On Christmas Eve 1945, in Bedford Falls, New York, George Bailey is suicidal. Prayers for him reach Heaven, where Clara, Angel Second Class, is assigned to save George in order to earn her angel wings. To prepare, Clara is shown flashbacks of George’s life. The first is in 1916, when 12-year-old George saves his younger brother Harry from drowning when he falls through the ice on a frozen pond.

On Harry’s graduation night in 1925, George has a romantic encounter with Mary Hatch, who has been in love with him from an early age. They are interrupted by news of his father’s death. George postpones his travel plans in order to sort out the family business, Bailey Brothers’ Building and Loan, a longtime competitor to Henry F. Potter, the local banker and the richest man in town. Potter wishes to dissolve the Building and Loan to take over its business. George makes the decision to stay on in Bedford Falls and run the business, along with his absent-minded Uncle Billy.

Reconnecting after four years apart, George and Mary get married. As they leave for their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank and use their honeymoon savings to lend financial support at the Building and Loan until the bank reopens. Over time, George establishes Bailey Park, a housing development with small houses financed by loans from Bailey Building and Loan, which allows people to own their own homes rather than pay rent to live in Potter’s overpriced slums. Potter, frustrated at losing control of the housing market, attempts to lure George into becoming his assistant; George is momentarily tempted but rejects the offer.

During World War II, Harry becomes a Navy pilot and shoots down a kamikaze plane that would have bombed an amphibious transport; he is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. On Christmas Eve morning 1945, the town prepares a hero’s welcome for Harry. Uncle Billy goes to Potter’s bank to deposit $8,000 for the Building and Loan. (The $8,000 was worth over $100,000 in 2017 dollars.) He teases Potter, taking his newspaper and bragging about Harry being on the front page; the banker angrily grabs the newspaper, inside of which Billy has unintentionally tucked the envelope containing the money. Upon seeing the money, Potter realizes the potential scandal could lead to the Building and Loan’s downfall. Potter hides the money, knowing its loss will cause severefinancial problems for the Building and Loan. When Uncle Billy cannot find the money, he and George frantically search for it. A bank examiner arrives to review their records, and George berates his uncle for endangering the Building and Loan. He goes home and takes out his frustration on his bewildered family.

George desperately appeals to Potter for a loan. When George offers his life insurance policy as collateral, Potter says George is worth more dead than alive and tells George he will send the police to arrest him. The opera’s narrative catches up to the time of the opening scene. Before he can jump, Clara dives into the river just before George does, forcing George to rescue Clara rather than killing himself. George does not believe Clara’s subsequent claim to be his guardian angel. When George says he wishes he had never been born, Clara decides to grant his wish and show George an alternate timeline in which he never existed. Bedford Falls is named Pottersville and is a much less congenial place. The Building and Loan has long since closed down, because George wasn’t there to take over after Mr. Bailey’s passing. George’s mother does not recognize him; she reveals that Uncle Billy was institutionalized after the collapse of the Building and Loan. In the cemetery where Bailey Park would have been, George discovers the grave of his brother. Clara tells George that Harry could not have saved all of the men on the transport during the war, because George had not been there to save Harry from drowning.

George, now convinced that Clara is really his guardian angel, runs back to the bridge and begs for his life back; the alternate timeline changes back to the original reality. George runs home to find the bank examiner and police ready to make their arrest. However, Mary and Uncle Billy arrive, having rallied the townspeople, who have donated what they can to help George. Harry bursts in with a telegram from George’s childhood friend Sam Wainwright, now a wealthy businessman, who has wired $25,000 to help save the Bailey Building and Loan. The townspeople of Bedford Falls drink a toast to George, the richest man in town, as Clara, having fulfilled her mission to save George Bailey, earns her wings and becomes an Angel First Class.

by Matthew Van Vleet
Ph.D. Student

How do you judge the worth of a person’s life? That is the question facing George Bailey, a man “worth more dead than alive,” as he contemplates suicide on an icy Christmas Eve. It is also the question facing Clara, the Angel Second Class assigned to save his life. We are thrown into the height of George’s turmoil in the first scene and left to wonder, alongside Clara, how did it come to this? The opera is framed by Clara’s journey to understand George’s past so that she can save him in the present. Scenes from George’s life are projected to Clara, and she becomes the eyes and ears through which we view the action.

