appeared in an Italian opera. When the opera became La Figlia del Reggimento for Italian performance, not only were French details purged for the censors, but Donizetti also had to compose recitatives to replace the opéra-comique’s spoken dialogue.

La Fille uses standard opéra-comique forms and also contains several references to wider Parisian musical culture. The Marquise’s early aria “Pour une femme de mon nom” is a couplet (literally “verse”), a strophic song with refrain. The raucous Act II trio, “Tous les trois réunis,” in which Sulpice, Marie, and Tonio pass pattering notes amongst one another, was likely influenced by a similar trio in Ferdinand Hérald’s popular Le Pré aux Clercs—a connection that critics of the time were frequent to note. The Act II music lesson may remind some audience members of last year’s production of The Barber of Seville, which also includes a web of humorous references. The Marquise attributes Marie’s air dusalon to “Garat, un petit chanteur français.” This “small French singer” is actually Pierre Garat, a famed eighteenth-century tenor and composer, and the teacher of the original Marquise, Marie-Julie Boulanger. Sulpice’s frustration with the sickly sweet parlor song makes him break into an imitation drum beat, the “rataplan” heard in his earlier duet with Marie, “Au bruit de la guerre,” and the regiment’s “Rataplan” chorus.Donizetti and his librettists may have been inspired by the soldiers in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s 1836 grand opera Les Huguenots, who also sing this onomatopoeia. Tonio’s bravura double aria, “Ah! mes amis, quell jour de fête....Pour mon âme quell destin!,” sung to earn the regiment’s approval of his love for Marie, calls for eight high C’s punched out on the part of the tenor. This aria helped make Luciano Pavarotti famous in the 1960s, but the style has its origins with tenor Gilbert-Louis Duprez, one of the stars of the Paris Opéra, whose ut en poitrine or “chest voice C” would transform the sound of romantic tenors.

Perhaps the opera’s most engrossing tune is the regimental song “Chacun le sait,” which appears first in the overture before Marie sings it to her comrades in Act I. The march-like verse alternates with a rolling triple-time refrain, lending the effect of a joyous drinking song praising the exploits of the regiment, on and off the battlefield. Surprisingly, the music for the verse actually comes from an aria in Donizetti’s 1830 oratorio on the biblical flood, Il Diluvio Universale, in which Noah contrasts the salvation of the just man with the suffering of the wicked. The melody’s jaunty reimagining for La Fille is a shocking transformation, although a few early audience members might still have recognized it from a Théâtre-Italien production of the original azione tragica-sacra in 1837.

In La Fille, Donizetti manages to absorb the essence of French opera and transform it with his personal touch. His unquestionable success has kept the opera vibrant and entertaining for nearly two centuries.

Marzio Conti, music director of the Oviedo Philharmonic (OFIL) in Spain since 2011, has earned recognition and the acclaim of audiences and critics for his achievements in guiding the orchestra to new artistic heights. He has earned numerous awards and has been named a juror for the arts prize of the prestigious Premios Asturias. This season brought a major critical success with a recording of the complete symphonic works of Saint-Saens for Warner Classic. This year, Conti will record the music of De Falla and Turina for Decca. At the community level, he has earned praise for his special projects at local centers and for a joint venture with the University of Oviedo to offer films with music, services for families, musical projects related to sports, and outdoor summer events designed to spotlight historic parts of the city.

Since Conti’s arrival in Oviedo, the symphonic season of OFIL has established a standard of excellence for the musical world of Spain, presenting notable artists such as Midori, Krystian Zimerman, Gregory Kunde, Elina Garanca, Elisso Vissaladze, Sabine Mayer, Cecilia Bartoli, Natalia Gutman, Rudolf Buchbinder, Katia and Marielle Lebeque, and Grigory Sokolov, and serving as host to the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Salonen), St. Petersburg Philharmonic (Gergiev), Gothenburg Symphony (Dudamel), and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (Gardiner).

Conti has appeared as a guest conductor in Italy with the Rome Opera, Maggio Musicale of Florence, Teatro Regio di Torino, Teatro Comunale of Bologna, Teatro Massimo of Palermo, Teatro La Fenice of Venice, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Teatro Donizetti Bergamo, Teatro di Ravenna, Teatro di Bolzano, Teatro del Giglio di Lucca, Teatro Bellini Catania, Teatro Verdi Pisa, Teatro Comunale di Livorno, Orchestra Regionale Toscana, Orchestra Haydn, and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto.In Spain, he has conducted the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, Teatro de la Zarzuela, Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao, Orquesta de Tenerife, Orquestra de Extremadura, Orquestra de la Gran Canaria, Orquestra de las Baleares, Teatro Arriaga Bilbao, and Orquesta de Navarra.In Germany, he has conducted at the Dortmund Staatsoper, Saarbrücken Staatsoper, Dessau Stadtsoper, Monchegladbach Staatsoper, and Brandemburger Symphoniker. In France, he has conducted the Orchestra Regional de Cannes e de la Cote d’Azur, Orchestre da La Picardie, Opera de Marseille, and Orchestre d’Avignon.

