Ariadne auf Naxos is in two parts: the Prologue and the Opera. The first part shows the backstage circumstances leading up to the second part, which is in fact an opera within an opera.

Prologue

At the home of the richest man in Vienna, preparations for an evening of music are under way. Two troupes of musicians and singers have arrived. One is a commedia dell’arte group led by the saucy comedienne Zerbinetta. The other is an opera company, which will present an opera seria, Ariadne auf Naxos, the work of the Composer. Members of the two companies quarrel over which performance should be presented first. However, the preparations are thrown into confusion by an announcement from the Majordomo. The dinner for the assembled guests has run longer than planned. Therefore, both performances must take place on the same stage and at the same time.

At first, the impetuous young Composer refuses to discuss any changes to his opera, but his teacher, the Music Master, points out that his pay depends on accepting the situation and counsels him to be prudent. Zerbinetta turns the full force of her charm on the Composer, prompting him to drop his objections. The cast of the opera seria conspire against each other, each demanding that the other cast member’s arias be cut. As the time draws near to begin the opera, the Composer realizes what he has assented to and plunges into despair and storms out.

Opera

Ariadne is shown abandoned by her former lover, Theseus, on the desert island of Naxos with no company other than the nymphs Naiad, Dryad, and Echo. Ariadne bewails her fate, mourns her lost love, and longs for death. Zerbinetta and her four companions from the commedia group enter and attempt to cheer Ariadne by singing and dancing but without success. In a sustained and dazzling piece of coloratura singing, Zerbinetta tells the Princess to let bygones be bygones and insists that the simplest way to get over a broken heart is to find another man. In a comic interlude, each of the clowns pursues Zerbinetta. Eventually, she chooses Harlequin, and the two sing a love duet together while the other clowns express frustration and envy.

The nymphs announce the arrival of a stranger on the island. Ariadne thinks it is Hermes, the messenger of death, but it is the god Bacchus, who is fleeing from the sorceress Circe. At first they do not understand their mistaken identification of each other. Bacchus eventually falls in love with Ariadne, who agrees to follow him to the realm of death to search for Theseus. Bacchus promises to set her in the heavens as a constellation. Zerbinetta returns briefly to repeat her philosophy of love: when a new love arrives, one has no choice but to yield. The opera ends with a passionate duet sung by Ariadne and Bacchus.

“The Language of Contrast in Ariadne auf Naxos”

by Molly Covington
Ph.D. Student in Musicology

In a 1911 letter to Richard Strauss, librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal mused that Ariadne auf Naxos “can, I believe, turn into something most charming, a new genre which to all appearance reaches back to a much earlier one, just as all development goes in cycles.” At this early stage, both artists envisioned the opera as a short divertissement to conclude Hofmannsthal’s German adaptation of Molière’s play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. An opera-within-a-play was indeed a new and intriguing genre, and in the case of Ariadne, one that could mix and transform a plethora of earlier genres, from both comic and serious theatrical traditions. However, Hofmannsthal grew overly ambitious with the project, and by the time of its premiere, in 1912, the opera had expanded into a full third act of the play. This resulted in a rather long and complicated performance that, as Strauss lamented years later, repelled opera- and play-goers alike, rather than satisfying either.

After an unsuccessful run of the 1912 version, Strauss and Hofmannsthal set about revising the opera. They severed Ariadne from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and added a new operatic prologue, through which Hofmannsthal recaptured two important elements from the earlier version. In the new prologue, a rich Viennese patron orders his entertainment for the evening—an opera seria based on the myth of Ariadne and an opera buffa performed by a troupe of commedia dell’arte actors—to be presented simultaneously so that his fireworks display can begin precisely at nine o’clock. With this new narrative framing, Hofmannsthal again foregrounded the clash of comic and serious traditions thathad characterized the original work. More importantly, he maintained Ariadne’s status as a meta-opera, existing on a separate structural level within the larger drama, as it had been in the context of the Molière play. Ariadne auf Naxos was no longer an opera-within-a-play, but rather an equally novel (and in the end more palatable) opera-within-an-opera.

On the surface, the music Strauss composed for the opera sounds far more traditional in its tonal structures and dramatic techniques than one might expect from a modernist composer. His early operas were experimentally dissonant, demonstrating a transition from late romantic to early modernist styles. But with Ariadne, Strauss avoided the provocative chromaticism he had cultivated in works like Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909). Dissonance does exist on a deeper level, however, between the many styles Strauss employs to articulate the characters and dramatic levels of the story. Like Hofmannsthal with the libretto, Strauss gives life to his music by placing disparate historical styles in tension with one another, looking backward to Bellini, Mozart, Wagner, and others from the operatic canon as models.