This framing device is one of the major differences between Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s opera It’s a Wonderful Life and its source, Frank Capra’s 1946 film. While the film remains grounded in George’s reality, the opera is grounded in Clara’s. Clara is an active observer, commenting on and controlling the flow of information. At one point she is amused to find out that she can pause the scene at will. This frame also justifies the onmiscient lens the opera views its characters through. Characters singing their inner thoughts and feelings, music portraying their emotions, and scenes distilling the action all fit into Clara’s heavenly perspective on George’s life. George’s introduction presents us not only with the question of how George could come to feel so alone, but also musical fragments that we must uncover the origins of as the opera progresses. The music in It’s a Wonderful Life offers us, and Clara, the clues to understanding George Bailey.

It’s a Wonderful Life reaffirms the struggles facing George, and the lessons he learns are just as relevant today as they were 70 years ago. Today, the film is a classic piece of Americana, an object of the past. Heggie and Scheer’s opera renews this story, creating a living, modern work. In the score, Americana musical idioms—the Charleston, school songs, collegiate marches—are heard alongside Heggie’s contemporary operatic style. Watching this story through fresh eyes reveals themes that may be overlooked when we treat the film as a static tradition.

In recent years, nostalgia for America’s past has become a powerful political idea. It’s a Wonderful Life puts two economic philosophies from that past at the center of its plot. The central external conflict facing George is his fight to keep Mr. Potter from taking over the town of Bedford Falls. Both men are in the business of real estate; Potter owns the bank and George owns the Bailey Building and Loan. However, they have drastically different ideologies concerning the role of business in society. Potter values the people of Bedford Falls solely on how much money they can make him. Whenever Potter is on stage, he sings the same tune, literally and figuratively: “profit is the art of the future.” George’s musical portrait is more varied, representing his dreams of travel, of college, and of creating a good life for his family with different musical themes. His primary concern in running the Bailey Building and Loan is to benefit his community—friends, family, and neighbors—leaving profits to the wayside. He values the people of Bedford Falls as individuals with dreams and aspirations and runs his business to support them.

A recurring motif in the opera is dreams, including, more broadly, the American Dream. George gives the working class and immigrant families (the Rufinos, O’Malleys, Delgados, and Martinis) of Bedford Falls the opportunity for homeownership that Mr. Potter denies them. Mr. Potter would rather see a thrifty working class who waits and saves before trying to move up in the world. Of course, as George points out, it is impossible to wait and save when all your money goes to paying rent in Potter’s slums. According to Potter, “Profit is the lifeblood of our country, not dreams.” We find this same debate over the American Dream playing out today, especially after the 2008 mortgage crisis and current lows in the rate of homeownership. In revitalizing this nostalgia-tinged American story, Heggie and Scheer remind us of its continued relevance in our modern world.

After George Bailey’s life unfolds before her, Clara arrives at the point where the story started, and she is finally able to act. To convince George of his worth, Clara shows him what the world would be like if he had never been born. This scene is set with only dialogue and an eerie soundscape, a jarring departure from the rich musical landscape of the rest of the opera. Clara shows George just how much his life touches those around him and how, through him, countless people are able to achieve their dreams and happiness. George realizes that his life really is wonderful, and he is worth much more alive. The moral of the opera is timeless: “no one is a failure who has friends.” George’s true value as a person doesn’t lie in exotic lands, wealth, or business, but in the relationships he forms. In this measure, George truly is a rich man.

