by Spencer Fields
M.F.A. Student in Dramaturgy

Act I
Chapter One: The opera opens at Mansfield Park, introducing Sir Thomas Bertram, whose wealth comes from a plantation in Antigua; his complacent wife, Lady Bertram; their children, Maria, Julia, and Edmund; and Lady Bertram’s caustic sister-in-law, Mrs. Norris. Their poor cousin Fanny Price, timid and frail, is sent to be raised with them. Only Edmund treats her kindly; Julia and Mrs. Norris belittle her. Maria’s wealthy but naïve fiancé, Mr. Rushworth, is also introduced.
Chapter Two: The arrival of the lively Crawford siblings, Mary and Henry, disrupts the calm of the estate. Mary’s intelligence and charm attract Edmund, while Henry’s flirtatious attentions unsettle both Maria and Julia.
Chapter Three: Sir Thomas departs for Antigua on business, the younger generation enjoys a sudden freedom from restraint.
Chapter Four: Mr. Rushworth proposes a visit to his estate at Sotherton, and the Bertram children, Fanny, and the Crawfords depart with Mrs. Norris as a chaperone.
Chapter Five: Romantic tensions surface amid the estate’s grounds. Fanny watches as Mary and Edmund, and Maria and Henry pair off.
Chapter Six: Back at Mansfield, Mary sings to Edmond, and Fanny stargazes.
Chapter Seven: Back at Mansfield, the household decides to put on a somewhat scandalous play. What begins as harmless entertainment becomes a vehicle for flirtation and impropriety.
Chapter Eight: Edmund is troubled by the arrangements for the play but convinced to take part despite Fanny’s attempts to dissuade him.
Chapter Nine: Just as rehearsals reach their height, Sir Thomas returns unexpectedly, bringing the theatricals to an abrupt end.
Chapter Ten: Sir Thomas inquires about Maria’s feelings for Mr. Rushworth and encourages her to call off the wedding if it would make her unhappy.
Chapter Eleven: Maria and Mr. Rushworth wed, and the two leave for Brighton, bringing Julia with them. Henry realizes he has growing feelings for Fanny.

Act II
Chapter One: Preparations begin for a formal ball at Mansfield Park as Fanny prepares to enter society. Mary gives Fanny a gift to be worn at the ball.
Chapter Two: The ball commences, and the couples pair off.
Chapter Three: Despite pressure from all the inhabitants of Mansfield Park, Fanny refuses Henry’s proposal of marriage.
Chapter Four: Julia finds love. Maria finds unhappiness in her marriage and writes to Henry Crawford. Edmund finds he cannot give up Mary and confides in Fanny, who encourages him to tell her.
Chapter Five: Henry visits Maria and Mr. Rushworth at Twickenham, and a plan is made.
Chapter Six: A scandalous exposé shatters Mansfield Park. Julia elopes. Mary blames Fanny, revealing her true colors to Edmund at last.
Chapter the Last: After some time has passed, Edmund recognizes Fanny as his true love.

by Kitt Westerduin
Ph.D. Student in Musicology

Decades after the English composer Jonathan Dove (b.1959) “heard music” while reading Jane Austen’s third novel, Mansfield Park, he was commissioned to compose an opera to be performed in the unconventional venue of Boughton House, one of England’s stately homes. While it might be difficult to imagine a production of a late-nineteenth-century opera at the scale of Aida or Die Walküre in the drawing room of a British country house, the commissioning body, Heritage Opera—which specializes in producing works in historic venues across the U.K. —believed that Dove could produce a work appropriate for the site. As fate would have it, a small chamber opera is exactly what the composer envisioned during his first read of Austen’s 1814 novel, and he had already been toying with the idea of setting it in a space that mirrored the book’s titular home. In 2011, therefore, Dove joined librettist Alasdair Middleton to finally realize Mansfield Park for the operatic stage, or, rather, house.

Taking inspiration from the domestic sound world of Austen’s novels—as well as the work’s intended performance space—Dove originally scored the accompaniment to the onstage voices for piano, four hands. Austen, a keen amateur pianist herself, regularly featured the piano in her writing, often reflecting how contemporary women used the instrument to navigate courtship and negotiate personal liberties. As such, the piano connects Dove’s twenty-first-century opera to the Regency-Era gendered social norms in which Austen worked. So symbolic is the instrument in the opera that when Dove arranged the work for chamber orchestra in 2017, he retained the piano as the most prominent part of the ensemble. Its forthright voice regularly rises out of the orchestra as if it were to join the cast onstage as a character itself.

To aid the economy of the plot, and as a gesture to the source material, Middleton structures the action as a series of “chapters.” Unlike the standard opera scene, each chapter is a self-contained episode introduced with a title sung by the ensemble. Dove’s scoring can consequently react to the more intimate shifts in a character’s mood without sacrificing the flow of the overall work. As such, the composer threads Sondheim-esque choruses, solo songs, and piano through each chapter, forming a tapestry of musical perspectives that supports, comments on, or even undermines the text. Moreover, he endows the accompaniment with an uncanny sense of subjectivity, forming an Austen-like omniscient narrator from the work’s sonic elements.