Both in the drama and the music, these stylistic tensions are most powerfully expressed in the contrast between the two heroines, Zerbinetta and Ariadne. As the ringleader of the commedia dell’arte troupe, Zerbinetta represents the comic, vulgar aspects of the opera. She is practical, promiscuous, and clever. Ariadne, on the other hand, is a romantic prima donna. In her role as the mythic princess, she exhibits an overwrought loftiness, which, though serious, lends itself to a sense of parody. Thematically, the two heroines present the most dynamic relationship in the opera, precisely in the impasse that results from their conflicting personalities. Beyond their clashing comic and serious registers, Zerbinetta and Ariadne represent two irreconcilable understandings of love, one practical and one metaphysical.

Strauss reserved the most impressive arias for the two women but used very different styles for each. Zerbinetta delivers brilliant coloratura lines, particularly in her aria addressed to Ariadne, “Großmächtige Prinzessin.” Strauss indicated early on in a letter to Hofmannsthal that he looked to Bellini’s La sonnambula, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and “some Mozart rondos” as the models for Zerbinetta’s music here. This is in stark contrast to the music for Ariadne, particularly in her closing duet with Bacchus. Ariadne does not employ the flippant acrobatics that characterize Zerbinetta’s aria. Rather, she and Bacchus deliver supple, soaring melodies of Wagnerian intensity. By cultivating these contrasts, Strauss is able not only to convey musically the crucial differences between these characters, but also to transform historically displaced musical gestures by juxtaposing them with others. In this way, Strauss fulfills the modernist creed to make what is old new again, even if the resulting work does not jar us with the heavy chromaticism we have come to associate with modernist music.

The road to such an innovative fusion of historically diverse styles was not always an easy one. Of the several large-scale collaborations Strauss completed with Hofmannsthal (including, notably, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier), Ariadne presented the most conceptual problems to composer and librettist alike, at times taxing their partnership. Not only was the first version of the opera unsuccessful, the two artists did not always agree on what the libretto meant or how it should be set musically. However, not unlike the transformation of the opera itself, Strauss’s relationship with Hofmannsthal evolved by the time they had completed the second, more successful version of Ariadne. Many see this opera as a turning point in the artists’ collaborative career, after which both had learned something of the other’s craft, allowing them to communicate more effectively with one another. Despite its troubled beginnings, Ariadne auf Naxos remains a singular piece of the operatic canon for its unique dramatic form and rich musical juxtapositions.

Arthur Fagen has been professor of orchestral conducting at the Jacobs School of Music since 2008. Additionally, he has been music director of the Atlanta Opera since 2010. Fagen has conducted opera productions at the world’s most prestigious opera houses and music festivals. From 1998 to 2001, he was invited regularly as guest conductor at the Vienna State Opera. On the concert podium, he has appeared with numerous internationally known orchestras. Fagen has an opera repertory of more than 75 works. He has served as principal conductor in Kassel and Brunswick, as chief conductor of the Flanders Opera of Antwerp and Ghent, as music director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra, and as a member of the conducting staff of the Chicago Lyric Opera. From 2002 to 2007, he was music director of the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dortmund Opera. He and the Dortmund Philharmonic were invited to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels, and to Salzburg, Beijing, and Shanghai. Fagen conducted a new production of Turandot at the Atlanta Opera in 2007, opening the season and inaugurating the new opera house, the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center. He was first-prize winner of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conductors Competition, as well as a prize winner of the Gino Marinuzzi International Conductors’ Competition in Italy. Fagen has recorded for BMG, Bayerischer Rundfunk, SFB, and WDR Cologne. He records regularly for Naxos, for which he has completed the six symphonies of Bohuslav Martinů. His Naxos recording of Martinů’s piano concertos was awarded an Editor’s Choice award in the March 2010 issue of Gramophone magazine.

James Marvel has directed numerous productions for IU Opera Theater, including Lucia di Lammermoor, Albert Herring, Don Giovanni, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi. He made his Lincoln Center debut in 2008 for the Juilliard Opera Center and directed the U.S. premiere of Cavalli’s Eliogabalo for the Gotham Chamber Opera in New York City. Since his professional directing debut in 1996, he has directed over 100 productions and was named Classical Singer magazine’s Stage Director of the Year in 2008. Recent engagements include La Traviata for Opera Carolina, Das Rheingold for North Carolina Opera, and Tosca for Opera Grand Rapids. Upcoming engagements include a new production of Menotti’s The Medium for New Orleans Opera, Postcard from Morocco for Marble City Opera, and Die Fledermaus for Opera Tampa. Career highlights include groundbreaking new productions for the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Opera Boston, Opera Santa Barbara, Syracuse Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, San Antonio Opera, Kentucky Opera, Virginia Opera, North Carolina Opera, Toledo Opera, Sacramento Opera, Utah Festival Opera, Aspen Music Festival, Wolf Trap Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program. International credits include a new production of Carmen for Opera Africa in Johannesburg and a new production of Die Zauberflöte for Seoul International Opera in South Korea. European credits include productions of La Bohème, Suor Angelica, The Elixir of Love, and Così fan tutte in Sulmona, Italy. His new production of La Voix Humaine and The Telephone premiered at the Alliance Francaise in New York City before traveling to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, Belgium. Other international credits include work in Canada, Scotland, England, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.