Elsewhere, he has conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Korean National Symphony Orchestra and Pusan Philharmonic (Korea), National State Orchestra of Athens, Teatro del Bicentenario (Mexico), Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica, Opera de Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Orquesta Sinfonica de Porto and Orquesta Metropolitana de Lisboa (Portugal), and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra (Israel).

Michael Shell is happy to return to IU Opera Theater after directing last season’s Così fan tutte. His “visionary” and “masterful storytelling” is steadily leading him to be one of the most sought-after directors in the United States. His “thoughtful and detailed score study” is shown in character development and relationships onstage as well as the complete visual world he creates. He has directed at Atlanta Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Opera Omaha, Opera San Jose, Opera Tampa, Opera North, Santa Fe Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. He made his international directing debut at the Wexford Festival Opera in 2010 with a production of Winners by American composer Richard Wargo and returned the following fall to direct Double Trouble—Trouble in Tahiti & The Telephone. He has written and directed three cabarets, including All About Love and The Glamorous Life—A group therapy session for Opera Singers, both for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

Shell earned a B.M. and an M.M. in Music/Vocal Performance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He was a Corbett Scholar at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as well as studying acting and scene study on a school-awarded scholarship at the internationally renowned H.B. Studios in New York City. He has been a guest faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Florida State University, and Webster University, St. Louis, teaching Opera Workshop and directing Undergraduate Opera Workshop performances. He has also been guest director at the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute and Oklahoma University.

Upcoming engagements include Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Virginia Opera; Silent Night, Opera San Jose (new production); The Italian Girl in Algiers, Piedmont Opera; Opera Scenes Program, Rice University; and Giulio Cesare, Houston Grand Opera.

Allen Moyer’s recent set design credits include the world premiere of Shalimar the Clown for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Vanessa for the Santa Fe Opera, both directed by James Robinson; Die Fledermaus for IU Opera Theater and Cincinnati Opera, directed by Robin Guarino; Dot for the Vineyard Theatre (Off-Broadway), directed by Susan Stroman; and Persee et Andromede and L’enfant et les Sortileges for the Manhattan School of Music, directed by James Robinson.

Additional credits include Die Fledermaus (English National Opera), Curlew River (Tanglewood Festival), the premieres of Dolores Claiborne (San Francisco Opera) and 27 and Champion (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis), Orfeo ed Euridice for the Metropolitan Opera, directed by Mark Morris; La Fille du Regiment, The Last Savage (scenery and costumes), Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and The Tales of Hoffmann for Santa Fe Opera; Emmeline and The Elixir of Love for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; Virginia (scenery and costumes) and The Ghosts of Versailles for the Wexford Festival (Ireland); and Nixon in China for the Canadian Opera Company.

He has also designed for many productions at San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Scottish Opera, Washington National Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Welsh National Opera, L’Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome), and Seattle Opera as well as severalproductions for New York City Opera, including Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All, Il Trittico, Il Viaggio a Reims, and La Bohème (also broadcast on Live from Lincoln Center). Moyer also designed the premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie’s The Grapes of Wrath for the Minnesota Opera as well as the Delibes ballet Sylvia for San Francisco Ballet and Romeo and Juliet: On Motifs of Shakespeare for the Mark Morris Dance Group, the latter two choreographed by Morris.

Moyer’s Broadway credits include The Lyons, Lysistrata Jones, the musical Grey Gardens (Tony/Drama Desk/Outer Critic’s Circle nominations and the 2006 Hewes Award from the American Theatre Wing), After Miss Julie, Little Dog Laughed, Twelve Angry Men (including the National Tour), and The Constant Wife. Extensive theater credits include productions for Playwright’s Horizons, The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, Second Stage, Roundabout Theatre Company, Signature Theatre Company, The Drama Dept., Guthrie Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Lincoln Center Theater Company.

Moyer is the recipient of a 2006 OBIE (Off-Broadway theater) Award for sustained excellence.

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 IU African American Art Institute’s Dance Ensemble, and Cardinal Stage Company. In addition to his work in Bloomington, he has worked at 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 120 productions and receiving critical acclaim in the United States and abroad. Huff earned 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.

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 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, Die Zauberflöte, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Dead Man Walking, Die Fledermaus, Carmen, and Oklahoma! In June 2015, Huff served as choral instructor and conductor for IU’s 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. This past summer, he conducted Arthur Honegger’s King David for the Jacobs Summer Music Festival series, with the Summer Orchestra and Chorus.