Dove’s ability to weave the shifting perspectives of the onstage drama and the accompaniment is the driving technique of the opera, first displayed in the work’s introductory chapter, “The Bertrams Observed.” “Niece! Fanny!” it begins. Lady Bertram’s strident voice initiates the choreography of everyday life at Mansfield Park over pulsing strings, an effect reminiscent of the late minimalist compositions of John Adams. Members of the Bertram family enter and exit the scene in a roll call of introductory statements through which their primary motivations are shared with the audience; Lady Bertram has her pug, Lord Bertram his business, while their eldest daughter, Maria, daydreams about the wealth that awaits her upon her upcoming marriage to the bumbling Mr. Rushworth. They punctuate their reflections with requests to the obliging Fanny Price, who, despite fulfilling them, is reprimanded by the implacable Aunt Norris.

The calls to Fanny begin to overlap as the scene progresses. She is pulled ever more frenetically from one demand to another until the clamor is suddenly quelled by the introduction of Edmund, who, rather than adding to Fanny’s chores, entreats his cousin to flip through her childhood history book with him. This tender moment between the pair, despite giving way to the Bertram sisters poking fun at Fanny’s childhood ignorance, is the first hint at the couple’s ultimate union—a relationship founded, as Fanny mentions, not on worldly desires or vanity, but on kindness.

Fanny’s silence in the first scene noticeably contrasts with the vocality of the Bertrams. Indeed, other than her remark about Edmund’s kindness, it is precisely Fanny’s lack of introductory statement that defines her character in the opening scene. Fanny will remain a bystander for the majority of the first act. As a consequence, the initial plot of the opera moves forward primarily by the amorous machinations of the Crawford siblings. Mary and Henry Crawford, introduced in the second chapter as “young people of fortune,” lead the Bertram siblings into multiple misadventures replete with love triangles, theatrical performance, and, much to Julia Bertram’s delight, an open-air carriage known as a barouche.

The stability of the Bertram household begins to waver when the younger generation explores the wilderness of Mr. Rushworth’s Sotherton estate. Dove introduces a darker harmonic palette, moving from the clear major harmonies of the first four chapters to minor seventh sonorities, occasionally dappled with a shimmering brightness of the Dorian mode. The piano unfurls a searching melody that climbs and winds like ivy left to grow wild in the untended forest. In the symbolic space of the wilderness, far from the manicured gardens of Mansfield Park, the relationships between the opera’s younger characters, momentarily hidden from the eyes of respectability, also begin to intertwine.

Left alone near the gate, Fanny observes that Edmund and Mary have already gone quite far, and she begins to ruminate with increasing anxiety on how the pair seem to be growing closer to one another. Dove transitions into Fanny’s inner world with an added flat in the accompaniment, which darkens the chapter’s winding piano theme to a troubled C minor. For the first time, Fanny reveals the emotional turbulence beneath her typically reserved demeanor as the music proceeds with the brooding intensity of a Schubert lied, a reference to the art songs of the novel’s time period. Dove sets Fanny’s internal strife as a contrasting theme to the music and text of the scene’s other characters, who delight in their romantic escapades. The chapter culminates in a sumptuous chorus of pleasure and sorrow until Fanny is interrupted by Aunt Norris with a ridiculous request to carry her cheese, at which point, it is time for the group to go home.

The entanglements of the wilderness chapter are developed in the overlapping correspondences of Act II’s letter-writing scene. In this epistolary chapter, the newly married Maria Rushworth confesses her feelings to Henry Crawford in a letter she never sends but upon whose contained sentiment she will act in the coming chapters. Meanwhile, Julia plans an indecent encounter with an unseen, barouche-owning Mr. York. As the Bertram sisters begin to sow the ruin of their reputation, Fanny bitterly encourages Edmund to propose to Mary Crawford. “Fix, commit, condemn yourself,” she tells him. Aimed at herself as much as Edmund, the line captures the exact point of Fanny’s resignation in response to nearly two acts of growing despair and self-contempt. Fortunately, her self-sacrifice is ultimately rewarded in the final chapter, when Edmund realizes that Fanny, and not Mary Crawford, is the true love of his life. The work ends happily for the pair, who sing a joyful duet framed by the final chorus.

After its highly acclaimed premiere at Boughton House, Dove and Middleton’s Mansfield Park enjoyed a tour across multiple other stately homes in England and is now performed on stages around the world. Dove’s clever setting of Middleton’s libretto helped achieve the work’s success. The composer references early-nineteenth-century instruments and music while reworking the time period’s traditional harmonies in a new minimalist style. In doing so, he reinvents the Regency-Era sound world for twenty-first-century ears. Dove’s greatest strength, however, is his ability to translate Austen’s famous wit into music. His ingenious use of rhythm, rests, and incongruous melodies pepper the production with humorous moments that add to the authenticity of the adaptation.

