Act I: Hansel and Gretel’s Home

The curtain rises on a cottage at the edge of a deep forest, the home of Hansel and Gretel and their mother and father. The family is poor, and the parents are out trying to earn money to buy food while the children are left at home to do the chores.

The brother and sister lament their hunger. Gretel then discovers milk left by the woman next door. The news so excites Hansel that he cannot work. The children decide to dance. Gretel teaches her brother the steps, and they sing as they whirl about the room.

The children’s impulsive romp is interrupted by the return of their stern mother, who scolds them for not doing their chores. In her anger, Mother knocks over the pitcher of milk. That is the last straw. She sends the children out into the forest to find strawberries for supper.

When the children are gone, she drops off to sleep. A voice is heard in the distance. It is the father, returning from a fair, where he has sold all of his brooms. When Father asks about the children, Mother explains that they had not done their work and that she sent them into the forest to search for food when the pitcher of milk got smashed. Father is stunned.

“A witch lives in the forest with power from the devil himself! She bakes children in the oven and eats them!”

The two parents rush off to rescue Hansel and Gretel.

Act II: In the Forest

The two children are in the middle of a forest of huge trees. Gretel sits on a mossy rock, weaving a crown of wild flowers. Hansel is looking for strawberries. He finds enough to fill his basket and then crowns Gretel the Queen of the Forest.

Suddenly, the sound of the cuckoo is heard. Hansel imitates the bird and begins eating the strawberries. Before long, the tired children begin to quarrel over the berries, and Hansel empties the basket.

But as it begins to get dark, the children’s high spirits turn into fear. They try to be brave, but as the mists rise, and their calls for help bring only echoes, they fall to their knees in terror.

The Sandman comes to calm them and puts them to sleep. The children sing their evening prayer and sink back on the moss. In their dream, the children see a light break in the mist, revealing a stairway leading up into the sky. Magical creatures from the earth begin to dance around the children as if to welcome them into their realm.

Intermission

(20 minutes)

Act III: The Witch’s House

It is morning, and the mist has retreated. The Dew Fairy wakes the children, who rub their eyes in disbelief, recalling the marvelous dreams that they experienced. Hansel turns around, and, in place of the trees, a Gingerbread House magically appears.

The house turns out to be a tasty concoction of pastry and cake, “the windows shining like sugar, and look, round the house, there’s a gingerbread fence. Come let’s nibble, like two mice!” Before long, the hungry mice arouse the owner. The door opens and there stands the Gingerbread Witch. She quickly traps them.

She offers them no end of treats, but the most wonderful treat—at least for her—she keeps a secret. The children try to escape, but the Witch freezes them in place with her magic wand. She leads Hansel off to a cage, where she plans to fatten him up for her supper. She brings Gretel back to life and tells her to set the table. She brings Hansel special food to make him “plump and tender” and checks the oven to make sure everything is ready.

She tests Hansel’s finger to see if he has gotten fatter. But the boy fools her by poking out a small stick instead.

While the Witch is feeding Hansel, Gretel steals her magic wand and breaks the Witch’s spell on her brother. When the Witch asks Gretel to open the oven door, the girl pretends she does not know how. The Witch bends forward to show her, and the children shove her into the flames.

The oven burns more and more fiercely, and, finally, it bursts into pieces with a loud bang and falls into ruins. Suddenly, Hansel and Gretel are surrounded by Gingerbread Children, who have resumed human form, yet appear to be asleep. Using the Witch’s wand again, Hansel brings them to life.

Suddenly, the father is heard in the distance. Hansel and Gretel cry in joy. They all marvel at the turn of events. The old Witch has been transformed into a giant gingerbread cake.

In a final chorus, all join in the motto that Father taught his children at the beginning of the story: “When our grief’s too great to bear, God will send his love and care.”