“Arguably the world’s most popular twenty-first-century opera and art song composer” (The Wall Street Journal), Jake Heggie is the American composer of the acclaimed operas Dead Man Walking (libretto by Terrence McNally), Moby-Dick (libretto by Gene Scheer), It’s a Wonderful Life (Scheer), Great Scott (McNally), Three Decembers (Scheer), The End of the Affair (McDonald), Out of Darkness: Two Remain (Scheer), To Hell and Back (Scheer), and The Radio Hour (Scheer). He is currently working on If I Were You (Scheer) for San Francisco’s Merola Opera Program. Heggie has also composed chamber, choral, and orchestral works as well as nearly 300 art songs, many for the world’s most loved singers, including Kiri Te Kanawa, Renée Fleming, Sylvia McNair, Ailyn Pérez, Talise Trevigne, Carol Vaness, Jamie Barton, Frederica von Stade, and Patti LuPone, to name a few. Heggie’s operas have been produced extensively on five continents, with major productions in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Vienna, London, Madrid, Cape Town, Sydney, Adelaide, Dublin, Malmö, and Copenhagen, among others. Dead Man Walking has received more than 300 performances, in nearly 60 international productions, since its premiere as well as two live recordings. Moby-Dick was telecast nationally as part of Great Performances’ fortieth season and released on DVD (EuroArts). A Guggenheim Fellow, Heggie was recently awarded the Eddie Medora King prize by the University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music. He was also the recipient of the Champion Award from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. In November 2016, he delivered the keynote address for the annual meeting of the National Association of Schools of Music and was the 2017 commencement speaker for the both Eastman School of Music and Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music. A mentor for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative for three seasons, Heggie is also a frequent guest artist at universities and at festivals such as SongFest at the Colburn School. He lives in San Francisco with his husband, Curt Branom. (Photo by Ellen Appel)

Gene Scheer has collaborated on many projects with composer Jake Heggie, including the critically acclaimed 2010 Dallas Opera world premiere, Moby-Dick, starring Ben Heppner as Captain Ahab; Three Decembers (Houston Grand Opera), which starred Frederica von Stade; and the lyric drama To Hell and Back (Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra), which featured Patti LuPone. Other works by Scheer and Heggie include Camille Claudel: Into the Fire, a song cycle premiered by Joyce Di Donato and the Alexander String Quartet, Pieces of 9/11, and Out of Darkness. Scheer worked as librettist with Tobias Picker on An American Tragedy, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 2005. With composer Steven Stucky, Scheer wrote the 2012 Grammy-nominated oratorio August 4th, 1964, for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Jennifer Higdon and Gene Scheer’s operatic adaptation of Cold Mountain premiered at the Santa Fe Opera in 2015 and received the award for Best World Premiere of 2015 at the International Opera Awards in London. Cold Mountain was nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Composition and Best Opera Recording of 2016. Recent premieres include the opera Everest with Joby Talbot for the Dallas Opera and It’s a Wonderful Life with Jake Heggie for Houston Grand Opera. Also a composer in his own right, Scheer has written a number of songs for renowned singers, including Renée Fleming, Stephanie Blythe, Denyce Graves, and Nathan Gunn. Distinguished documentary filmmaker Ken Burns prominently featured Scheer’s song “American Anthem” (as sung by Norah Jones) in his Emmy Award-winning World War II documentary for PBS, The War. Currently, Scheer is at work on a number of projects, including an opera with composer Jake Heggie based on Julian Green’s novel, If I Were You. The piece has been commissioned by San Francisco Opera for the sixtieth anniversary of the Merola Young Artist Program and will premiere in the summer of 2019.

Conductor David Neely maintains a lively career in concert and opera in the United States and abroad alongside an active teaching schedule. As music director and principal conductor of Des Moines Metro Opera, he has elevated the 45-year old company’s musical profile with acclaimed performances of a broad range of repertoire, such as Falstaff, Elektra, Peter Grimes, Dead Man Walking, Jenůfa, Macbeth, Don Giovanni, and La Fanciulla del West since his appointment in 2012. Neely’s recent performances of Britten’s masterwork Billy Budd and Puccini’s Turandot were recently praised in the Chicago Tribune and Opera News, and his televised Manon for Iowa Public Television was recently awarded an Emmy by the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Neely is a frequent guest with Sarasota Opera, having led nine productions there since 2006, most recently an acclaimed production of Dialogues of the Carmelites. This past year, he led concerts with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and the orchestra of Roosevelt University. Prominent instrumentalists with whom he has collaborated include Joshua Roman, Bella Hristova, Benjamin Beilman, and many more. He has conducted numerous world and American premiere works. Internationally, Neely has led concerts with the Bochumer Symphoniker, Dortmunder Philharmoniker, and Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg as well as performing in numerous European opera houses. He headed Orchestral Activities at the University of Kansas for nine years. In 2016, the Kansas Federation of Music Clubs named Neely Kansas Artist-Educator of the Year. He was previously music director of the Butler Opera Center at the University of Texas at Austin as well as its interim director of Orchestral Activities. He is currently a visiting associate professor in orchestral conducting at the Jacobs School of Music. Upcoming performances include West Side Story and multiple concerts at Jacobs, D’Albert’s Tiefland in Sarasota, Falstaff with Intermountain Opera, and Rusalka and Flight in Des Moines.