Unlike Austen’s other protagonists, Fanny Price struggles to put her feelings into words. Her lack of outward speech would typically hinder an adaptation of Mansfield Park for the dialogue-driven medium of theater. However, when Dove first read the novel, he recognized that music could demystify Austen’s celebrated wallflower. He states in a 2017 article for The Guardian that, “[Fanny’s] reticence invited music, as a way of revealing those hidden emotions.” Indeed, 15 years after its premiere, Dove’s opera continues to give a voice to Austen’s shyest heroine.

Following two decades as one of the U.K.’s leading song pianists, performing worldwide, Gary Matthewman has in recent years gained swift recognition as a “dynamic” (Opera Magazine) and “exhilarating” (The Times) conductor focused on opera and vocal repertoire. A regular artist at London’s Wigmore Hall, his other appearances as pianist include recitals at Carnegie Hall, New York; Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.; Santa Fe; Philharmonie, Paris; Musikverein, Vienna; Rudolfinum, Prague; and Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow; alongside recital partners including Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sumi Jo, Ailyn Perez, Golda Schultz, Louise Alder, Leah Crocetto, Dame Sarah Connolly, Joyce DiDonato, Kate Lindsey, Mark Padmore, John Mark Ainsley, Sir Thomas Allen, Sir Simon Keenlyside, Roderick Williams, Markus Werba, Andrei Bondarenko, Huw Montague Rendall, Adam Plachetka, and Matthew Rose (with whom he recorded Schubert’s Winterreise to widespread critical acclaim). As conductor, recent and future engagements include Fauré’s Requiem for Cape Town Opera with the Cape Town Philharmonic; the Netherlands premiere of Argento’s Postcard from Morocco for the Dutch National Opera Academy in The Hague; Handel’s Messiah with the Orion Orchestra and the Choir of King’s College London; highlights in concert from Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Mozart’s Idomeneo and Don Giovanni for Brunswick Vocal Arts (a charity founded by Matthewman in support of emerging opera singers); Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for London’s Chelsea Opera Group; Verdi’s Ballo in maschera and Don Carlo for Opéra de Baugé, France; an aria reading master class with singers and the orchestra of the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria; and Debussy’s La Mer, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, and piano concertos by Rachmaninoff with Peter Donohoe and the St Cecilia Orchestra in Ripon Cathedral. Matthewman has been engaged as an assistant conductor by Glyndebourne, La Monnaie Brussels, and the late Sir Graham Vick’s Birmingham Opera Company (with the CBSO). He is professor of vocal repertoire at London’s Royal College of Music and repertoire coach for the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden.

Jake Taniguchi is a dynamic conductor and educator from Honolulu, Hawaii. He currently serves as assistant conductor for IU Jacobs Opera and Ballet Theater and regularly works as assistant conductor with the Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra. In the 2025-26 season, he has collaborated with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and led performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker in addition to Dove’s Mansfield Park with Jacobs Opera and Ballet Theater. He has served as resident conductor and conducting faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music, principal conductor of the Hawaiʻi Chamber Music Festival, and assistant and cover conductor for the Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra, Northwestern University’s symphony and chamber orchestras, Baroque Music Ensemble, and Opera Theater. He has worked alongside distinguished conductors Leonard Slatkin, Mei-Ann Chen, Dane Lam, and Anthony Parnther, and has collaborated with soloists including violinists Jaime Laredo, Jessica Lee, and Stefan Jackiw; pianists Sean Kennard, Michelle Cann, and David Kaplan; clarinetist Yoonah Kim; and saxophonist Steven Banks. A passionate advocate for contemporary music, he has developed artistic partnerships with composers Marcos Balter, Sebastian Currier, Billy Childs, Keith Fitch, Christopher Cerrone, and Joan Tower, among others. Taniguchi received his training from the Jacobs School of Music, Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, and Cleveland Institute of Music. His conducting mentors include Arthur Fagen, Jeffery Meyer, Thomas Wilkins, Victor Yampolsky, and JoAnn Falletta. He is pursuing a Doctor of Music in Orchestral Conducting at Jacobs.

Michael Shell is associate professor of voice at the Jacobs School of Music, where he teaches acting and opera workshops, and directs mainstage productions. His philosophy is to inform, excite, and empower his students to be the most authentic singing actors possible. His productions have been praised by critics across the nation. A KC Studio Magazine reviewer recently commented on Shell’s new production of Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola: “Michael Shell’s inventive direction is evident at every turn, a fairytale formula of precise staging and lighthearted touch.” Shell has directed productions for Atlanta Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Opera Omaha, Opera San José, Opera Tampa, Opera North, Virginia Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and 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 following fall to direct Double Trouble– Trouble in Tahiti and 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. He 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 and studied acting and scene study at H. B. Studios on an H. B. Studios merit scholarship. Shell has been guest faculty and director at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Florida State University, Oklahoma University, A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute, and Webster University–St. Louis, teaching opera workshops and directing full productions and workshop performances. He will be remounting his new production of La Cenerentola at Utah Opera in its 2026-27 season.