A Bloomington-based designer and scenic artist, Mark Frederic Smith is also the director of scenic painting and properties for the Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet Theater, where he has worked on over a hundred productions during the past 20 years. Design work for Jacobs-related projects includes Transformations and Maria de Buenos Aires, assistant designer on the world premiere of Ned Rorem’s Our Town, and the reworking of Max Rothlisberger’s classic design for Hansel and Gretel in 2013. Smith has designed the sets for IU Opera Theater productions of Daniel Catán’s Florencia in el Amazonas and Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In addition to his work for Indianapolis Civic Theater, Butler Ballet, and Indianapolis Ballet School, area theater goers will recognize Smith’s designs for over a dozen Cardinal Stage Company shows including Les Miserables, A Streetcar Named Desire, My Fair Lady, Big River, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Smith earned a Master’s of Fine Art in Scenic Design from the Indiana University Department of Theatre and Drama and was a student of Jacobs professors C. David Higgins and Robert O’Hearn.

Mitchell Ost is the lighting supervisor for the Jacobs School of Music. Originally from Chicago, this is his IU Opera Theater debut. He recently relocated to Bloomington after living in New York City, where he was the lighting designer at Joe’s Pub, the cabaret space at The Public Theater. In addition to his work in the New York City opera, theater, and dance world, he has designed lighting and scenery on several continents. He is currently the resident scenic and lighting designer for M Ensemble Company in Miami.

Sydney Gallas is a New York-based costume designer whose recent Off-Broadway design credits include Hundred Days (New York Theatre Workshop and The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival) and Knives in Hens (59E59 Theaters). Other credits include Really Rosie (Weston Playhouse), Man of La Mancha (Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center), Peerless (Yale Repertory Theatre), Macbeth, Don Juan, and Deer and the Lovers (Yale School of Drama), Bastianello and Lucrezia (Urban Arias), and The Orpheus Variations (The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival). Gallas was a 2013 European Opera Prize finalist in Vienna, Austria, for her designs for Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci. She was the associate costume designer of La Périchole for New York City Opera and is currently the associate costume designer for the immersive Sweeney Todd now playing in New York City. She earned an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama and an undergraduate degree from New York University (Tisch School of the Arts).

Rebecca Scott returns to IU Opera Theater after having designed the wigs and makeup for its fall production of L’Étoile. She has recently designed wigs for the Marriott Theatre’s production of Ragtime in Lincolnshire, Illinois, and will be designing wigs and makeup for Chicago Opera Theater’s double bill production of Il Pigmalione and Rita in the spring, after which she will return to American Players Theatre for her ninth season as wig master.

Julia Hoffmann Lawson earned her B.A. in German from the University of Wisconsin and her M.A. and Ph.D. in German Literature from Indiana University, completing the latter in 1980. She has lived and studied in Germany and Switzerland. She taught German for many years at Indiana University, Northern Virginia Community College, and Georgetown University, as well as for private language contractors in the Washington, D.C., metro area. She and her husband returned to Bloomington in 2002. From 2004 until her retirement in 2015, she worked as a part-time lecturer in the IU Department of Germanic Studies. In April 2010, she received Indiana University’s Distinguished Teaching Award for part-time faculty. She is delighted to have served as German diction coach for IU Opera Theater since Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor in 2008. Since then, she has coached Der Rosenkavalier, for which she also wrote the supertitles, Die lustige Witwe, Die Zauberflöte, and Die Fledermaus.

Cori Ellison is a leading creative figure in the opera world. She served as dramaturg at Glyndebourne Festival Opera from 2012 to 2017 and is a member of the vocal arts faculty at The Juilliard School, where she teaches history of singing. Active in developing new American opera, she teaches opera dramaturgy for American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program and in 2009 was the first dramaturg invited to participate in the Yale Institute for Music Theatre. She was dramaturg at New York City Opera from 1997 to 2010 and has served as production dramaturg for projects including Washington National Opera’s Ring cycle, Opera Boston’s The Nose, and Offenbach!!! at Bard Summerscape. She creates supertitles for opera companies across America and helped launch Met Titles, the Met’s simultaneous translation system. Her English singing translations include Hansel and Gretel (NYCO), La vestale (English National Opera), and Shostakovich’s Cherry Tree Towers (Bard Summerscape). She also writes for the New York Times and has contributed to books including The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Metropolitan Opera Guide to Opera on Video, and The Compleat Mozart. She regularly appears on the Metropolitan Opera’s radio broadcasts, teaches master classes for young singers worldwide, and has lectured at venues including the Smithsonian Institution, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, as well as the Santa Fe, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Seattle, and Canadian operas.