"From a Puppet Show to a “Family Headache” to the Opera Stage: Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel"

by Matthew Leone
Ph.D. Musicology Candidate

Once upon a time, there stood a house in Cologne, Germany. And in this house, there lived a woman named Adelheid Wette, who, from time to time, would entertain her daughters, Isolde and Gudrun, with puppet shows. She would write the scenarios herself—often adapting them from Grimm fairy tales and other popular children’s stories—while her younger brother, Max, made the puppets, the scenery, and the little theater. Adelheid’s daughters were also talented singers, and sometimes they would take part in their mother’s puppet shows. One day, in April 1890, Adelheid was preparing a puppet show based on “Hansel and Gretel,” and she asked her older brother, Engelbert, to set some of her verses to music for Isolde and Gudrun to sing during the performance.

Engelbert Humperdinck, of course, said yes to his sister’s request, and with this fateful decision set into motion a series of events that would culminate in his greatest musical achievement three years later. Indeed, the story of how Humperdinck converted a few songs for a home puppet show into a full-fledged opera reads like a fairy tale in itself. Due to a combination of Humperdinck’s diligent work, unending support and input from his friends and family, considerable advocacy by performers and conductors, and a few minor miracles along the way, Hansel and Gretel established itself in the opera repertory soon after its 1893 premiere and enshrined the composer’s name into history. Like any good fairy tale, though, Humperdinck’s opera went through its fair share of trials and difficulties before reaching completion. We are fortunate that this particular tale should have such a happy ending.

The initial prospects were dark. To say the least, the likelihood of Humperdinck composing an opera around 1890 was already slim. Working in the shadow of Wagner’s colossal achievements had been difficult for Humperdinck and many other composers, and after a decade of opera projects failing to come to fruition, few could have predicted that he would write any opera that year, let alone an opera that started its life as four songs written for his sister’s home puppet theater. But Wette’s husband, Hermann, and the composer Hugo Wolf saw greater potential for these seemingly innocuous little pieces. By late 1890, after much encouragement, Humperdinck had expanded the original puppet show into a musical play, featuring 16 songs with piano accompaniment. Despite a successful performance at the Wette household, it was only a second round of encouragement from Humperdinck’s family that convinced him to turn the work into an opera for public performance, and not just domestic entertainment.

With the project in motion, however, a new pair of problems soon emerged: the task of crafting a full libretto, and creating a version of the Grimm fairy tale suitable to their vision. On the one hand, there were simply too many cooks in the kitchen: in addition to Humperdinck himself, his fiancée, Hedwig; Adelheid; Hermann; and the Humperdincks’ father, Gustav, all contributed to writing the libretto, a process Humperdinck referred to as “a family headache.” On the other hand, Humperdinck and company also wanted to present a lighter telling of the fairy tale, which required them to considerably retool the story. They were mainly working from Ludwig Bechstein’s 1847 adaptation of the original Grimm story, which had already softened many of the tale’s more frightful elements, but even this wasn’t enough for Humperdinck and his collaborators, and they proceeded to soften the tale even further. The cruelty of Hansel and Gretel’s mother, the children’s abandonment in the forest, and the more sinister qualities of the Witch are virtually absent in the Humperdinck family’s libretto. Instead, their interpretation of the story emphasizes Bechstein’s themes of divine protection and good triumphing over evil even more forcefully, while simultaneously reinventing Hansel and Gretel’s family as much more loving and tightly knit.

Even after the libretto and score were completed—an endeavor which occupied Humperdinck and his collaborators for the next three years—the opera itself could easily have failed due to its shaky opening night in December 1893. Despite having Richard Strauss calling it “a masterpiece of the first degree” and conducting the premiere at the Court Theatre in Weimar, problems with the copyists caused the overture to be omitted, while the singer scheduled to play Hansel fell ill, leading to several personnel shifts on short notice. Fortunately for Humperdinck, Germany’s musical world didn’t discard the opera. Perhaps most important was the active promotion of conductor Georg Richard Kruse, who founded a touring company for the work and staged over 70 performances in 1894. Critical acclaim and word-of-mouth popularity soon followed, and by the time Hansel and Gretel was performed in Berlin in October 1894, no less a man than Emperor Wilhelm II himself offered his praises. While these performances certainly warmed the public to the work, its popularity also owed something to fortuitous timing. After Wagner’s death in 1883, German critics sought new operas to promote in opposition to the modern Italian “realist” operas making inroads into German theaters. In Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, with its Wagnerian use of leitmotives and its story drawn from a German fairy tale, these critics saw a perfect exemplar.