Steven C. Kemp is a set designer for opera, theater, and events. Originally from Houston, Texas, he earned an M.F.A. from the University of California San Diego. His previous IU Jacobs Opera Theater designs include Candide, West Side Story, The Music Man, Madama Butterfly, Oklahoma!, and Dead Man Walking. His over 150 designs for opera have been presented at 40 companies, including the Atlanta Opera, Seattle Opera, Arizona Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Sarasota Opera, Utah Opera, Central City Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Des Moines Metro Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Kentucky Opera, New Orleans Opera, Opera Omaha, Opera Santa Barbara, Pittsburgh Opera, Portland Opera, Curtis Institute of Music, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His 30 designs for Opera San José across 14 seasons include the West Coast premieres of Anna Karenina and Silent Night as well as the acclaimed productions of Idomeneo and Alma Deutscher’s Cinderella. His design for Candide, originally presented at Des Moines Metro Opera, won honorable mention at the 2021 Golden Trezzini Awards for Architecture and Design. His design for Falstaff was selected as a finalist in the World Stage Design 2017 exhibit in Taipei, Taiwan. He has designed over 50 productions in New York City, including the current Off-Broadway world-premiere musical All the World’s a Stage and the revivals of Tick, Tick . . . Boom! and Ordinary Days. He has designed on the West End as well as numerous productions for regional theaters, cruise ships, and international tours, such as the current Sesame Street Live!, Peppa Pig Live!, Blippi: The Wonderful World Tour, and Baby Shark Live!. Early in his career, he worked extensively as an associate designer, including designs for 10 Broadway productions, national tours, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Disney Theatricals, Dreamworks, and the Metropolitan Opera.

Lydia Spellman is a costume designer for film, opera, dance, and theater. Her most recent costume design credits include Roméo et Juliette for the Jacobs School of Music, Hurricane Diane with Off Night Productions, An Act of God with Constellation Stage and Screen, and the world premiere of Decolonizing Your Mind with Walter Mercado by Jayne Deely. She also serves as resident wardrobe supervisor for IU Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet Theater. Originally from Central Illinois, Spellman earned a B.A. in Theatre and Linguistics from IU and has worked for several other performing arts organizations throughout the Midwest.

Russell Long is the lighting specialist for the Musical Arts Center, where he has designed lights for Carmen, Suor Angelica, Trouble in Tahiti, Silence, Die Fledermaus, Eugene Onegin, An American Dream, Autumnsong, Roméo et Juliette, La Finta Giardiniera, and The Merry Widow. Long’s most recent regional design credits include Jersey Boys (QCT), High School Musical Jr. (SYP), Dial M for Murder, Forever Plaid (IUST), Newsies (QCT), The Music Man (QCT), Lunch Bunch (Clubbed Thumb), 45 Seconds from Broadway (Hudson Guild), and Aladdin Jr. (SYP). He has also worked as the lighting supervisor/resident lighting designer for Aspen Music Festival and School, where he designed lights for Uncommon Ritual (Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and Mike Marshall), ¡De Colores!, and Mathew Whitaker. Originally from Southern Arizona, Long studied at Pima Community College and Northern Arizona University and has worked with Arizona Theatre Company, Peaks Productions, University of Arizona Opera, Aspen Opera, and Vail Ballet Festival. He has also toured nationally as a lighting director, lighting designer, and production manager. He earned an M.F.A in Lighting Design from the IU Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance.

Camilla Tassi is a NYC-based projection designer from Florence, Italy. Design credits include King Arthur (Lincoln Center), Falling Out of Time (Carnegie Hall), Adoration (Beth Morrison Projects and LA Opera), Fires in the Mirror (Baltimore Center Stage), L’Orfeo (Apollo’s Fire Tour), La Bohème (Music Academy of the West), Malhaar: A Requiem For Water (LA Master Chorale, Disney Concert Hall), Path of Miracles (Conspirare and Oregon Bach Festival), SANDRA (TheaterWorks Hartford), Iphigénie en Tauride (Boston Baroque), Lady M & The Extinctionist (Heartbeat Opera), Carmina Burana (Debartolo Performing Arts Center), Fiddler on the Roof (ACT of CT), The Lehman Trilogy (Capital Rep) and Alcina (Yale Opera), and video assistant for Broadway’s Illinoise. Tassi holds degrees in computer science, music, and projection design. She has sung for groups including the Yale Schola Cantorum and the New York Philharmonic Chorus. She has received an M.F.A. in Design from Yale, a Connecticut Critics Circle Award, the Burry Fredrik Design Award, and the Robert L. Tobin Opera Design award.

