Background: Mid-nineteenth-century Scotland

A deadly feud has raged between the Ravenswood and Ashton families for many years.Edgardo of Ravenswood has been driven off his ancestral home by Lord Enrico Ashton, who has usurped it for his own use.Edgardo is in love with Lucia, Enrico’s sister, making matters worse.

Lord Ashton has overplayed his hand in a plot against the king and finds his future imperiled.His only hope is to force Lucia to marry Lord Arturo Bucklaw, whose influential position might be enough to stay the imminent political and economic danger to his family.The plot of the opera revolves around this exploitation of Lucia to secure the future of the Ashton dynasty.

Act 1, Scene 1: Grounds near Ravenswood Castle

Under Normanno’s leadership, residents of the Ashton estate search the grounds for the intruder they think is secretly meeting with Lucia.Normanno tells Enrico that the fugitive may be his sworn enemy, Edgardo.Enrico is infuriated that a threat should come from the Ravenswood rank and plans to proceed with the forced marriage.Raimondo, a chaplain and Lucia’s tutor, calls for reason and reminds them that the girl is still mourning the recent death of her mother.When the men return with confirmation that the suspect is, indeed, Edgardo, Enrico swears revenge.

Act 1, Scene 2: The garden of Ravenswood Castle

After receiving an urgent note from Edgardo, Lucia eagerly awaits his arrival.She tells Alisa, her companion, about the ghost of a woman who drowned in the nearby fountain many years before.Lucia claims to have seen the ghost beckoning her toward the water.Alisa interprets this as a bad omen and advises Lucia to end her secret romance.Her admonition, however, falls on deaf ears.

Edgardo arrives and tells Lucia that he must go to France on a political mission the next morning.Before departing, he wants to visit Enrico and make peace with him.Lucia begs him to keep their love a secret.Edgardo agrees, and they exchange rings and vows of devotion.They bid each other farewell and promise to write.

Act 2, Scene 1: Enrico’s study

Enrico has arranged for Lucia to marry Lord Bucklaw this very day, without first securing her consent, and is worried about her reaction.Normanno reminds him of the action they have taken to secure Lucia’s compliance—the interception of all of Edgardo’s love letters.To better his odds, Enrico decides to forge a letter containing a confession of infidelity from Edgardo.

Lucia enters and rebukes her brother for his cold, unsympathetic treatment of her.Full of deceitful apologies, he tries to beguile her into the marriage to Arturo, but she tells him she is already pledged to someone else.At this admission, Enrico presents Lucia with the forged missive.Believing that Edgardo loves another woman, Lucia gives in to despair.As the wedding party gathers outside, Enrico reminds Lucia that her marriage to Arturo is the only recourse left to save the future of their family.Faced with additional persuasion from Raimondo, Lucia consents to the marriage.

Act 2, Scene 2: Great Hall of Ravenswood Castle

Lucia’s wedding to Lord Arturo Bucklaw is underway.Before the assembled guests, Arturo pledges his loyalty to the Ashton clan.A pale and distracted Lucia presents herself to sign the marriage contract.Just as she has finished placing her signature on the fateful document, Edgardo forces his way into the hall.Unaware of the pressure that Lucia’s brother exerted on her and after being shown the marriage contract, Edgardo harshly denounces Lucia.He threatens Enrico, and only Raimondo’s intervention prevents a fight.The guests demand Edgardo’s withdrawal, and, despite a final irrational tirade, he leaves unharmed.

Act 3, Scene 1: Great Hall of Ravenswood Castle

On their wedding night, the bride and groom have retired to their chambers, while the festivities are still in full swing.A disturbed Raimondo abruptly interrupts the proceedings.He announces that Lucia, under the strain of the forced marriage, has murdered Arturo.All fear the wrath of God for their part in the forced arrangement.Lucia appears, disheveled, bloodstained, and raving.She gives a macabre description of an imaginary wedding to her lover, Edgardo.When Enrico returns, he is enraged at Lucia’s behavior but soon realizes that she has lost her senses.After a confused and violent exchange with her brother, Lucia collapses.