Leonard Foglia directed the world premieres of Moby-Dick, Heggie/Scheer (Dallas Opera, San Francisco-filmed for PBS, San Diego, Calgary, Opera of South Australia, Kennedy Center, LA Opera), Three Decembers, Heggie/Scheer (Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco, Chicago), It’s A Wonderful Life, Heggie/Scheer (Houston Grand Opera), The End Of The Affair, Heggie/McDonald (Houston Grand Opera, Madison, Seattle), Cold Mountain, Higdon/Scheer (Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia), and Everest, Talbot/Scheer (Dallas Opera). His production of Dead Man Walking, Heggie/McNally, was seen at New York City Opera as well as across the country. His Broadway productions include Master Class, Thurgood (filmed for HBO), The People in the Picture, On Golden Pond, Wait Until Dark, and the recent production of The Gin Game with James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson. Off-Broadway credits include Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from The Field (filmed for HBO), Let Me Down Easy (filmed for PBS), One Touch of Venus, and City Center’s Encores! As a librettist, his “mariachi” opera Cruzar La Cara De La Luna, music by Jose “Pepe” Martinez, premiered at Houston Grand Opera and has since been presented by San Diego Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Arizona Opera, Fort Worth Opera, and Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Lyric Opera of Chicago presented the premiere of El Pasado Nunca Se Termina, music by Martinez, which hassince played Houston Grand Opera and San Diego Opera. A Coffin in Egypt was commissioned and premiered by Houston Grand Opera and has played Opera Philadelphia, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, Chicago Opera Theater, and “The American Songbook” Series at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Keturah Stickann’s directing and choreography has been seen on five continents as well as on television through PBS’s Great Performances. Recent directing credits include Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain (North Carolina Opera), Monteverdi’s Orfeo (Chautauqua Opera), Lucia di Lammermoor (Opera Colorado), Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice (Vermont Opera Project and the National Gallery), Seven Deadly Sins/Pagliacci (Virginia Opera), The Elixir of Love (Opera Birmingham), La Traviata (Chautauqua Opera), Tosca (Knoxville Opera), Macbeth (Kentucky Opera), Don Quichotte (San Diego Opera), Flight (Opera Fayetteville), Rigoletto (Opera Memphis), La Clemenza di Tito (Opera in the Heights), The Tales of Hoffman (Knoxville Opera), Manon (Knoxville Opera), and Madama Butterfly (Opera Colorado). Stickann is a frequent collaborator with director Leonard Foglia, most recently as choreographer for the world-premiere production of It’s a Wonderful Life at Houston Grand Opera. She was his choreographer and movement director for the world premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Moby-Dick at the Dallas Opera in 2010, traveling around the world with the production before directing it for Foglia upon its return to Dallas in 2016. She is also his choreographer for Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, with Mariachi Vargas, and Ricky Ian Gordon’s A Coffin in Egypt, both originating in Houston. She was Foglia’s assistant director for the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain at Santa Fe and for the national tour of Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy. Stickann’s upcoming engagements include directing Turandot for San Diego Opera, Glück’s Orfeo for Florida Grand Opera, and Norma for Opera Southwest.