Sarah Wroth is chair of the Ballet Department and associate professor of ballet at the IU Jacobs School of Music. She began her training at the Frederick School of Classical Ballet in Frederick, Maryland. In 2003, she earned a Bachelor of Science in Ballet Performance with an Outside Field in Education from the Jacobs School of Music. That same year, she joined Boston Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet. With the company, Wroth performed principal roles in works by William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Marius Petipa, Jerome Robbins, Helen Pickett, and Mikko Nissinen, and soloist roles in ballets by Sir Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, and August Bournonville. She has performed with Boston Ballet internationally in Spain, England, South Korea, and Finland. In 2009, she was awarded the E. Virginia Williams Inspiration Award for her unwavering dedication to ballet and the Boston Ballet Company. Wroth earned a Master of Science in Nonprofit Management from Northeastern University in 2015 and retired from Boston Ballet in May 2017.

Andrew Elliot is a makeup artist, wig designer, and stylist. His work can also be seen with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre, Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre, Actors Theatre of Indiana, Phoenix Theatre, Zach & Zack Productions, Summer Stock Stage, and others. His work as a makeup artist and stylist can be seen locally and nationally in various publications, commercials, and editorials. The facade of the Palladium in Carmel, Indiana, showcases his work as a part of the Blockhouse Studios productions of Eos and Frost. He spent 2020 recreating icons of film, fashion, and theater, which gained national attention, with features in The New York Times, NowThis News, The Indianapolis Star, and Indianapolis Monthly.

Soprano Emma DiSanto, hailing from Indianapolis, Indiana, is a second-year graduate student pursuing a Master of Music in Voice Performance under the tutelage of Heidi Grant Murphy and Timothy Noble. She also earned a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance with a minor in Arts Administration at the Jacobs School studying with Timothy Noble. She has been featured in the choruses of The Merry Widow, Eugene Onegin, Die Fledermaus, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, and Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a coproduction between the Jacobs and the Metropolitan Opera. She was recently seen as Morgana in Handel’s Alcina with IU Jacobs Opera Theater. DiSanto will return to the IU stage in the chorus of Oklahoma! in April. Outside of IU, she premiered Mondo Novo as Philomela at the Vienna Summer Music Festival in Florida, then made her international debut in Vienna as Suor Genovieffa (Suor Angelica) and covered Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte). Other opera credits include Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) with the Berlin Opera Academy and, more recently, Gilda (Rigoletto) with the La Musica Lirica program in Novafeltria, Italy. She is looking forward to competing in the district round of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition this season.

Rachel Spodek is pursuing a Performer Diploma under the instruction of Michelle DeYoung. At IU, she has been seen in scenes from Dialogues of the Carmelites in Carol Vaness and Zachary Coates’s Opera Workshop and scenes from The Marriage of Figaro in Michael Shell’s Opera Workshop. In 2023, Spodek joined the Bar Harbor Music Festival as a young artist, covering the role of Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. Other notable roles include Norina (Don Pasquale), Young Alyce (Glory Denied), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Lucy England (The Telephone), and Suor Osmina (Suor Angelica). She also regularly performs as a member of the Indianapolis Opera Chorus, most recently appearing as the Page in its fall 2025 production of Rigoletto. Spodek received a Master of Music from Ball State University and an undergraduate degree in Voice Performance and Political Science from Butler University. She originally hails from Muncie, Indiana.

Texas soprano Abigail Gerstle is a second-year master’s student under the tutelage of Carol Vaness. Her recent performances include the Countess from The Marriage of Figaro, Lucy from Menotti’s The Telephone, Mrs. Nordstrom in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, and the titular role of Handel’s Alcina. At Jacobs, she has performed in multiple choruses, including the Met coproduction of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, La Bohème, and IU’s upcoming Oklahoma! production. This is her first principal role with IU Jacobs Opera Theater. Gerstle is the 2025-26 Georgina Joshi Fellowship recipient and thanks the Joshi family for its generosity and support.

Adreanna Pulliam is a first-year Master of Music student in the studio of Brian Horne. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance degree from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Most recently, she sang the role of Lucinda in the 2025 orchestral workshop of In the Rush by Carlos Simon at Jacobs. Previous IU Jacobs Opera Theater credits include the chorus of The Marriage of Figaro. In the 2024-25 season, she debuted with Opera Memphis in the chorus of Carmen. She has additional Opera Memphis credits for its educational tour of The Playground King (Lily) and its headlining production at the Opera America conference, La Calisto (Furia). In Birmingham, Alabama, she has appeared locally with Opera Birmingham, Samford Opera, and the Birmingham Opera Project. During Opera Birmingham’s 2023-24 season, she appeared in The Billy Goats Gruff (Lucy) and in its 2024-25 season, Rusalka: The Littlest Mermaid (Sisters/Princess). Pulliam’s mainstage credits at Samford include The Magic Flute (ensemble), Amahl and the Night Visitors (Mother), and The Light in the Piazza (Signora Nacarelli). She performed with Birmingham Opera Project as Miss Todd in its 2023 production of The Old Maid and the Thief and La Maestra della Novizia in its 2025 production of Suor Angelica. She is the 2024 first-prize winner of Samford University’s Concerto Aria competition. In 2023 and 2024, she received the Dr. Oscar and Ellen Dahlene Scholarship, after placing second in the Birmingham Music Guild scholarship auditions. Additionally, Pulliam is the 2023-24 Northrup Scholar as well as the 2023 recipient of the Jeff and Lori Northrup Vocal Performance Scholarship.