Act 3, Scene 2: The tombs of the Ravenswoods

A crestfallen Edgardo is wandering among the graves of his ancestors.Ignorant of Lucia’s fate, he derides her for her faithlessness and prays for his own death.Guests exiting the castle murmur about Lucia’s madness.They describe her declining condition and tell Edgardo that she constantly calls his name from her deathbed.Edgardo starts for the castle but is stopped by Raimondo, who tells him it is too late.A bell tolls the death knell for Lucia.Thinking only of a reunion with his love, he stabs himself and dies as Raimondo says a prayer for pardon.

by Kirby Haugland
Ph.D. Student in Musicology

Long before Gaetano Donizetti and Salvatore Cammerano collaborated to create Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835, Scotland was already a rich source for composers’ romantic imaginations.William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with its magic, murder, and intrigue among the moors, was popular throughout Europe.Felix Mendelsohn’s travels to Scotland inspired his Hebrides overture and his Scottish symphony.The mythical Scottish bard Ossian prompted works by Schubert, Gottschalk, Brahms, Bizet, and Saint-Saëns.Even so, no Scottish tales compared in popularity to those of poet, historian, and novelist Sir Walter Scott.

Scott’s works inspired songs by Schubert, overtures by Berlioz, and more than 50 nineteenth-century operas.Several of these remain popular today, including Rossini’s Il donna del lago, Bellini’s I puritani, and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.Lucia was not the first adaptation of Scott’s 1819 novel The Bride of Lammermoor (Cammerano likely based his work on three earlier libretti), nor was it the last.While these other adaptations have largely been forgotten, Donizetti’s Lucia is more famous today than the novel that inspired it.

As much as composers were drawn to his works, which are filled with song lyrics, Scott was not particularly musical, nor was he enamored of the operas based on his stories.After attending one performance, he wrote, “It was an opera, and of course the story was greatly mangled, and the dialogue in a great part nonsense.” Scott’s reaction is ironic, considering that his own works were themselves often “mangled” versions of historical events.

The Bride of Lammermoor draws its inspiration from Janet Dalrymple, the daughter of a seventeenth-century lawyer and Scottish lord.Dalrymple fell in love with Lord Rutherfurd.The two supposedly pledged their fidelity by breaking a gold coin between them.The subsequent events went much the way of the opera, with Rutherfurd rejected by Janet’s parents in favor of a more acceptable match.Although retellings are contradictory, Janet is said to have stabbed her husband on their marriage night in a fit of madness.Her husband survived, but would never say what had happened, and Janet died within weeks.

Scott weaves this tragic tale into a larger tapestry.Lucy and Edgar’s romance develops amidst a background of political conflict between Lucy’s parents and Edgar’s allies.Scott’s work as a historian allowed him to build a detailed setting during the chaotic years between England’s Glorious Revolution and the Acts of Union that formed the United Kingdom.At the start of the novel, Bucklaw and Edgar are acquaintances, who fall out because of the tragi-comic antics of Edgar’s faithful old servant Caleb.Lord Ashton actually supports Lucy and Edgar’s relationship, but his plans are foiled by Lady Ashton’s cold ambition.Legends, prophecies, and suggestions of witchcraft further enrich the romantic Scottish setting.

The Bride of Lammermoor has far too much going on for a direct adaptation to the stage.Cammerano stripped the story down to its essence: Lucy and Edgar’s thwarted love.Although the opera opens with a hunters’ chorus (a staple of Walter Scott operas), Donizetti makes no attempt at writing Scottish sounding music.Edgardo di Ravenswood and Enrico Ashton owe their passions more to operatic convention than to Scott’s original characters.

Rather than attempt the detail of Scott’s novel, Lucia captures the feeling of its most important scenes, magnifying their emotions with Donizetti’s memorable melodies and expert orchestration.This is particularly apparent in the sextet that follows Edgardo’s thunderous entrance upon the wedding party in Act II.After a few moments of stunned silence, the music begins to build over soft plucked strings.First Edgardo and Enrico, then Lucia and Raimondo, and finally Alisa, Arturo, and the entire crowd enter as they each sing of their personal turmoil.Before the actual conflict starts, the audience is privy to the thoughts of these people on the precipice.

In the last act, Cammerano and Donizetti triumphantly moved beyond their source material.Lucia’s double finale, the famous mad scene and Edgardo’s suicide in the churchyard, are both inventions.Scott’s Lucy is found cowering in her bridal chamber fireplace, her only line “So, you have ta’en up your bonny bridegroom?” The 1831 opera La Fidanzata di Lammermoor expanded this moment into a musical mad scene, its heroine actually confronting Edgardo before poisoning herself.Cammerano and Donizetti make the moment even more striking; Lucia has totally broken from reality, seeing and hearing phantoms.Her recitative jerks between styles, an operatic trope for an addled mind, while much of her concluding cabaletta is unsettlingly calm.Rather than his accidental demise in the novel, Edgardo’s subsequent, pathos-filled monologue among the tombs and his suicide over Lucia’s death are a fitting counterpoint to the prior drama.Donizetti represents his fading strength by having a solo cello take most of Edgardo’s melody after he stabs himself.Of course, he then finds a second wind and manages to sing with the chorus to the final cadence.