Robert Brill’s designs for opera have been seen at the English National Opera in London and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, among other venues. In 2010, his design for the world-premiere of Moby-Dick was presented by the Dallas Opera, followed by productions in Australia, Canada, and other U.S. cities, including at San Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera at The Kennedy Center. His recent opera credits include four other world-premiere productions: Cold Mountain at Santa Fe Opera, Doubt and The Manchurian Candidate at Minnesota Opera; Everest at the Dallas Opera, and It’s a Wonderful Life at Houston Grand Opera. Brill is a two-time Tony Award nominee for Broadway, where his credits include Assassins as well as the set and club design for the critically acclaimed revival of Cabaret, at both the Kit Kat Klub and the legendary Studio 54. His other Broadway credits include the recent revivals of Jesus Christ Superstar and Guys and Dolls, A Streetcar Named Desire, Design for Living, Buried Child, and the upcoming Summer–The Donna Summer Musical and the Temptations musical Ain’t Too Proud. Brill’s other theatrical credits include the musical spectacular Frozen, produced by Disney Creative Entertainment, Christopher Plummer’s A Word Or Two, Sinatra: His Voice. His World. His Way. (Radio City Music Hall), On the Record (Disney Theatrical), The Wiz (La Jolla Playhouse), Wozzeck (San Diego Opera), Robin and the Seven Hoods (Old Globe), An American in Paris (Boston Ballet), A Clockwork Orange (Steppenwolf Theatre), Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (Mark Taper Forum and McCarter Theatre), and The Laramie Project, presented throughout the U.S., including atBrooklyn Academy of Music. Brill is a founding member of Sledgehammer Theatre, a recipient of the Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration, and a professor of scenic design at the University of California San Diego.

David C. Woolard received Tony Award nominations for The Rocky Horror Show and The Who’s Tommy. He has designed more than 20 shows on Broadway and more than 200 shows around the world. Highlights include West Side Story, Damn Yankees, and the operas Cold Mountain and Everest. Woolard has won a Drama Desk Award and the Henry Hewes Design Award, and was nominated for an Olivier Award.

In addition to winning a Barrymore Award, Brian Nason has been nominated for a Tony Award, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, and three Audelco Awards. His opera credits include It’s A Wonderful Life with Houston Grand Opera (HGO), Cold Mountain (Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia, North Carolina Opera), A Little Night Music (HGO), A Coffin in Egypt (HGO, Opera Philadelphia), Cruzar La Cara De La Luna (HGO, San Diego Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Fort Worth Opera), Dead Man Walking (HGO, New York City Opera, Opera Pacific, Cincinnati Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Baltimore Opera Company, Austin Lyric Opera), Three Decembers (HGO, San Francisco Opera), The End of the Affair (Madison Opera), and West Side Story (La Scala, Beirut, Japan). Broadway credits include The Mystery of Edwin Drood with Chita Rivera, Thurgood with Lawrence Fishburne, On Golden Pond with James Earl Jones, Fortunes Fool with Alan Bates and Frank Langella, Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass, 1776 (Roundabout and Gershwin), A Month in the Country with Helen Mirren (Outer Critics nomination for Best Design), Taller Than a Dwarf with Matthew Broderick, The Threepenny Opera with Sting, and Metamorphosis with Mikhail Baryshnikov (Tony Award nomination for Best Lighting Design). His more than 75 Off-Broadway productions include the critically acclaimed Emperor Jones at Irish Repertory Theatre. Regional productions include performances at the Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum, Williamstown, Bay Street, Seattle Rep, Long Wharf, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and many more. He worked on six national tours and 11 DVDs, including with Tyler Perry, The Big Apple Circus, The Big Apple Circus Stage Show (national tour); The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber (national tour); American Playhouse Presents “O Pioneers!” (PBS); Broadway Under the Stars (Bryant Park), and For Colored Girls (Tyler Perry Studios/opera lighting designer), among others.

E. M. Gimenez, B.S.’02, is a Los Angeles-based sound and video artist who excitedly returns to the school where his career in audio began. Opera credits include Wonderful Town (LA Opera) and the world premieres of Il Postino (LA Opera), and Crescent City and Invisible Cities (both with The Industry in Los Angeles). He has countless theater and dance credits around the greater Los Angeles area as well as many productions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In addition to his B.S. degree from the Jacobs School of Music, he earned an M.F.A. in design from the California Institute of the Arts.