From Cleveland, Ohio, Victoria Popritkin is a soprano pursuing a voice performance degree under the tutelage of Carol Vaness. She sang in the chorus of Jacobs’ The Marriage of Figaro and will be featured in Shuichi Umeyama’s faculty recital in the spring. This past summer, she performed as Hanna Glawari in Lehar’s The Merry Widow as an emerging artist at Opera in the Ozarks. At the 75th Anniversary Gala, she performed in the final scene from Wagner’s Das Rheingold as the Rhine maiden Wellgunde with Leona Mitchell as Fricka and Mark Delavan as Wotan. Her previous season also included First Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Countess Ceprano in Verdi’s Rigoletto with Tri-Cities Opera, and Adele in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus with Binghamton University. Previous operatic roles include the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica at Binghamton University, Cupid in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, and Papagena in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She pursued language study at the Classic Lyric Arts Italian and French programs and the Accademia Vocale Lorenzo Malfatti program. Additionally, Popritkin was a Songfest Young Artist and sang at the Songe d’été en Musique Festival in Québec, Canada. She won a 2025 Laffont Competition Encouragement Award, third place at the 2024 Classical Singer Competition Young Artist Division, and first place at the 2023 Binghamton Concerto Competition. Popritkin graduated summa cum laude with degrees in vocal performance and neuroscience from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and holds a master’s degree in opera from Binghamton University.

Anneke Van Slyke, a native of Syracuse, New York, is pursuing a Master of Music in Voice Performance at Jacobs, where she studies under Jane Dutton. This is her debut with IU Jacobs Opera Theater. Most recently, she appeared as the Knusperhexe in Hansel and Gretel with Chicago Summer Opera. Earlier in 2024, she performed the role of Hanna Glawari in Lehár’s The Merry Widow with Baldwin Wallace Conservatory. Previous operatic roles include Almirena in Handel’s Rinaldo with Chicago Summer Opera and Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Baldwin Wallace. While at Baldwin Wallace, she also performed the roles of Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance and Amore in Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea for the conservatory’s Playhouse Square debut. She also portrayed Public Opinion in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival and sang the role of Amelia in the world premiere of La Casa de Bernarda Alba (2022) with Cleveland Opera Theater. In addition to her operatic work, Van Slyke is an active choral singer; she participated in the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory Bach Festival and served as a Riemenschneider Bach Institute Scholar.

Greek American soprano Pelagia Pamel is a second-year M.M. voice student studying with Heidi Grant Murphy. With IU Jacobs Opera Theater, she sang La Princesse in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (fall 2025) and Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw (spring 2025). She has sung roles in over a dozen opera productions at the young artist and professional levels with companies such as Detroit Opera and Czech National Opera. In 2023, she was hired by Detroit Opera for her first coproduction with the Metropolitan Opera, Ainadamar, performing as a singer and dancer in the production’s U.S. premiere. Last season, she debuted with IU Jacobs Opera Theater in the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, her second co-production with the Met. With NOTUS Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Pamel has sung in various concerts and was the soprano soloist for the premiere of Reena Esmail’s trombone version of II. Alleluia (Exaltations). Other highlights include singing Zerlina (Don Giovanni) at the historic Estates Theatre with the Prague Summer Nights Festival and Czech National Opera, her 2024 fellowship with the Manetti Shrem Opera Program at Festival Napa Valley, Diana (Orphée aux enfers), Soprano Soloist (Ein deutsches Requiem, Brahms), and numerous roles at the University of Michigan. Originally from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Pamel graduated with highest honors from the University of Michigan with a B.M. in Voice Performance and a B.A. in International Studies.