Soprano Lesley Anne Friend has been a Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions semi-finalist and been honored by the Opera Birmingham Vocal Competition, Marguerite McCammon Vocal Competition, Orpheus Competition, and International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition. Her roles with IU Opera Theater include Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes and Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte. Other roles include Giorgetta in Il Tabarro, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Alma in Hoiby’s Summer and Smoke, Desdemona in Otello, Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw, Helmwige in Die Walküre, Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia, Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda, the title role in Suor Angelica, and Magda Sorel in The Consul. She has been a young artist with the Seagle Music Colony and Sugar Creek Opera, an apprentice artist with Sarasota Opera, and an artist-in-residence with Opera Memphis for two years. This summer, Friend will be covering the title role in Tosca at Opera on the Avalon in Newfoundland. She has long been passionate about new works and less-performed repertoire. She has performed in regional and world premieres of works by numerous composers, including American composers Zachery Redler and Stephen Schwartz, singing Magnanimous in Windows and Myra Foster in Seance on a Wet Afternoon, respectively. She earned a B.M. in Vocal Performance cum laude from Montclair State University and an M.M. in Opera from Boston Conservatory. She is currently a doctoral student studying with Carol Vaness.

Soprano Jenny Schuler has earned praise in recent seasons for her powerful vocalism and compelling stage artistry. She joins IU Opera Theater as a guest artist in the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos. In 2017, she debuted the title roles of Ariadne auf Naxos and Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, both with the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute, and covered the role of Leonore in the Princeton Festival’s production of Fidelio. Additional roles include Micaëla in La Tragédie de Carmen, Anaide in Nino Rota’s Il Cappello di Paglia di Firenze, Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia, and Alice Ford in Falstaff. Schuler recently placed as a finalist in the Marcello Giordani International Voice Competition and as the first-prize recipient in the Heafner-Williams Vocal Competition. She earned an Artist Diploma from the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute, a Master of Music degree from Chicago College of Performing Arts, and a double Bachelor of Arts in Music and Graphic Design from Trinity Christian College. She is currently represented by Couret & Werner Artist Management.

Dramatic tenor Cooper Nolan, praised for his “bright, shining, tenor” (Musical America) and his “powerhouse voice” (Opera News), recently made his Oper Frankfurt debut in the title role in Verdi’s Stiffelio and made his role debut as Cavaradossi in Tosca with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. He sang Bacchus in a new production of Ariadne auf Naxos at Theater Aachen and sang Don José in Carmen with El Paso Opera and in his European debut with Theater Kiel. He sang Tybalt in Roméo et Julietteunder Harry Bicket, while covering Dick Johnson in La Fanciulla del West under Emmanuel Villaume with Santa Fe Opera. In recent seasons, Nolan was a resident artist at Minnesota Opera and in summer 2015, joined the apprentice program at Santa Fe Opera. He has performed Edgardo in Lucia di Lamermoor with Winter Opera Saint Louis, Rodolfo in a semi-staged La Bohème with the Savannah Philharmonic, and in an evening of operatic and musical theater favorites, including Puccini’s “Nessun dorma,” with the Savannah Philharmonic. In summer 2014, he joined Glimmerglass Opera to cover Bacchus in its production of Ariadne auf Naxos. Before graduating from the Manhattan School of Music, Nolan sang alongside Thomas Hampson in a gala performance honoring Marilyn Horne. Upon graduation, he received the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation, given to the most promising graduate of the voice program. A two-time Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions district winner, he currently resides in New York City.

Tenor Jeffrey Springer has performed across Europe, Asia, and North America in theaters such as Lyric Opera of Chicago, Florida Grand Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Cincinnati Opera, Arizona Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and Manitoba Opera, as well as in the National Theatre Mannheim, Krefeld, Mönchengladbach, and Magdeburg in Germany, National Touring Opera of the Netherlands, Opéra de Nantes in France, and Teatro de Navarra in Spain, among others. He has also appeared with numerous leading orchestras. Recently, he performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Japan with the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn, Germany, and the tenor solos in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the Bangkok Symphony in Thailand. Operatic engagements have included Samson in Samson and Dalila with the Dublin International Opera Festival, Tristan in Tristan und Isolde with Lyric Opera of Chicago under Sir Andrew Davis, Faust in La Damnation de Faust with the San Francisco Opera, Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Orlando Opera, and Cavaradossi in Tosca for Minnesota Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Capitol Opera Magdeburg, Würzburg (Germany) Opera, Stadttheater Giessen, and the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera, among others. Springer is the winner of the Concours International de Chant de Festival Atlantique in Nantes, France, the José Carreras Prize in Pamplona, Spain, and third prize in the Concours International de Chant in Toulouse, France. In 2001, he created the role of Sacco in Opera Tampa’s world premiere of Anton Coppola’s Sacco and Vanzetti.