Projection designer Elaine J. McCarthy makes her Jacobs School of Music debut this season. Her international career spans 23 years in nearly every area of live performance. Her opera credits include It’s a Wonderful Life with Houston Grand Opera, Great Scott, Iolanta, La Wally/Everest, Tristan und Isolde, and Moby-Dick with the Dallas Opera, Mazeppa with the Metropolitan Opera, Dead Man Walking with New York City Opera, War and Peace with the Metropolitan Opera and Kirov Opera, Tosca with Opera Festival of New Jersey, and Tan Dun and Peter Sellars’ The Peony Pavilion at the Wiener Festwochen. Additional career highlights include Wicked, Spamalot, The People in the Picture, Assassins, Man of La Mancha, Into the Woods, Thurgood, and Judgment at Nuremberg (Broadway); Frequency Hopping (set and projections), Distracted (set and projections), Fran’s Bed, Speaking in Tongues, The Stendhal Syndrome, and The Thing About Men (Off-Broadway); Tan Dun’s The Gate with the NHK Symphony and Don Byron’s Tunes and ’Toons at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (concert); Peter Buffett’s Spirit—A Journey in Dance, Drums, and Song and Chen Shi-Zheng’s Forgiveness at Asia Society/New York (dance); Adidas, Sony/Epic Records, Kenneth Cole, Calvin Klein Cosmetics, and the 1996 and 1997 Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards (fashion/industrial); and the 2008 documentary Secrecy (film).

Walter Huff is associate professor of choral conducting and faculty director of opera choruses at the Jacobs School of Music. He served as chorus master for the Atlanta Opera for more than two decades, leading the renowned ensemble in more than 125 productions, with critical acclaim in the United States and abroad. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory and a 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). 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 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, The Barber of Seville, Dead Man Walking, Die Fledermaus, Carmen, Oklahoma!, The Daughter of the Regiment, Florencia en el Amazonas, Madama Butterfly, Peter Grimes, The Music Man, Don Giovanni, and L’Étoile. In the summers of 2014, 2015, and 2017, Huff served as choral instructor and conductor for IU’s Sacred Music Intensive. In addition, he maintains a busy vocal coaching studio in Atlanta. In the summer of 2016, he conducted Arthur Honegger’s King David for the Jacobs Summer Music series with the Summer Chorus and Orchestra.

A former professional poker player and organist, Canadian tenor Edward Atkinson has found his home as an interpreter of a wide variety of operatic styles and languages. His most recent roles include turns as Bob Boles in Peter Grimes, Father Grenville in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Rodolfo in La Bohème, Ruggero in La Rondine, Prince Kodanda in Menotti’s The Last Savage, L’amante in Menotti’s Amelia al ballo, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, and Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. In the orchestral arena, Atkinson was most recently heard with the Carmel Symphony Orchestra as the tenor soloist in Verdi’s Requiem, alongside Jane Dutton and Timothy Noble. His recent appearances include performances as the tenor soloist for Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Mozart’s Requiem Mass, Handel’s Messiah, Britten’s Canticle II: Abraham & Isaac, and Debussy’s Trois chansons de Charles d’Orleans. In the last year, he was awarded first place and grand prize from the Matinee Musicale Competition, and the Donald Felton Memorial Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. In addition to his operatic and concert calendar, Atkinson serves as the director of sacred music at Annunciation Church, director of sacred music at St. Paul the Apostle Church, and music director of the Saint Ambrose Schola Cantorum. He studies with Patricia Havranek at the Jacobs School of Music and will earn his Master of Music in Voice Performance in December 2017.

Jamaican-American tenor Terrence Chin-Loy is a Barbara and David Jacobs Fellow and Performer Diploma candidate at the Jacobs School of Music. A Coral Springs, Florida, native, he studies with Heidi Grant Murphy. This spring, he will sing Edgardo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor with IU Opera Theater. He will also be performing in concerts with Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute in both Ravinia Park, Illinois, and Tucson, Arizona, as part of the Tucson Desert Song Festival to commemorate Leonard Bernstein. Last season saw Chin-Loy performing the roles of Tonio in Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment with IU Opera Theater and Double Duty Radcliffe in Daniel Sonenberg’s The Summer King with Pittsburgh Opera, as well as covering The Astrologer in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel with the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program. An accomplished concert performer, previous engagements have included Ricky Ian Gordon’s A Coffin in Egypt with Frederica von Stade as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series and Janacek’s The Diary of One Who Vanished with the Brooklyn New Music Collective. A lover of song, he was a grant winner from the Gerda Lissner Foundation’s inaugural Lieder/Song Competition. Chin-Loy is a 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 while a Master of Music degree candidate. He earned a B.A. in Music from Yale University, where he concentrated on music theory and musicology.