Mezzo-soprano Kathleen Simunek is a second-year master’s student at the Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of Paulina Villarreal. A Midwest native raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Simunek graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science in Music (Voice) with an Outside Field in Political Science in 2024, studying with Timothy Noble. Last October, she performed as Maman/La Tasse Chinoise/La Libellule in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. Last summer, she participated in the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) Opera Studio in Graz, Austria, where she performed as a soloist in concert with the AIMS Festival Orchestra as well as in its Opera Scenes Concert. In March 2025 at the Studios of Key West, she performed the roles of Granny, Beata, and the Landlady in Martin Hennesy’s new work Swimming in the Dark. In 2024, Simunek was seen with IU Jacobs Opera Theater as Esther Klayman in the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay in collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera. With IU Jacobs Opera Theater, Simunek has performed in the choruses of L’Étoile, Candide, The Merry Widow (Clo-Clo), Eugene Onegin, Sweeney Todd, Suor Angelica (Suor Dolcina), and Carmen. In 2023, she received the second-place award in the Oscar Hammerstein Solo Contest. During the summer of 2023, she studied in Vienna, Austria, through the Institute of European Studies as a performer and student manager.

Natalie Graves is a second-year mezzo-soprano from Atlanta, Georgia, pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance under the tutelage of Tichina Vaughn. This role is her IU Jacobs Opera Theater debut. At IU, she has also been a member of the University Chorale and Pro Cantare.

Amanda Massey is a mezzo-soprano from Rockwall, Texas, and a sophomore studying voice performance under the tutelage of Jane Dutton. She is pursuing a Bachelor of Science and Outside Field degree, studying both voice performance and psychology. She recently made her first appearance with IU Jacobs Opera Theater, as a chorus member in the fall production of La Bohème.

Erin Chang is a first-year doctoral student in voice from Hillsborough, New Jersey, studying under the tutelage of Michelle DeYoung. She previously earned a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a Bachelor of Music degree from Rutgers University. In 2023, Chang attended Chicago Summer Opera, where she performed the roles of Juno and Lesbus in Handel’s Agrippina. Additional operatic roles include the Dog and Woodpecker in The Cunning Little Vixen, La Speranza in L’Orfeo, and the Voice of Antonia’s Mother in The Tales of Hoffmann. She has also performed scenes from Alcina, Der Fliegende Holländer, Thumbprint, La Clemenza di Tito, and Ainadamar. She has sung in master classes with Greg Eldridge, Andrew Owens, Ann Baltz, and Bénédicte Jourdois and has previously studied with Shirley Close, Allan Glassman, Mignon Dunn, and Susan Quittmeyer. In addition to her performance work, Chang has been teaching voice, piano, and music theory for the past eight years, supporting the artistic and technical development of students across a wide range of ages and experience levels.

Mezzo-soprano Faith Middleton, from Findlay, Ohio, is a second-year master’s student studying with Michelle DeYoung. She earned a B.M. from Belmont University studying under Savanna Sokolnicki. There, she performed as Armelinda in Viardot’s Cendrillon and was in the chorus of The Merry Widow and Ronald Beckett’s Ruth. This past summer, Middleton participated in the Orfeo Music Festival in Vipiteno, Italy, where she performed scenes from La Cenerentola (Cenerentola), The Ballad of Baby Doe (Augusta), and Wonderful Town (chorus). Previously with IU Jacobs Opera Theater, she performed in the choruses of La Bohème, Carmen, and Suor Angelica. Other performances at Jacobs include Idomeneo (Idamante), La Clemenza di Tito (Annio), and Lucia di Lammermoor (Alisa) in Heidi Grant Murphy’s Opera Workshop.

Tenor Lore Hazard is a first-year Performer Diploma student studying under Peter Volpe. A transplant from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a Wisconsin native, they received their Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point (2021) and their Master of Music from the University of New Mexico (UNM, 2023). This is their principal debut with IU Jacobs Opera Theater. Hazard has previously been seen at Jacobs in Carol Vaness and Zachary Coates’s opera workshop presentation, Perfect Angels, performing the role of Mayor in Britten’s Albert Herring, and on the MAC mainstage in the chorus of Puccini’s La Bohème. Their most recent roles include Jaime, Judío 2, and Judío 4 in the world premiere of Adam Del Monte’s flamenco opera, Llantos 1492, with Opera Southwest in February 2025. They performed the role of Peasant in the New Mexican premiere of Jorge Martin’s Before Night Falls with the company in 2024. They were featured as the tenor artist for the Albuquerque-based dinner theater, Opera on the Menu, where they performed the roles of le Prince charmant and le comte Barigoule in Viardot’s Cendrillon (2024). Hazard joined the Santa Fe Opera for the 2023 Festival Season for its production of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer as part of a few selected to fill the auxiliary chorus. During graduate studies, they performed the roles of Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (2023) and Albert Herring in Britten’s Albert Herring (2022) with the UNM Opera Theatre.