Jennifer Ringo has worked as a diction and language coach with the Ravinia Steans Institute, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Decca Records, Cincinnati May Festival, Aspen Opera Theater, and Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artists Program at the Los Angeles Opera. She has given master classes at the University of Southern California, Arizona Opera, AIMS festival in Graz, Austria, and University of California Santa Barbara (USC), and as has served on the faculty as vocal diction teacher at Bard College. This fall, she will return to USC as Spanish diction coach for Golijov’s Ainadamar.

She has sung leading soprano roles with the San Francisco Opera, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Houston Grand Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company, among others. She earned degrees in voice from the University of Iowa, attended The Juilliard School, and was a young artist at Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Opera’s Merola program. Ringo counts as her mentors Nico Castel, Robert Cowart, Janine Reiss, and Pierre Vallet.She maintains vocal studios in New York and Los Angeles.

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.

A native of Atlanta, Ga., soprano Kellie Motter recently earned her master’s degree at the Jacobs School of Music and is currently in her first year of doctoral studies, studying with Carol Vaness. On the Musical Arts Center stage, Motter has performed the roles of Despina (Così fan tutte) and Morgana (Alcina). Other opera credits include the roles of Galatea (Acis & Galatea), La Fée (Cendrillon) and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte). This past summer, she performed as a Gerdine Young Artist with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, where she study-covered the role of Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos) and sang in the choruses of Macbeth and La Bohème. As a concert soloist, she has been featured in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Steve Reich’s Tehillim, and numerous works by J.S. Bach. At IU, Motter teaches voice as an associate instructor. She earned her B.M. in Voice at the University of Maryland, where she studied with Delores Ziegler.

Monica Dewey is a master’s student and associate instructor of voice studying with Patricia Stiles. Recently, Dewey has been seen as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Morgana in Alcina with IU Opera Theater. She has also been a soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Mass in C Major, Mozart’s Mass in C Major, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, Fauré’s Requiem, and Bach’s Magnificat. She was the 2015 District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in Indiana, was awarded a travel grant from the IU Friends of Music Travel Grant Competition, placed first in the collegiate division of The American Prize Competition, and was a recipient of the Arleen Auger Memorial Scholarship. Dewey has spent her summers with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Chautauqua Voice Institute, and Lyric Opera Studio Weimar. Roles sung in scenes throughout include Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette, and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. She is a native of Stone Mountain, Ga., where she learned to play accordion and banjo with her eclectic, musical family.

Tenor Nicholas Nesbitt has performed with many opera companies and music festivals, including Caramoor Music Festival, Central City Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Sarasota Opera, and the International Vocal Arts Academy. He earned a B.M. in Voice from DePauw University and an M.M. in Voice Performance from Indiana University. Nesbitt is currently working towards his doctoral degree in voice and studies with Costanza Cuccaro. He has performed leading roles including Il Conte d’Almaviva in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Fenton in Niccolai’s Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, and Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore.Nesbitt has received major awards from the Bel Canto Foundation, National Society of Arts and Letters, and National Association of Teachers of Singing state and regional competitions.

Jamaican-American tenor Terrence Chin-Loy is a Barbara and David Jacobs Fellow and Performer Diploma candidate at Indiana University. He is a recent graduate of Mannes College, where he performed the roles of Laurie in Little Women and Bill in the New York premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Flight with Mannes Opera and received the Michael Sisca Opera Award, the school’s top prize for an opera singer. Professional engagements in the 2015-16 season included Ricky Ian Gordon’s A Coffin in Egypt with Fredericka von Stade as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series and the role of Young Joe in a workshop of Frank Proto’s new opera, Shadowboxer, at the University of Maryland. Also in 2016, Chin-Loy returned to Central City Opera, where he was a 2015 studio artist, to make his company debut in The Ballad of Baby Doe. An accomplished concert performer, he recently made his debut with the Brooklyn New Music Collective performing Janacek’s The Diary of One Who Vanished and was a grant winner from the Gerda Lissner Foundation’s inaugural Lieder/Song Competition. Other favorite roles include Rinuccio with Opera on the Avalon, Ferrando in Così fan tutte with Opera Theatre of Yale College, and Count Alberto in Rossini’s L’occasione fa il Ladro, with Opera Theatre of Yale College. While at Yale, he was also a frequent performer with the Yale Baroque Opera Project. He earned an M.M. in Voice from Mannes and a B.A. in Music from Yale University, where he concentrated on music theory and musicology.