While Scott did not live to see Lucia, he would have probably found it a story “greatly mangled.” Much of the intricate detail constructed in his novel disappears on the stage.But such details were not what made the opera an instant, lasting success.Donizetti and Cammerano brought Scott’s characters to life; they created a vision of the mysterious, sublime, romantic Scotland that populated European imaginations.Joys and sorrows play out vividly in the music, exciting singers and moving audiences ever since the premiere.

Conductor Gary Thor Wedow has established a reputation for dramatically exciting and historically informed performances.An alumnus of the Jacobs School of Music, where he studied with piano virtuoso Jorge Bolet, he has happily returned for several operas, most recently Rodelinda in 2017, a Georgina Joshi Foundation production.Wedow’s 2017-18 season includes his debut with Opera Philadelphia, conducting Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Lembit Beecher’s I Have No Stories to Tell You; Messiah with the Nashville Symphony; Die Fledermaus with Utah Opera; L’incoronazione di Poppea, a Cincinnati Opera debut; La Cenerentola, in a return to the Manhattan School of Music; and Opera in the Park with Madison Opera.A favorite with Seattle Opera audiences, he has also been a frequent guest of the Canadian Opera Company, Utah Opera, San Diego Opera, Amherst Early Music Festival, and Pittsburgh Opera, among many others.He was long associated with New York City Opera, leading the New York premiere of Telemann’s Orpheus and groundbreaking productions of Carmen, Don Giovanni, and Xerxes.His debut with the New York Philharmonic, conducting Messiah, was noted in The New York Times for “a fleet, lithe orchestral performance, aptly complemented by the buoyant singing of the chorus.” Born in LaPorte, Indiana, and now a resident of New York City, Wedow has been a member of The Juilliard School faculty since 1994.Recent performances there include the Mozart Requiem in collaboration with Westminster Choir College and a tour of St. Matthew Passion with theJuilliard 415 Historic Performance Ensemble.His championship of young musicians is exemplified by his projects at Jacobs, Juilliard, Wolf Trap Opera, the Merola Program, and the Institute of the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires.He has prepared several performing editions of baroque works in collaboration with gambist Lawrence Lipnik.

Jose Maria Condemi’s directorial work, which has been presented by companies in North America and abroad, encompasses an eclectic range of styles and repertoire and has been consistently praised for its creatively theatrical and innovative approach.Notable engagements include Carmen, Madama Butterfly, Faust, Tosca, Così fan tutte, Un Ballo in Maschera, and the world premiere of The Secret Garden (San Francisco Opera), Ernani and Tristan und Isolde (Lyric Opera of Chicago), Aida (Houston Grand Opera), Luisa Miller (Canadian Opera Company), Orphée et Eurydice and La Bohème (Seattle Opera), Frida (Michigan Opera Theatre), Ainadamar and Don Giovanni (Cincinnati Opera), Tosca (L’Opera de Montréal), The Barber of Seville (Atlanta Opera), Cendrillon (New Orleans Opera), The Elixir of Love (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis), Simone Boccanegra (Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires), Tosca and Maria de Buenos Aires (Florida Grand Opera), and La Traviata (Wolftrap Opera), among others.Condemi is also in demand as a trainer of young artists and has been a master teacher and stage director for the San Francisco Opera Center, Seattle Opera Young Artists Program, Houston Grand Opera Studio, University of Cincinnati, Opera Theater of Lucca, and New National Theatre Young Artists Programme in Tokyo.Originally from Argentina, he earned an undergraduate degree in opera stage direction from the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, and a Master of Fine Arts in Directing at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.He was a first-time Adler Fellow in Stage Direction at the San Francisco Opera and a Fulbright Fellow.Upcoming directing engagements include Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci (San Francisco Opera), Glory Denied (San Francisco Conservatory of Music), Florencia en el Amazonas (Florida Grand Opera), and Tosca (Michigan Opera Theatre).Condemi is the Carol Franc Buck Distinguished Chair at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.He was also the artistic director of Opera Santa Barbara, where he oversaw artistic planning and the Studio Artists Program from 2010 until 2015.