A native of Asheville, North Carolina, tenor Jackson Ray is pursuing an M.M. in Voice Performance at the Jacobs School pf Music, where he studies with Jane Dutton. Last season, he debuted with IU Jacobs Opera Theater as El Remendado in Carmen and appeared in scenes from Verdi’s Falstaff and Mozart’s Così fan tutte with the IU Opera Workshop. He also performed the roles of Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff and Rev. Sam Parris in Ward’s The Crucible with Harrower Summer Opera. As a soloist, Ray performed Bach’s St. John Passion with The Company of Singers in Columbia, South Carolina. Before coming to IU, he studied at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA), where he was a featured soloist with the UNCSA Student Orchestra, performing works by Bach and Handel. His accomplishments include first place in the North Carolina NATS competition and reaching the semifinals of the NATS National Student Auditions. Ray made his professional debut with Piedmont Opera as Giuseppe in Verdi’s La Traviata, followed by his portrayal of the Notary in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. He has also appeared in productions with the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute, UNCSA Undergraduate Opera Workshop, and Piedmont Opera.

Tenor Robert Erickson grew up in Vienna, Virginia, and is currently a fourth-year undergraduate student pursuing a degree in voice performance under the tutelage of Brian Horne. He has been singing in choirs since age 10 and training in classical voice since age 13. At the Jacobs School of Music, he has sung in opera choruses for Don Giovanni, Candide, The Merry Widow, Carmen, L’Enfant et les Sortileges, and the world premiere of Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay in collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera. He attended Peter Volpe’s Opera Lucca program in Lucca, Italy, during the summer of 2023, and performed the role of Anthony in the Jacobs School’s production of Sweeney Todd in the spring of 2024. During summer 2024, he sang the role of Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte at Berlin Opera Academy. In January 2025, he took part in a workshop for Carlos Simon’s new opera, In the Rush (commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera), and in March, he sang the tenor solo in Haydn’s Harmoniemesse with the Jacobs Classical Orchestra and Concentus vocal ensemble. During the summer of 2025, he attended Lyric Opera Studio Weimar, where he sang the role of Alfred in Die Fledermaus. Most recently, he sang as the student tenor soloist in the Jacobs School’s performance of Handel’s Messiah.

Nate Paul was born and raised in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee. His tenor voice has been described as “show-stopping and nothing less than thrilling” and as having “the presence of a stage-struck powerhouse” (Broadway World: Nashville). He is a three-time national Orpheus Voice Competition semifinalist, a Georgina Joshi Fellowship finalist, and a national semi-finalist in the NATS National Student Auditions. His recent performances include the Le petit vieillard/La rainette in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, the North Dakota/Manitoba District of the Met Laffont Competition, Prologue/Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus, Njegus in The Merry Widow, and Beadle Bamford and Adolfo Pirelli in Sweeney Todd. He is a frequent concert soloist as well, having sung as the tenor soloist in Heather Sorenson’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Mass in C Major, Telemann’s Die Donner-Ode, and Handel’s Messiah. Paul is also an award-winning music director and conductor, with some past works including La Cage aux Folles, Les Misérables, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Wiz, Newsies, The Addams Family, Heathers, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. A third-year doctoral student at Jacobs studying with Brian Gill, he is an associate instructor teaching voice pedagogy and assisting in the Vocology Certificate program.

Hailing from Pullman, Washington, baritone William Schlott is pursuing an M.M. in Voice Performance under the tutelage of Russell Thomas. After completing a B.A. in Music and Psychology at the University of Washington in 2022, he performed in Seattle Opera’s children’s outreach productions including Francis Pollock’s Earth to Kenzie and Kamala Sankaram’s Monkey and Francine in the City of Tigers and appeared in the chorus for its mainstage productions of Tosca and Les Troyens. He sang the roles of Simone in Gianni Schicchi and Il Commissario in Madama Butterfly as an inaugural member of Tacoma Opera’s young artist program, where he also covered multiple roles in Carmen and La Bohème. Other highlights include Figaro in Opera for the Young’s outreach tour of The Barber of Seville and the Gaelor in Amy Beach’s Cabildo with Puget Sound Concert Opera. This is his first production with IU Jacobs Opera Theater.

Tyler Whitney is a second-year master’s student in voice performance studying with Bryan Hymel. His previous roles include Sid in Albert Herring and George Jones in Street Scene with DePaul Opera Theatre.

Andreas C. Psillos is a baritone in his second year of the Master of Music program at the Jacobs School of Music, where he studies under Zachary Coates. He graduated from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts with a bachelor’s in voice performance. In the fall of 2024, he made his Jacobs debut as Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus and then played Morales in last year’s production of Carmen. His other operatic roles include Maximilian (Candide) and Benoit (La Bohème) with the Rutgers University Opera Theatre, Peter (Hansel and Gretel) at the Trentino Music Festival, Count Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro) with Opera Lucca, and, most recently, he played Le Chat in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges with IU Jacobs Opera Theater. In concert, he has appeared as a soloist in the Fauré Requiem and Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb with the Rutgers Kirkpatrick Choir. Other Credits include Le Roi and Polonius (Hamlet) and Lescaut and Le Comte des Grieux (Manon) and Bob (The Old Maid and the Thief) in the Graduate Opera Scenes Workshop.