Coloratura soprano Annika Mauss, age 26, was born and raised in Orange County, California. She began voice lessons at age 19 at Saddleback College in California, where she earned a dual Associates Degree in Music and International Languages. In the fall of 2012, she transferred to Brigham Young University–Idaho (BYU–I), where she earned her bachelor’s degree in music (vocal performance) in 2015. While at BYU–I, she studied and performed several leading operatic roles, including Olympia from Les Contes d’Hoffman, Laetitia from The Old Maid and the Thief, Marie from The Daughter of the Regiment, the Queen of the Night from Die Zauberflöte, Lucia from Lucia di Lammermoor, Gilda from Rigoletto, Sophie from Der Rosenkavalier, and Ophélie from Hamlet. She received several merit-based scholarships and an ArtisticExcellence Fellowship while at Brigham Young and won an encouragement award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2014. She has been featured as a soloist with the Saddleback Symphony Orchestra, Rexburg Symphony Orchestra, and Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. Mauss began her studies at the Jacobs School of Music in fall 2015. She has finished her coursework for her Master of Music in Voice Performance degree and is currently studying with Patricia Havranek for her Performer Diploma, which she plans to complete with her Master of Music degree this spring.

Soprano Jennie Moser is a native of Brevard, North Carolina, and recently appeared as Niece 1 in Peter Grimes with IU Opera Theater. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree at Northwestern University, where roles included Amy March (Little Women), Madame Silberklang (The Impresario), and Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro). Moser has spent summers with the Aspen Music Festival and School as a member of the Aspen Opera Center and the Janiec Opera Company at Brevard Music Center, where she sang First Lady and The Queen of the Night (cover) in Die Zauberflöte. This fall, she was a soloist with the IU New Music Ensemble in Augusta Read Thomas’s Of Being is a Bird and appeared on the concert stage as the soprano soloist in Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel under the baton of Donald Nally at Northwestern University. She is currently a master’s student studying with Costanza Cuccaro.

Baritone NiZel Austin, a Washington, D.C., native, is in his third and final year of a master of music degree in voice performance at the Jacobs School of Music, studying under the tutelage of Patricia Havranek. He earned a bachelor’s degree in voice performance at Towson University. He has been a part of IU Opera Theater’s productions of Peter Grimes, Dead Man Walking, Carmen, and Florencia en el Amazonas. Some roles he has performed include Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Nemorino in The Elixir of Love, and Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance. Recently, with Indiana University’s Gilbert & Sullivan Society, Austin performed the role of Richard Dauntless in Ruddigore. At Towson University, he performed such roles as Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Poo-bah in The Mikado, and Warden Frank in Die Fledermaus. Austin was part of the Young Victorian Theater Company in Baltimore during his undergraduate studies, specializing in Gilbert and Sullivan productions, notably The Gondoliers (Francesco) and H.M.S. Pinafore.

Samuel Chiba, a native of San José, California, had his first taste of opera singing in the chorus for Opera San José, under the direction of Irene Dalis, in 2008. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Brigham Young University–Idaho, where he studied with soprano Kristine Ciesinski. He is in the second year of his master’s degree at the Jacobs School of Music, studying with Timothy Noble. This is Chiba’s debut in a mainstage role with IU Opera Theater. He has performed in several opera choruses with IU Opera, including The Daughter of the Regiment, Peter Grimes, and L’Étoile. Other roles include the title role and Marco in Gianni Schicchi (Puccini), Ramiro in L’Heure Espagnole (Ravel), Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart), Marcello in La Bohème (Puccini), the title role in Tartuffe (Mechem), and Bob in The Old Maid and the Thief (Menotti).

Patrick Conklin, a native of Oberlin, Ohio, earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Bowling Green State University. There he performed in several mainstage productions, including in leading roles such as Camille de Rosillon in Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, Basilio in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Fredrick in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. He also worked extensively with Toledo Opera. He is pursuing a master’s degree with Carol Vaness at the Jacobs School of Music.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Tislam Swift has performed on a wide array of concert stages, theaters, and opera houses. In 2007, he was a background vocalist for Elton John’s sixtieth birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden. Swift is a graduate of Morehouse College and was a frequent soloist with the world-renowned Morehouse College glee club, with which he toured both nationally and internationally. He was also a member of the 2013-14 season of the Atlanta Opera chorus, under the direction of Walter Huff. In 2014, Swift participated in The Princeton Festival’s production of Porgy and Bess. He has made IU Opera Theater appearances in La Bohème, South Pacific, The Barber of Seville, Die Fledermaus (Dr. Blind), and The Music Man (Marcellus Washburn). This season, he will make his oratorio debut as the tenor soloist in John Stainer’s Crucifixion at St. Paul’s AME Church in Hamilton, Bermuda. While at IU, Swift performed the tenor role in the New Voices Opera production of Thump and covered the role of Coridon in Handel’s Acis and Galatea with the IU Summer Chorus. He recently spent a summer at Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre performing in productions of Ragtime, Porgy and Bess, and Peter Pan. He is a graduate student studying with Brian Horne.