Philip Witcomb is a British set and costume designer based between London and New York with over 20 years’ experience.He has designed productions spanning every scale on both sides of the Atlantic.After studying theater design at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, and the Slade School of Fine Art, he started his design career at the acclaimed Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland.His long connection to that dynamic building has had a truly profound impact on his career and design sensibility.His designs for Elijah Moshinsky’s London production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at Wilton’s Music Hall were described in The Independent as “Designs that dwell well on one brilliant coup, delivering events to your eyeball,” and The Guardian said, “This is, without question, the definitive ‘Turn of the Screw’ for our times.” Witcomb’s designs for Cinderella directed by James Brining for Dundee Repertory Theatre were hailed in The Scotsman as “Boasting one of the most staggeringly beautifulpieces of design ever seen on the Scottish stage” and earned him nominations for Best Design and Best Production for Children and Young People at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS).Other award nominations include Best Designer for Love in A Maze directed by Timothy Sheader at the Watermill Theatre (T.M.A Theatre Awards), Best Production for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? directed by James Brining for Dundee Repertory Theatre (CATS), Best Off-West End Production for The White Devil directed by Jonathan Munby for the Menier Chocolate Factory, London (WhatsOnStage Awards), Best Production for Children and Young People for Beauty and the Beast directed by Guy Hollands for the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow (CATS), and Best Scenic Design for Amadeus directed by Michael Gieleta for the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Florida (37th Annual Carbonell Awards).He was one of 12 finalists selected for the Linbury Prize, the United Kingdom’s most prestigious award for stage design, culminating in an exhibition of his work at the Royal National Theatre in London.

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 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, L’Étoile, and It’s a Wonderful Life.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.

Christian Claessens was born in Brussels, Belgium, and began his ballet training with Dolores Laga and Nora Kiss at the Conservatoire de Danse de la Monnaie.When he was 11, his family moved to Cannes, France, where he continued studies under Rosella Hightower and Jose Ferran.In 1978, Claessens went to New York as a scholarship student at The School of American Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre School, studying with Stanley Williams, Andre Kramarevsky, and Richard Rapp.After graduating, he performed with the Kansas City Ballet and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.Returning to Europe in 1984, he began his association with The Dutch National Ballet.Claessens toured internationally in ballet troupes such as Stars of the American Ballet, Stars of the New York City Ballet, Stars of the Hong Kong Ballet, and Kozlov and friends, among others.In 1991, he co-founded the Scarsdale Ballet Studio with Diana White of New York City Ballet (NYCB).During his 15-year run as director and master teacher, he trained dancers of all levels.In 1999, he founded the International Ballet Project with Valentina Kozlova of NYCB.In 1998, he became director of the Purchase Youth Ballet, a division of the Conservatory of Dance at the State University of New York.In 2011, he joined the faculty at Ballet Tech, official public school for dance in New York City.He has designed and taught curriculums for special needs and challenged young people at New Rochelle High School, Steffi Nossen School of Dance, and Scarsdale Ballet Studio.Claessens teaches at the Jacobs School of Music as an adjunct faculty member as well as a principal teacher and curriculum advisor for the Pre-College Ballet Program and Summer Intensive.He is also on the faculty of the IU Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance.

Matt Herndon is an advanced actor combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD), a Bloomington native, and an IU Theatre alumnus.His previous engagements with IU Opera and Ballet Theater include Peter Grimes, Oklahoma!, Carmen, Così fan tutte, and, in his first outing with Jose Maria Condemi, Dead Man Walking. Other favorite credits include Billy Witch and She Kills Monsters for the Bloomington Playwrights Project, Spring Awakening and Oleanna for Ivy Tech Theatre, and The Lieutenant of Inishmore for University Players.Herndon has served on staff for multiple SAFD regional workshops, and more of his work can be seen this spring as he returns for IU Opera’s West Side Story and Ivy Tech’s Anon(ymous).

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.