Soprano Cadie Jordan is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, currently pursuing a Master of Music in Voice Performance at the Jacobs School of Music in the studio of Heidi Grant Murphy. Jordan’s roles on the IU stage include Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Marian Paroo in The Music Man. Other roles include Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Sylviane in Lehár’s The Merry Widow. She made her international debut performing the role of Lisette in Puccini’s La Rondine as part of the La Musica Lirica training program in Novafeltria, Italy. She toured as a soprano soloist with the C. S. Lewis ChoralInstitute through Oxford and Cambridge, England. Jordan spent the summer of 2017 performing as a young artist at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, and she covered the role of Anne Egerman as an apprentice artist in Des Moines Metro Opera’s production of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. Her concert performances include soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Georgina Joshi Foundation’s Handel Project, Handel’s Salve Regina, and Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb. Her 2018 engagements include the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Mass in C Minor in Indianapolis and Maria in Tucson Ballet’s adaptation of Bernstein’s West Side Story. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University, where she began her musical pursuits under the tutelage of baritone Dennis Jesse. She currently works as an assistant instructor of voice at the Jacobs School.

Soprano Anne Slovin, a second-year master’s student, was previously seen at IU as Brigitte in the premiere of Kyle John Rotolo’s Marilyn’s Room with New Voices Opera. She formerly resided in Chicago, where she originated the role of Mica Segal in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s world premiere of The Property, a klezmer opera by Polish composer Wlad Marhulets. In 2014, she was an artist-in-residence at Pensacola Opera, singing the roles of Frasquita in Carmen, Clorinda in La Cenerentola, and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte. An avid performer of operetta, Slovin was recently named Best Female Performer at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival for her turn as Phyllis in Iolanthe. She is a past award winner at the FAVA Grand Concours de Chant, Harold Haugh Light Opera Competition, and Czech and Slovak International Vocal Competition. She is also the recipient of a Joshi International Grant from IU, an Intensive Language Study Grant from the DAAD, and a grant from the Frank Huntington Beebe Fund for Musicians, which allowed her to study voice at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, France. An alumna of Northwestern University, she currently studies with Patricia Havranek. This production marks Slovin’s IU Opera Theater role debut.

Bass-baritone Marcus Simmons, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is pursuing a Doctor of Music in Voice Performance at the Jacobs School of Music. At Jacobs, he has studied with Carol Vaness and Wolfgang Brendel. Simmons debuted with IU Opera Theater as Colline in Puccini’s La Bohème and also performed the role of Jim Hobson in Britten’s Peter Grimes. He earned a B.A. in Music Performance and Music Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and his M.M. from Miami University. He has performed roles such as Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Porgy in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and Talbot in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda. Additional performance include soloist with the Reno Chamber Orchestra, Graz Festival Orchestra, Rittenhouse Chamber Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra in such works as Faure’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Mozart’s Requiem.

Maori-American baritone David Tahere is making his debut with IU Opera Theater. His previous operatic credits include Sam (Trouble in Tahiti), Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Ramiro (L’Heure Espangole), Le Gendarme (Les Mamelles de Tirésias), Saint Peter (Too Many Sopranos), Harašta (Cunning Little Vixen), Olin Blitch (Susannah), and Daniel Webster (The Mother of Us All). 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 conductors Andrew Altenbach, Teri Murai, Cristian Macelaru, Alan Harler, and Helmuth Rilling. Tahere is also a lover of song and has been a three-time fellow with SongFest, working with Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, Sir Thomas Allen, and Sanford Sylvan. Upcoming performances includerecitals with the Lysander Piano Trio and Rutter’s Mass of the Children at Covenant College. Currently studying with Wolfgang Brendel, he is a second-year doctoral student and associate instructor at the Jacobs School of Music.

Soprano Rachel Mikol is pursuing a Performer Diploma in Voice and serves as an associate instructor of voice at the Jacobs School of Music. Recent performances include Niece 2 (Peter Grimes), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), and Elizabeth (The Forest of Dreams). At IU, she has performed as a soloist with the New Music Ensemble, the soprano in Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op.52, and a soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Joshi Handel Project, among other projects. In the summer of 2016, Mikol performed as an apprentice artist with Ash Lawn Opera in Charlottesville, Virginia, and in 2014, was a young artist at the International Performing Arts Institute in Kiefersfelden, Germany, where she was a winner of the aria competition and was seen as Beth (Little Women) and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte). An advocate of contemporary music, she frequently collaborates with composers on new works and has performed with NOTUS: Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and New Voices Opera in addition to the New Music Ensemble. Other operatic credits and scenes include First Lay Sister and Sister Genevieve (Suor Angelica), Dew Fairy (Hansel and Gretel), Ophélie (Hamlet), Zdenka (Arabella), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), and Adina (The Elixir of Love). In January 2018, she will join Virginia Opera as a Herndon Foundation Emerging Artist. A native of Buffalo, New York, Mikol earned a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance and music education from Ithaca College and currently studies with Mary Ann Hart.