Bass-baritone Quinn Galyan studies voice performance under Brian Horne at the Jacobs School of Music and is also working on an outside field in telecommunications. This is his fourth role with IU Opera Theater, having performed as Siroco in L’Étoile, Charlie Cowell in The Music Man, and Hortensius in The Daughter of the Regiment. He has had solos in Dead Man Walking and South Pacific, along with chorus work in Peter Grimes, H.M.S. Pinafore, La Bohème, and Carmen. Galyan has performed in IU’s Symphonic Choir, University Chorale, and Summer Chorus (King David, conducted by Walter Huff). Outside of the Jacobs School, Quinn has performed with Cardinal Stage Company as the bass of the Cockney Quartet in Cardinal’s rendition of 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.

Peruvian bass-baritone Jeremy Gussin earned his bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire and is currently finishing his doctorate under Andreas Poulimenos. Previous IU Opera Theater highlights include roles in Menotti’s The Last Savage, Verdi’s Falstaff, Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, and Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas. He made his professional operatic debut as the Imperial Commissioner for Utah Festival Opera’s Madama Butterfly last summer. As a four-year member of the Singing Hoosiers, he arranged the group’s opener for its 2014 Australian tour and directed small ensembles for three years. During his graduate studies at IU, he has made additional choral appearances with Vocal Jazz Ensemble, IUnison, Conductors Chorus, Concentus, African-American Choral Ensemble, and Summer Chorus. Gussin has served as a panelist and arranger at the national American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) conference and the North Central ACDA conference, respectively. A multi-faceted musician, his professional activities include work as a session singer with Airborne Studio, bass vocalist in the Schola Cantorum (Brazil, Indiana), chant transcription work, vocal arrangements for collegiate and high school choirs, accompanying and coaching undergraduate students, and teaching private voice. Interests include transcribing/transposing repertoire into suitable keys for the low voice and exploring how elements of various diverse musical study and styles can be paired together in aiding the development of a complete vocal musician. Crimson Cadence, the close-harmony vocal group he directs, was invited recently to represent IU at the 2018 National A Cappella Convention this April in Memphis.

Benjamin Bird is originally from Palmdale, California. A first-year doctoral student studying with Peter Volpe, Bird earned a master’s degree in voice from Brigham Young University, where he appeared in The Barber of Seville (Almaviva), Manon (des Grieux), The Elixir of Love (Nemorino), Die Fledermaus (Alfred), and The Pirates of Penzance (Frederic). He has also performed with Utah Vocal Arts Academy in its productions of Don Giovanni (Don Ottavio) and Le Nozze di Figaro (Don Basilio/Don Curzio) and has been a featured soloist with Brevitas Choir on its 2016 album, Nowell Sing We.

Tenor Vincent Festa was seen earlier this season as King Ouf in L’Étoile. Previous IU Opera Theater credits include Bob Boles in Peter Grimes and the notary in The Daughter of the Regiment. Additional performances at the Jacobs School include Nicolas in Britten’s cantata Saint Nicolas and Brahms’ Liebeslieder-Walzer. Festa spent last summer in the Dordogne region of France, where he studied at L’Art du Chant Français, founded by Glenn Morton and Michel Sénéchal. He will join the Aspen Music Festival for summer 2018. While a studio artist at the Chautauqua Opera Company in 2016, he covered the role of Nanki-Poo in The Mikado and appeared in a scenes program as Count Almaviva from The Barber of Seville. Additional roles include Nika Magadoff in The Consul in Boston’s historic Jordan Hall, Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Opera on the Avalon, Colin in L’Amant Anonyme by Saint-Georges with the Little Opera Theater of New York in collaboration with New Vintage Baroque, and Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw under the direction of Nic Muni. Festa was a 2014 Vocal Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he made his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut in Bernstein’sCandide as Charles Edward and Inquisitor I. A native New Yorker, he earned a bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School and a master’s degree from the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory. He is pursuing a Performer Diploma under the tutelage of Timothy Noble.

Russian-American mezzo-soprano Elizaveta Agladze made her operatic debut as Zia Principessa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica in March 2015 in New York. Later that year, she performed the roles of Dritte Dame and Dritte Knabe in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte in Germany with Lyric Opera Studio Weimar. In 2016, she returned to Weimar as Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, earning praise for “grandiose mastery” by Göttinger Tageblatt. Last season, she performed the role of Olga in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with Hudson Opera Theatre and participated in recitals at the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and in her hometown of Pushchino, Russia. A participant in OperaWorks Advanced Artist Program (2013) and Lyric Opera Studio Weimar (2015, 2016), Agladze earned bachelor’s degrees in music and psychology from Emory University and a master’s degree in organizational sciences from The George Washington University. She is currently a first-year master’s student in voice performance under the tutelage of Carlos Montané at the Jacobs School of Music.