Soprano Rose-Antoinette Bellino is a first-year master’s student from Boston, Massachusetts, studying with Heidi Grant Murphy.Singing in operatic performances since the age of 10, Bellino made her IU Opera Theater debut last fall as a member of the Winged Angel Quartet in Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life.Last year, she was the 2017 second-place winner in Partners for the Arts’ Promising Young Artist competition in Alexandria, Virginia.Other operatic highlights include Queen of the Night and First Lady (The Magic Flute), Princess (L’Enfant et les Sortiléges), Turnspit (Rusalka), and extensive scenes work: Juliette (Roméo et Juliette), Marie (The Daughter of the Regiment), Adele (Die Fledermaus), and Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro).She is an alumna of both McGill University Schulich School of Music, where she studied under the tutelage of Sanford Sylvan, and Walnut Hill School for the Arts.

A native of Atlanta, Georgia, soprano Kellie Motter is a second-year doctoral student at the Jacobs School of Music, under the tutelage of Carol Vaness.She is the current recipient of the Georgina Joshi Graduate Fellowship, having previously served as an associate instructor of Voice.With IU Opera Theater, she has performed the roles of Marie (The Daughter of the Regiment), Despina (Così fan tutte), and Morgana (Alcina).Motter has spent her summers as a Gerdine Young Artist with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, where she study-covered Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos), and, most recently, as a studio artist with Central City Opera, where she covered Frasquita (Carmen) and was a featured recitalist in Central City’s Lunch and a Song series.As a concert soloist, she has been featured in Carissimi’s Jepthe, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Schöpfungmesse, Steve Reich’s Tehillim, the requiems of Brahms and Fauré, and numerous works by J.S.Bach.She is the 2017-18 winner of the American Prize in Opera (University Division) and a 2016-17 Georgia District winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.Motter earned a B.M.in Voice at the University of Maryland and an M.M.in Voice Performance at the Jacobs School.

Baritone Jason Duika, from Tawas City, Michigan, has been praised by Oregon Music News for having a “big, warm voice” and “spot-on comic timing.” Last spring, he was one of eight finalists in the New York Lyric Opera Competition, held at Carnegie Hall.Since graduating from the Jacobs School in spring 2012, he has worked with opera companies across the United States.In summer 2012, he covered the role of Valentine in Faust at Utah Festival Opera in Logan.In winter 2013, he covered the roles of Iago in Verdi’s Otello and the Count in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at Wichita Grand Opera.Most recently, he was the baritone young artist at Palm Beach Opera, where he covered and sang nine roles, including Dr.Malatesta in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Escamillo and Dancairo in Bizet’s Carmen.Duika is under Randsman Artists Management in New York, where he studies with Andrea DelGiudice.This marks his professional debut.

Baritone Ian Murrell is a second-year master’s student from Vandalia, Illinois.He is a graduate of the University of Evansville, where he studied with Jon Truitt and IU alumnus Eric McCluskey.He currently studies with Timothy Noble.Murrell has appeared with IU Opera Theater as Harry Bailey in Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life and Ned Keene in Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes.This summer, he will join the Chautauqua Opera Company as a studio artist, where he will be performing as the Prefect and Judge No.2, while covering Maximilian in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide.He will also cover Hannah (before) in Laura Kaminsky’s chamber opera As One.

Jamaican-American tenor Terrence Chin-Loy comes to the Jacobs School of Music from Coral Springs, Florida.He is a Barbara and David Jacobs Fellow, a Performer Diploma candidate, and a semi-finalist in the 2017-18 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.His 2017-18 season also included George Bailey in Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life with IU Opera Theater.He will close the season by again joining the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program, where he will sing Brighella in Ariadne auf Naxos.Chin-Loy 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.While a Master of Music candidate there, he received the Michael Sisca Opera Award, the school’s top prize for an opera singer.He earned a B.A.in Music from Yale University, where he concentrated on music theory and musicology.His thesis, “Visions in Death: Wagner’s Ecstasies,” is an exploration of ecstatic music during the deaths of Brünnhilde and Isolde.He is a student of Heidi Grant Murphy.

Originally from Dallas, Georgia, tenor Joseph McBrayer is in his first year of M.M.studies at the Jacobs School of Music, under the tutelage of Alice Hopper.He earned his Bachelor of Music from Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia, where he studied with Oral Moses.In summer 2017, McBrayer performed the role of Tamino in Die Zauberflöte with Lyric Opera Studio Weimar in Weimar, Germany.Thisis his first principal role with IU Opera Theater and the first time he has performed the role of Edgardo.He was a chorus member in IU Opera’s production of L’Étoile earlier this season.Next he will prepare for his first master’s recital, performance date to be determined.