Virginia Mims is in the third year of pursuing her Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance at the Jacobs School of Music as a Jacobs Scholar. A student of Alice Hopper, she has performed with IU Opera Theater in productions of Madama Butterfly, Oklahoma!, and Don Giovanni, and was Marian the Librarian in The Music Man. Other credits include Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro and Joan in Street Scene at the Janiec Opera Company at Brevard Music Center during the summer of 2017. From West Palm Beach, Florida, Mims was awarded a full scholarship in 2016 to study in Salzburg through the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. While there, she was awarded the opportunity to sing a recital in Mirabell Platz and performed with the SAOS Orchestra at the Mozarteum. In 2016, she won first place in the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Competition. Mims plans to sing her junior recital in the spring of 2018 in addition to recitals in Ormond Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Louisville, Kentucky. This holiday season, she will sing the soprano solos in Handel’s Messiah with Masterworks Chorale.

Ian Murrell is a twenty-four-year-old baritone from Vandalia, Illinois. He is pursuing a Master of Music in Voice Performance at the Jacobs School of Music, where he studies with Timothy Noble. Murrell has previously appeared as the bass soloist in Igor Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the IU Summer Philharmonic Orchestra, Ned Keene in IU Opera Theater’s production of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, and Anselmo/Captain of the Inquisition in Mitch Leigh and Dale Wasserman’s Man of La Mancha with Asheville Lyric Opera. He has several operatic credits with the University of Evansville’s Schmidt Opera Series. Upcoming engagements include performing Enrico Aston in IU Opera’s spring production of Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.

Benjamin Seiwert is a second-year graduate student pursuing a Master of Music in Voice Performance. He earned his bachelor’s in voice from the Jacobs School in 2012. He has appeared with IU Opera Theater as Harold Hill (The Music Man), Yamadori (Madama Butterfly), Dancairo (Carmen), Motorcycle Cop (Dead Man Walking), and The Painter (The Last Savage) as well as in 10 opera choruses. Seiwert has appeared with the student-led group University Gilbert & Sullivan Society as Grosvenor (Patience), Robin Oakapple (Ruddigore), Samuel (The Pirates of Penzance), and Lord Tolloler (Iolanthe). He has appeared with New Voices Opera, a local student-created company, as Charles (Swan’s Love). He is also involved with his local community theater, Mill Race Theater Company, in Columbus, Indiana, appearing as Joseph (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), Bill Sykes (Oliver), Augustus Gloop (Willy Wonka), and Albert (The Wind in the Willows). He will be appearing as Tony in IU Opera Theater’s production of West Side Story this April. Seiwert is a student of Timothy Noble.

Tenor Justin Brunette is a second-year master’s student in voice at the Jacobs School of Music, studying with Brian Horne. Brunette’s IU Opera Theater credits include the role of Ned Keene in Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes as well as the ensembles of The Daughter of the Regiment and Don Giovanni. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Redlands in southern California, where he performed roles in La Bohème, The Barber of Seville, and The Merry Widow. This past summer, he made his international solo debut in Graz, Austria, as part of the American Institute of Musical Studies program under the baton of Marzio Conti. Critic Walther Neumann reviewed Brunette’s performance in Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung as “deeply moving and affectingly emotional.” He currently lives in Lancaster, California.

Tenor Andrew Flanagin, a native of Columbia, Missouri, is pursuing a Master of Music degree at the Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of Katherine Jolly. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Missouri, where he performed the roles of the Stage Manager in Ned Rorem’s Our Town, Rinuccio in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, and Don Basilio in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. At IU, Flanagin has performed as a member of the chorus in Don Giovanni (2017) and will be a member of the chorus for Lucia di Lammermoor (2018). This is his IU Opera Theater debut.