Throughout his long life, Humperdinck composed several other operas, works for orchestra, chamber music, and songs, and also had a successful career as a teacher and critic. Despite all of these achievements, his lasting fame rests almost entirely on Hansel and Gretel. To be sure, the survival of Humperdinck’s masterpiece owes a great deal to the strength of its own musical and dramatic qualities. The opera’s deft blend of leitmotives, rich orchestration, tuneful melodies, and a lighter take on the Grimm fairy tale have greatly heightened its appeal, while the “Pantomime Scene” at the close of Act II ranks as one of opera’s most fantastic set pieces. But as we have seen, the support and advocacy of Humperdinck’s colleagues, family, and friends also contributed greatly to both the opera’s creation and its enduring legacy. Certainly, Humperdinck leaned heavily on his family’s initial encouragement, and without Kruse’s rigorous tours in 1894, the work might have been quickly forgotten. In the end, however, the fact that our presence at this performance owes everything to a humble puppet theater in the house of Humperdinck’s sister makes Hansel and Gretel nothing short of an operatic miracle.

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. He 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, in addition to performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Staatsoper Berlin Deutsche Oper Berlin, Munich State Opera, and many more. 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 Lyric Opera of Chicago. 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 a regular guest conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra and guest conducted the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, and many others. 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.

Michael Shell’s “visionary” and “masterful storytelling” (Opera News) is steadily leading him to be one of the most sought-after directors in the United States. His “thoughtful and detailed score study” (Opera Today) is shown in character development and relationships onstage as well as the complete visual world he creates. Shell has directed productions for Atlanta Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Opera Omaha, Opera San Jose, Opera Tampa, Opera North, Virginia Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and recently made his directorial debut at Houston Grand Opera. He made his international directing debut at the Wexford Festival Opera in 2010 with a production of Winners by American composer Richard Wargo and returned the next fall to direct Double Trouble-Trouble in Tahiti & The Telephone. He has written and directed three cabarets, including All About Love and The Glamorous Life–A group therapy session for Opera Singers, both for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Shell earned a B.M. and an M.M. in Music/Vocal Performance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He was a Corbett Scholar at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as well as studying acting and scene study on a school-awarded scholarship at H. B. Studios in New York City. He has been guest faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Florida State University, and Webster University, St. Louis, teaching Opera Workshop and directing Undergraduate Opera Workshop performances. In addition, he has been guest director at the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute, Oklahoma University, and was a frequent guest director at Indiana University. Shell will join the faculty of the Summer Opera Program at the Israeli Vocal Arts Institute this summer, directing a production of The Magic Flute. This fall, he joined the faculty at the Jacobs School of Music, teaching classes in acting. Upcoming engagements include Silent Night for Arizona Opera and a new production of Candide for Des Moines Metro Opera.

Swiss-born Max Röthlisberger was professor emeritus of music and head of the Department of Stage Design and Technical Production at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He acted, directed, and designed sets in European opera houses for 40 years and was in his 60s when he was recruited to IU by former music dean Wilfred Bain in 1973. Röthlisberger was chief designer for Zurich Opera and guest designer at opera houses in Milan, Vienna, Munich, Hamburg, Geneva, Paris, Rome, Venice, Naples, Brussels, and The Netherlands. A set designer for more than 20 Swiss movies, he was awarded the Reinhart Ring, Switzerland’s highest award in theater. Röthlisberger retired in 1987 and returned to Switzerland. He died in 2003 at the age of 89.