Mezzo-soprano Eleni Taluzek, from Lemont, Illinois, is pursuing her Doctor of Music degree at the Jacobs School under the tutelage of Timothy Noble. She earned her Artist Diploma in Opera and her Master of Music in Voice at the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) in Cincinnati. While at CCM, she performed as Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Lapák in The Cunning Little Vixen, and Number 3 in Transformations by Conrad Susa. Taluzek was the Third Spirit in Die Zauberflöte and Gladys in Roscoe at Opera Saratoga. She has performed in concerts in Cincinnati, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Baritone Milan Babic is a third-year undergraduate student at the Jacobs School of Music pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance under the tutelage of Carlos Montané. Babic’s roots lie in Arlington Heights, Illinois, where he attended Buffalo Grove high school. In 2014 and 2015 respectively, he ventured to Peoria, where he attended the all-state Illinois Music Educators Association as a member of the vocal jazz ensemble. He has played several leading roles in musical theater productions and in January 2015, traveled to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he was a player in the all-state Illinois Theater Festival Production of Pippin. Since then, he has been well received in ensembles and competitions from California to the Midwest. He has also received instruction and performed in the German town of Sankt Goar as well as in Italian and Austrian cities. Bibac began his tenure with IU Opera Theater in its production of The Barber of Seville in 2015 and has sung roles in Carmen, The Daughter of the Regiment, Madama Butterfly, Peter Grimes, L’Étoile, and Ariadne auf Naxos. In 2016, he debuted in Madama Butterfly as the Imperial Commissioner while a second-year undergraduate student.

A native of New Jersey, Zachary Coates came to the Jacobs School of Music to pursue a Master of Music in Voice Performance in 2011, earning that degree as well as a Performer Diploma in 2014. In the 2014-15 season, he was a young artist with Michigan Opera Theatre, where he was praised by Opera News for his “expansive, playful presence.” After a successful year in Detroit, he returned to Indiana to work on a Doctor of Music degree, which he expects to complete within the next year. Coates earned his Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from Westminster Choir College of Rider University, where he appeared on stage as Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), the Father (Hansel and Gretel), the Marquis de la Force (Les Dialogues des Carmelites), and Pinellino (Gianni Schicchi). He has been a young artist with Opera North, where he performed the role of John Brooke in Mark Adamo’s Little Women. Coates has appeared with IU Opera Theater in the roles of Balstrode (Peter Grimes), Sulpice (The Daughter of the Regiment), Don Alphonso (Così fan tutte), Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Aye (Akhnaten), Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Sid (Albert Herring), and Guglielmo (Così fan tutte). He also has many concert credits to his name, including narrating Honegger’s King David with the IU Summer Chorus, the Fauré Requiem with the IU Chorale, the Mozart Requiem with the Westminster Symphonic Choir, and Haydn’s Mass in Time of War with the American Classical Orchestra.

Wisconsin native Jacob Engel is making his IU Opera Theater debut. He was seen recently in Carol Vaness’s Opera Workshop in the role of Simone in Gianni Schicchi and the title role in Hamlet. He has performed in the choruses of IU Opera Theater’s productions of Florencia en el Amazonas, Peter Grimes, and L’Étoile under the direction of Walter Huff. Prior to attending IU, Engel was the second-place winner of the National Association of Teachers of Singing National Student Auditions (2015) and the winner of the Minneapolis Schubert Club Scholarship Competition (2015). He is a second-year master’s student at the Jacobs School of Music studying with Brian Horne.

Maori-American baritone David Tahere’s previous operatic credits include Sam (Trouble in Tahiti), Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Ramiro (L’Heure Espagnole), Le Gendarme (Les Mamelles de Tirésias), Saint Peter (Too Many Sopranos), Harašta (Cunning Little Vixen), Olin Blitch (Susannah), Daniel Webster (The Mother of Us All), and Henry Potter in IU Opera Theater’s production of It’s a Wonderful Life. Tahere has been a featured soloist with the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Chamber Chorus, Chattanooga Choral Arts Society, Chattanooga Bach Choir, and Tenth Concert Series under the baton of highly regarded conductors Andrew Altenbach, Alan Harler, Cristian Macelaru, Teri Murai, and Helmuth Rilling. Tahere is also a lover of song and has been a three-time fellow with SongFest, working with Sir Thomas Allen, Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, and Sanford Sylvan. Upcoming performances include recitals with the Lysander Piano Trio, Rutter’s Mass of the Children, and Fauré’s Requiem. Currently studying with Wolfgang Brendel, Tahere is a second-year doctoral student and associate instructor at the Jacobs School.