Baritone Zachary Coates earned his master’s degree from Indiana University and is currently in the third year of his doctoral studies here. He has appeared with IU Opera Theater as the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni in Don Giovanni, Sid in Albert Herring, and as both Guglielmo and, more recently, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte. He was a young artist with Michigan Opera Theater for its 2014-15 season, singing roles in Elektra, Madama Butterfly, Frida, The Merry Widow, and Faust. As a concert soloist, he has performed Handel’s Messiah with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Haydn’s Mass in Time of War with the American Classical Orchestra, and multiple works with ensembles at the Jacobs School of Music. This past summer, Coates narrated the IU Summer Chorus and Orchestra’s performance of Arthur Honegger’s King David. He is a student of Andreas Poulimenos.

Brazilian baritone Bruno Sandes earned his bachelor’s degree from the Jacobs School of Music and is currently in the first year of his Master’s in Voice Performance, studying under the tutelage of Carol Vaness.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 Ali Hakim in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, Doctor Falke in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Emile de Becque in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, Taddeo in Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers, 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’sIle, Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and Joly in Schönberg’s Les Misérables. He has sung on tours 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. Sandes was a semifinalist in the IX Maria Callas International Voice Competition and selected as one of six singers from around the world in the 42nd International Winter Festival of Campos do Jordão. In addition, he was chosen in 2010 as the best classical singer of northeast Brazil by the Art and Culture Critics Association and as a grand winner of the 2014 IU Latin American Music Center Recording Competition.

Gretchen Krupp, mezzo-soprano, is a native of northern Virginia and a second-year master’s student at the Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of Jane Dutton. This past summer, Krupp was an apprentice artist at Des Moines Metro Opera, where she covered Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff in addition to performing scenes from his Don Carlo and Un Ballo in Maschera as well as Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love. She also returned to Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Young Dramatic Voices in Reno, Nev. She was a Southeast Regional Finalist and Encouragement Award Winner in the 2015 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and won second place at the Orpheus Vocal Competition in 2014. Krupp is an alumna of Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artists Vocal Academy and the Voice Program at The Chautauqua Institution. Operatic roles include Sister Lillianne (Heggie’s Dead Man Walking), Mother (Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors), Marcellina (Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro), Witch (Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel), and Mrs. Herring (Britten’s Albert Herring). Additionally, she has performed Katisha in Sullivan’s The Mikado and Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore with Greensboro Light Opera and Song. She earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she studied with Carla LeFevre.

Olivia Thompson is a contralto/mezzo-soprano pursuing a master’s degree in voice performance. This is her fourth role with IU Opera Theater. She performed the role of Third Lady in The Magic Flute, The Maharani in The Last Savage, Aunt Eller in Oklahoma!, Suzy in La Rondine, and Tisbe in La Cenerentola. Thompson has also performed scenes from Aida, Amelia al Ballo, The Ballad of Baby Doe, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Peter Grimes, Dead Man Walking, Giulio Cesare, The Tales of Hoffmann, Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Eugene Onegin, and Help, Help, the Globolinks! She is a student of Patricia Stiles.

Quinn Galyan is a fourth-year undergraduate bass-baritone studying voice performance under Brian Horne and working on an outside field in telecommunications. This is Galyan’s first role with IU Opera Theater. Previously at IU, he has had solos in Dead Man Walking and South Pacific, along with chorus work in H.M.S. Pinafore, La Bohème, and Carmen. He performed with IU’s Symphonic Choir and recently performed King David with IU’s Summer Chorus, conducted by Walter Huff. Outside of Jacobs, he has performed with Cardinal Stage Company—as the bass in the Cockney Quartet in My Fair Lady and in Annie, Big River, and The Wizard of Oz.Other roles include J.B. Biggley in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, King Sextimus in Once Upon a Mattress, Doc in West Side Story, Lazar Wolf in Fiddler on the Roof, Marshall Blackstone in Babes in Arms, and Archie Beaton in Brigadoon.

Steven Ray L. Garza graduated from The University of Texas with a bachelor’s in music education. He has been featured in oratorios and requiems with several regional orchestras in Texas. He is currently pursuing a master’s in voice performance under Carlos Montané. This is his IU Opera Theater debut.

Eileen Jennings is a student of Patricia Havranek in the final stages of her doctoral study in voice performance. She has previously been seen on the MAC stage as Berta, The Barber of Seville; Bloody Mary, South Pacific; Little Buttercup, H.M.S. Pinafore; Dame Quickly, Falstaff; Madame de la Haltière, Cendrillon; Florence Pike, Albert Herring; Princess Clarissa, The Love for Three Oranges; and Ilona Ritter, She Loves Me. Other role credits include the Witch in Sondheim’s Into the Woods; Fairy Queen, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe; Mother Goose, Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress; Betty Rizzo, Grease; Bonnie, Anything Goes; Diana Morales, A Chorus Line; and Audrey, Little Shop of Horrors.Jennings teaches private voice lessons and is a regular faculty member at the Janice Wyatt Summer Arts Institute, where she teaches young artists ages 5 to 18 musical theater and pop voice.