A Bloomington-based designer and scenic artist, Mark Frederic Smith is also the director of scenic painting and properties for Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet Theater, where he has worked on over 100 productions during the past 22 years. Design work for Jacobs School projects includes 2016’s Florencia en el Amazonas, last season’s Don Giovanni and Ariadne auf Naxos, and this season’s upcoming production of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. His design for Florencia en el Amazonas was featured in San Diego Opera’s 2017-18 season. In addition to work for Indianapolis Civic Theater, Butler Ballet, and Indianapolis Ballet’s company premiere production of TheFirebird, area theatergoers will recognize Mark’s designs for more than a dozen Cardinal Stage Company shows, including Les Miserables, A Streetcar Named Desire, MyFair Lady, Big River, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Smith earned a Master of Fine Art in Scenic Design from the Indiana University Department of Theatre and Drama and was a student of Jacobs professors emeriti C. David Higgins and Robert O’Hearn.

Dana Tzvetkov designs and constructs costumes for opera, ballet, and theater. Her work has recently been featured in Central City Opera’s Tosca (2016) and Carmen (2017), and the National Opera Association’s Hagar (2016). Her designs have appeared on Indiana University’s Musical Arts Center stage in Saudade, Carmen, and Peter Grimes. She has designed rentals for Ball State Opera Theater, Mississippi Opera, DePauw University, and Butler University. She worked alongside Linda Pisano for Opera San Antonio to build costumes for a cast including Patricia Racette and Michelle DeYoung. She has been commissioned to create concert gowns for DeYoung and Sylvia McNair. Tzvetkov served as the costume shop supervisor for IU Opera and Ballet Theater from 2013 until recently, when she was promoted to shop manager. She returned to Central City Opera in summer 2018 to coordinate its production of Il Trovatore.

Thomas C. Hase’s body of work includes the Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, San Diego Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Philadelphia Opera, Minnesota Opera, and Dallas Opera. His work has been seen at regional theaters throughout the United States, including Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, and Indiana Repertory Theatre. In New York, his work has been seen both on Broadway (Company—Tony Award for Best Revival) and Off Broadway as well as with Ping Chong & Company, New York City Opera, and BAM Next Wave Festival. Hase has designed throughout Europe, Asia, and South America, including for the Staatsoper in Vienna, Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatstheater Kassel, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Theater Erfurt, Stadttheater Giessen, Barbican and Sadler’s Wells in London, Opera North in the U.K., Abbey Theatre and Riverdreams in Dublin, Gran Teatre de Liceu Opera in Barcelona, Malmö Opera in Sweden, Dutch, Finnish, and Colombian National Operas, Stageholdings and Nationale Reisopera in Holland, Opéra de Marseille, Canadian Opera Company, Luminato Festival in Toronto, Singapore Arts Festival, and Tokyo Metro Arts Center. Hase has been the head of lighting and lighting design for the Cincinnati Opera Association for 21 years.

Christian Claessens is lecturer in ballet at the IU Jacobs School of Music. He began his ballet training at the Conservatoire de la Monaie. In 1978, he came to New York on scholarship to the School of American Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre School. After graduating, he performed with the Kansas City Ballet and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. In 1984, he returned to Europe as a member of the Dutch National Ballet. As a soloist, Claessens toured internationally with Stars of the American Ballet, Stars of the New York City Ballet, Stars of the Hong Kong Ballet, and Kozlov and Friends. In 1991, he cofounded the Scarsdale Ballet Studio with Diana White. In 1999, he codirected the International Ballet Project with Valentina Kozlova and White, both of New York City Ballet. In 1998, he took over the directorship of the Purchase Youth Ballet. He was the director of La Leçon: Christian Claessens School of Ballet in Westchester, New York.

Brent Gault is professor of music education at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He has taught elementary and early childhood music courses in Texas, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. He specializes in elementary general music education, early childhood music education, and Kodály-inspired methodology. Gault also has training in both the Orff and Dalcroze approaches to music education. He has presented sessions and research at conferences of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association, Dalcroze Society of America, International Kodály Society, International Society for Music Education, Organization of American Kodály Educators, and MENC: The National Association for Music Education. In addition, he has served as a presenter and guest lecturer for colleges and music education organizations in the United States, Canada, China, and Ireland. Articles by Gault have been published in various music education periodicals, including the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Journal of Research in Music Education, Music Educators Journal, General Music Today, Kodály Envoy, Orff Echo, and American Dalcroze Journal. He is the co-editor (with Carlos Abril) of Teaching General Music (2016, Oxford University Press) and author of Listen Up! Fostering Musicianship Through Active Listening (2016, Oxford University Press). In addition to his duties with the Jacobs School Music Education Department, Gault serves as the program director for the Indiana University Children’s Choir, where he conducts the Allegro Choir. He is a past president of the Organization of American Kodály Educators.