Elise Hurwitz is a junior undergraduate from Cincinnati, Ohio, studying vocal performance and Italian as a student of Alice Hopper. This is her first principal role with IU Opera Theater. She has previously appeared as a chorus member in three IU Opera productions, most recently as Zinnia in Chabrier’s L’Étoile as well as in The Music Man and Florencia en el Amazonas. Last summer, she was immersed in Italian music and culture through Music in the Marche. Other summer programs include Brevard Music Festival and the Sankt Goar International Music Festival and Academy.

Maya Vansuch, soprano, is a fourth-year undergraduate at the Jacobs School of Music earning her voice performance degree under the tutelage of Alice Hopper. A native of Dayton, Ohio, this is Vansuch’s solo debut with IU Opera Theater; last fall she made her chorus debut in L’Étoile. At Jacobs, she is an avid performer of new music, having been a member of NOTUS Contemporary Vocal Ensemble all four years of her time here as well as premiering many choral and solo works by Jacobs composition students. She sang the role of Juliet in scenes from Don Freund’s Romeo and Juliet with the New Music Ensemble and performed again with the ensemble in an evening of new opera scenes by student composers. She is an active member of the student-run Indiana University Gilbert & Sullivan Society, having sung the role of Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance and the title role in Patience as well as being a chorus member and costumer for several productions. Vansuch has sung the Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte) with the Bloomington outreach program Reimagining Opera for Kids and is soprano lead at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church.

Mezzo-soprano Gabriela Fagen is a first-year M.M. student studying under the tutelage of Mary Ann Hart. Last spring, Fagen earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Jacobs School of Music as a student of Costanza Cuccaro. Fagen’s recent role credits include Unulfo in Handel’s Rodelinda and Ethel Toffelmeier in The Music Man with Indiana University Opera Theater, Conceptión in Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole in Graduate Opera Workshop, Third Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with the Prague Summer Nights Festival, Dame Hannah in Ruddigore with the Indiana University Gilbert & Sullivan Society, and Third Spirit in Die Zauberflöte with the Savannah Voice Festival. She is a recipient of the Viola Wheeler Arts Award and the William and Emma Horn Scholarship.

Emily Warren, mezzo-soprano, is in the second year of her graduate studies at the Jacobs School of Music. She first appeared with IU Opera Theater last semester as a featured chorus member in Chabrier’s L’Étoile. She recently performed as Angela in the Indiana University Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s production of Patience, and last year she premiered the role of Joan in Kyle Peter Rotolo’s one-act opera Marilyn’s Room with New Voices Opera. A Buffalo native, Warren earned her B.M. in Vocal Performance fromBaldwin Wallace University, where she performed the roles of Ramiro in Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera and L’Enfant in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. At Jacobs, she has performed in several choral ensembles, including NOTUS, Conductors Chorus, and University Singers. She is a student of Patricia Stiles.

Soprano Amy Wooster, hailing from Indianapolis, is pursuing her undergraduate degree in voice performance as a student of Carlos Montané. She has performed in choruses in IU Opera Theater’s Così fan tutte, Madama Butterfly, Peter Grimes, and L’Étoile. This is her IU Opera role debut.

Soprano Savanna Webber is in the third year of her Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance studies at the Jacobs School of Music. A student of Brian Horne, she has performed with IU Opera Theater in productions of Madama Butterfly, The Music Man, and It’s a Wonderful Life. This past summer, she sang Zweite Dame and covered Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. In the summer of 2016, she sang Ida and covered Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus with Boston University Tanglewood Institute. This spring, she will be in the chorus of the IU Opera Theater production of West Side Story.

Born and raised in Georgia, tenor Rodney Long earned a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance with honors from Columbus State University (Columbus, Georgia). He has been a finalist at the state and regional level of the National Association of Teachers of Singing auditions numerous times for both the classical and musical theater categories. His most recent professional opera engagement was with Bel Cantanti Opera (Washington, D.C.) in its production of The Barber of Seville. Other favorite stage credits include roles in Aida (Mereb), Into the Woods (Wolf), and Le Nozze di Figaro (Don Curzio). In concert, he has sung as the tenor soloist for J. S. Bach’s Christ Lag in Todes Banden and for Dubois’ The Seven Last Words of Christ. Long was an IU Opera Theater chorus member in L’Étoile in October and will appear in the chorus of its production of West Side Story in April. He is pursuing a Master of Music in Voice Performance alongside a graduate certificate in vocology from the Jacobs School of Music, studying with Timothy Noble.

Christoph Irmscher is Provost Professor of English and director of the Wells Scholars Program at Indiana University Bloomington. He is a widely published biographer and author, most recently of Max Eastman: A Life (Yale). An avid actor in his youth, this is his debut with IU Opera Theater.