Born in Shanghai, the People’s Republic of China, mezzo-soprano Yujia Chen is pursuing her Master of Music degree under the tutelage of Carol Vaness.She earned her bachelor’s degree from Shanghai Conservatory of Music, studying with Zheng Zhou.Chen has performed the role of Eduige in IU Opera Theater’s Rodelinda by Handel.

Mezzo-soprano Gretchen Krupp is a native of Manassas, Virginia.This summer, she will be a young artist at the Glimmerglass Festival, singing Chocholka, Woodpecker, and Innkeeper’s Wife in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen.In April, she will go to New York to compete as a national semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.The 2016-17 season saw Krupp singing as a studio artist with Wolf Trap Opera, where she covered Clarice in Rossini’s La pietra del paragone.She has performed Auntie (Peter Grimes) and Marquise (The Daughter of the Regiment) with IU Opera Theater.Other IU roles and concert work include Sister Lillianne (Dead Man Walking) and the mezzo soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No.2 with the Hoosier Philharmonic.While an apprentice artist with Des Moines Metro Opera, she covered Mistress Quickly in Falstaff.She is an alumna of Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Young Dramatic Voices, Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artists Vocal Academy, and the Voice Institute at The Chautauqua Music Festival.She was a finalist in the 29th Annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers, culminating in the 2017 Concert of Arias at Houston Grand Opera.She recently completed her Master of Music degree and is currently pursuing a Performer Diploma with Jane Dutton at the Jacobs School of Music.Krupp earned her B.M.in Vocal Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Bass-baritone Julian Morris, originally from Arlington, Virginia, has frequently appeared on the Musical Arts Center stage, in roles including Hobson in Peter Grimes, Alvaro in Florencia en el Amazonas, and Pistola in Falstaff, among others.Additional operatic credits include Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola with the Bay View Music Festival and frequent appearances with Reimagining Opera for Kids.He has appeared as a soloist with NOTUS, the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project, and the IU New Music Ensemble.Last November, he appeared as the bass soloist in Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion with the IU Oratorio Chorus and Philharmonic Orchestra.Morris has been the recipient of several awards at IU, including the Giorgio Tozzi Award, Bruce Hubbard Memorial Award, and two Artistic Excellence Fellowships.He is an associate instructor of voice and assistant director of the undergraduate opera workshop.He earned his B.M.and M.M.degrees from the Jacobs School as a student of Patricia Stiles and is currently studying with Wolfgang Brendel and Gary Arvin.

Marcus Simmons, bass-baritone, is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, currently pursuing a Doctor of Music in Voice Performance at Jacobs, where he has studied with Carol Vaness and Wolfgang Brendel.Simmons debuted with IU Opera Theater as Colline in Puccini’s La Bohème and appeared as 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 an 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.As a soloist, he has performed 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.

This is North Carolina native Joseph Ittoop’s IU Opera Theater debut.Currently completing an M.M.degree, he holds an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and performed opera and oratorio in the United States and Europe before attending Jacobs.Past engagements include Alfredo Germont (La Traviata), B.F.Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Rodolfo (La Bohème), Tamino (The Magic Flute), Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Nemorino (The Elixir of Love), Fritz (L’amico Fritz), and Lenski (Eugene Onegin).Previous concert appearances include as a soloist in Britten’s Saint Nicolas Mass and Rejoice in the Lamb, J.S.Bach’s B Minor Mass, Magnificat, and Weihnacts-Oratorium, Beethoven’s Mass in C and Choral Fantasy, Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Theresienmesse and Die Schöpfung, Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Paulus, Mozart’s Requiem and Great Mass in C Minor, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël, and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella.Future engagements include a Mozart arrangement of Handel’s Messiah in full and Mozart’s Requiem in North Carolina.Ittoop is a member of NOTUS Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and plays clarinet, classical and jazz piano, and saxophone.He is a student of Wolfgang Brendel.

Tenor Doowon Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea.He earned a B.M.from Yonsei University in South Korea and an M.M.from DePaul University.Now living in Bloomington, he is pursuing his Performer Diploma as a student of Carlos Montané.During his time at Depaul, Kim performed as tenor soloist in Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, Vivaldi’s Gloria in D Major, and Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn.He also performed the leading tenor role of Count Alberto in Rossini’s L’occasione fa il ladro and Alfred from Strauss’s Die Fledermaus.Most recently, he sang the role of Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at Lyric Opera Studio Weimar Summer Festival 2017.