Soprano Jennie Moser, from Brevard, North Carolina, appeared most recently as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos with Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Opera Theater, under the baton of Arthur Fagen. Other credits with IU include Niece 1 in Peter Grimes and the soprano soloist in Mendelssohn’s Psalm 42. Moser received a 2017 Metropolitan Opera National Council Encouragement Award (Indiana District) and has spent summers with the Aspen Music Festival and School as a member of the Aspen Opera Center, and the Janiec Opera Company at the Brevard Music Center. At Brevard, she sang First Lady and The Queen of the Night (cover) in The Magic Flute. She performed as the soprano soloist in Augusta Read Thomas’s Of Being is a Bird with the IU New Music Ensemble. While completing undergraduate work at Northwestern University, appearances under the baton of Donald Nally included soprano soloist in Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel and soprano soloist in the premiere of David Lang’s a house. Roles at Northwestern included Amy March (Little Women), Madame Silberklang (The Impresario), and Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro). Moser is currently completing an M.M. at the Jacobs School of Music, where she is an associate instructor studying with Heidi Grant Murphy.

Bridget Ravenscraft, soprano, was born and raised in suburban Illinois. A senior this year, she has been a student of Timothy Noble for her entire undergraduate career. Previous roles with IU Opera include Consuela in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. Ravenscraft has sung in IU’s productions of Peter Grimes, Florencia en el Amazonas, and Carmen as a chorus member. Outside musical and theater credits include Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Ashlyn Brown is a senior pursuing a B.M. in Voice Performance in the studio of Carlos Montané. Born in Palm Springs, California, this mezzo-soprano spent a year singing with the UCLA chamber singers before attending the Jacobs School of Music. Brown has had roles as Aloés in IU Opera Theater’s production of L’Étoile, Third Lady in the Chicago Summer Opera’s production of The Magic Flute, and Mad Margaret in the University Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s Ruddigore. She has also done partial roles, such as Sesto from La Clemenza di Tito and Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro in the Chicago Summer Opera’s scene program. She has been seen in the chorus of IU Opera Theater productions of Florencia en el Amazonas by Daniel Catán, Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten, and Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti. Brown has also been in the chorus of the University Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s The Pirates of Penzance. She was most recently seen in the chorus of IU Opera’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs by Mason Bates.

Lemont, Illinois, native Eleni Taluzek, mezzo-soprano, is currently pursuing a Doctor of Music at the Jacobs School under the tutelage of Timothy Noble. Last spring, she sang Composer in IU Opera’s Ariadne auf Naxos. 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 Third Spirit in The MagicFlute and Gladys in Roscoe at Opera Saratoga. She has performed in concerts in Cincinnati, New York, and Washington, D.C. This is her first role as Hansel.

Yangjunlong Li, baritone, is a native of Tianjin Province, China, and a second-year master’s student under the tutelage of Timothy Noble at the Jacobs School of Music. He is a recent recipient of the Jacobs School’s Artistic Excellence Award. He was also awarded the Kuebler and Evans Merit Awards in the 2018 National Society of Arts and Letters Voice Competition and was a semi-finalist in the 2018 Orpheus Voice Competition, as well as Best Young Star in the 2012 Star of Asia Voice Competition. In 2018, he has performed in opera workshops including as  Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Mercutio (Romeo and Juliet), Talbot (Maria Stuarda), Prince (Adriana Lecouvreur), and Marco (Gianni Schicchi). While earning his Bachelor of Music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Li performed Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Hirace Taboor (The Ballad of Baby Doe), and Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro). In fall 2015 and 2016, he was a featured soloist in concerts with the San José Symphonic Choir and Baroque Orchestra in J. S. Bach’s Magnificat and Georg Frideric Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum, the 23^rd Annual Pacific Voice Conference under the auspices of voice researcher Krzysztof Izdebski in San Francisco, and the Fine Arts Festival in Taiwan, China.

Jeremiah Sanders is a Hoosier baritone from Marion, Indiana, pursuing a Performer Diploma under the tutelage of Jane Dutton. His spring season yielded a first place win with the Lima Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition, a second place win with the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Collegiate Scholarship Competition, and a Caldwell Memorial Award with the National Society of Arts and Letters Vocal Competition. Previously, Sanders received an Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Kentucky District. This past year, he covered Ford in Falstaff with Martina Arroyo’s Prelude to Performance Young Artist Program, appeared in Carol Vaness’s Opera Workshop as Gianni Schicchi in Gianni Schicchi and Don Iñigo Gomez in L’heure espagnole, and conducted various performances around Indiana. He graduated from Butler University with a Master of Music in Vocal Performance (2017) and earned his undergraduate degree at Manchester University (2014). This spring, Sanders will sing as baritone soloist in Fauré’s Requiem and as a Street Singer in IU Opera’s production of Bernstein’s Mass.

Hayley Lipke, soprano, is a native of Racine, Wisconsin, pursuing a Performance Diploma under the tutelage of Jane Dutton and Gary Arvin at the Jacobs School of Music. This is Lipke’s reprise of the role of Gertrud Mutter after her debut performance in German with Berlin Opera Academy. Previously, she performed as Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Rosalba Montealbán (Florencia en el Amazonas), Alma Hix (The Music Man), and Gertie Cummins (Oklahoma!) during her studies with IU Opera Theater. With a passion for making opera accessible by extending it beyond the opera house, she was showcased in Out of the Box Opera’s first innovative “Diva Cage Match.” She also enjoyed performing in the choruses of Falstaff, Le Nozze di Figaro, Werther, La Traviata, South Pacific, Dead Man Walking, Così fan tutte, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Lucia di Lammermoor. Lipke is honored to be a recipient of the Bel Canto Foundation’s Bella Voce award, the Georgina Joshi International Fellowship, and a graduate assistantship at Indiana University. In 2017, she was a winner of the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Foundation Competition at the Graduate Level and a winner of the Indianapolis District of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She will be the soprano soloist for the Jacobs School’s upcoming performance of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem under the direction of Betsy Burleigh.

LeOui Rendsburg was born in Cape Town and grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. She returned to Cape Town in 2012 to pursue her musical studies at the South African College of Music (University of Cape Town—UCT). She is currently enrolled as a post-graduate Performance Diploma student in voice at the Jacobs School of Music, studying under Heidi Grant Murphy. In 2015, Rendsburg completed her B.Mus. degree in Opera summa cum laude and, subsequently, her M.Mus. degree at the University of Cape Town. In 2015, she played the role of Susanna in the University of Cape Town’s production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. In 2016, she performed with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra as one of the selected soloists of the Western Cape Music Youth Festival. Rendsburg also performed the role of Euridice in Cape Town Opera’s production and the African premiere of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. In early 2016, she played the role of Lauretta in an excerpt from Gianni Schicchi by Puccini as part of the 2016 UCT Kaleidoscope production. Since starting at Jacobs, Rendsburg has also performed excerpts from the parts of Marietta in Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt and Rosasharn from Ricky Ian Gordon’s Grapes of Wrath in Heidi Grant Murphy’s Graduate Opera Workshop scenes programs. In November 2018, Rendsburg will also be performing an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, as Tatiana. As a chorus member, she has participated in numerous opera productions as well as in Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion last year at Jacobs.

Tenor Darian Clonts, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, is in the final year of his doctoral coursework at the Jacobs School of Music, where he earned a Master of Music in Voice Performance. Hansel and Gretel marks his tenth IU Opera production. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2012 from Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he studied voice with Uzee Brown Jr. Clonts has been seen with IU Opera Theater as Hérrison in Chabrier’s L’Étoile, Goro in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Le Remendado in Bizet’s Carmen, Scientist in Menotti’s The Last Savage, and Parpignol in Puccini’s La Bohème. He has appeared as a member of the IU Opera Chorus in Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore, Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. Clonts has been seen performing with The Atlanta Opera, Princeton Festival, New Voices Opera, Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre, and Reimagining Opera for Kids. He serves as an assistant instructor in the IU African American and African Diaspora Studies Department as the vocal coach for the African American Choral Ensemble. He is a student of Brian Horne.

David Smolokoff hails from West Long Branch, New Jersey. He is a classically trained tenor and earned his bachelor’s degree in voice from The Juilliard School. He has given recitals in the Morgan Library and Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, and has performed with the Juilliard Opera workshop. Additional performances include private recitals for the Puerto Rican Children’s Foundation in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and for the Argentinian Consulate. He performed the role of Tony in the Axelrod Performing Arts Perry Award-winning production of West Side Story, for which he was nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. He has also won awards and nominations for Best Leading Actor in a musical for his portrayals of the Beast in Beauty and the Beast and Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Smolokoff has covered the role of Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Chautauqua Institute Summer Music Festival. He has enjoyed teaching voice and piano at select music schools in New Jersey to students of all ages. He is currently attending the Jacobs School of Music in pursuit of a master’s degree in voice under the tutelage of Andreas Poulimenos. Here, he has performed in Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with the 2018 Summer Chorus and Philharmonic concert, and The Duke in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience with the University Gilbert & Sullivan Society. This December, he will perform as the tenor soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra at the University of Indianapolis and Second Presbyterian Church, where he serves as tenor section-leader.

Soprano Geuna Kim, a native of South Korea, is a first-year doctoral student at the Jacobs School of Music, under the tutelage of Jane Dutton. Most recently, Kim performed the role of Adele in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus with Lyric Opera Studio Weimar (2018). In the winter of 2017, she appeared as The Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute with New York Lyric Opera (2017). She has also appeared in extensive scene work, including Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Norina (Don Pasquale), and First Lady (The Magic Flute). She has taken master classes with musicians including Cheryl Studer, Helmut Deutsch, Barbara Bonny, Elizabeth Wilke, and Dalton Baldwin, and has given successful recitals in Seoul, Bloomington, Salzburg, and Nice. Kim earned a B.A. in Voice Performance from Ewha Woman’s University, where she studied with Jihwa Shin, and an M.M. in Voice Performance from the Jacobs School.

Elijah McCormack is a second-year master’s student in early music (voice), studying with Steven Rickards. Originally from Connecticut, McCormack earned his Bachelor of Science from Skidmore College. Most recently in the Jacobs School, he appeared as a soprano soloist in the Historical Performance Institute’s performance of Bach’s Johannes-Passion. Outside of Jacobs, he has sung roles in Alcina (Oberto), Xerxes (Arsamenes), Le Nozze di Figaro (Cherubino), and The Turn of the Screw (Miles). In February 2019, he will appear as Tolomeo in IU Opera’s Giulio Cesare.

Soprano Madeline Coffey is a native of Louisville, Kentucky, currently pursuing her Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance under the tutelage of Jane Dutton. Coffey was seen last fall in IU Opera Theater’s production of Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life, as Helen Bailey. In summer 2017, she performed the roles of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and Lady Angela in Patience with College Light Opera Company. Coffey was an apprentice artist with the Miami Music Festival in the summer of 2018, performing the role of Cobweb in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

A native of Cape Town, South Africa, Frances van Vuuren grew up in Singapore, where she began her vocal training under the tutelage of Alexandra Novicova. She is in her third year at the Jacobs School of Music, pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance with a minor in Arts Management as a student of Alice Hopper. During her time at Indiana University, she has performed in the University Singers, Conductors Chorus, University Chorale, and Summer Chorus. She was a member of the chorus in Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’Étoile and has been a member of the women’s chorus in IU Ballet Theater’s production of The Nutcracker.