Nabucco

He has sung more than 150 different roles to date, with more than 3900 total career performances. An integral part of LA Opera since its earliest days, he served as the company's general director from 2003 to 2019.

His more than 100 recordings of complete operas, compilations of arias and duets, and crossover discs have earned him 12 Grammy Awards, including three Latin Grammys, and he has made more than 50 music videos and won two Emmy Awards. In addition to starring in three feature opera films—Carmen, La Traviata and Otello—he voiced the roles of Monte in Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Skeleton Jorge in The Book of Life, and also appeared as himself on Sesame Street and The Simpsons. His telecast of Tosca from the authentic settings in Rome was seen by more than one billion people in 117 countries. He subsequently took the title role in a 2010 live telecast of Rigoletto from Mantua, Italy, the city in which the opera’s story takes place. In 1990, he and his colleagues José Carreras and the late Luciano Pavarotti formed the Three Tenors, performing with enormous success all over the world and attracted millions of new fans to opera.

He has conducted more than 500 opera performances and symphonic concerts with the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Chicago Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Montréal Symphony, National Symphony, London Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic. In 2018, he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival as a conductor, leading performances of Die Walküre. In 1993, he founded the international voice competition Operalia.

Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska is acclaimed for her lush, powerful, compelling performances and superb technical command. Her relationships with European, American and Asian opera houses have continued to expand following her highly acclaimed 2010 debut with Deutsche Oper Berlin in the title role of Tosca.

In the 2019/20 season, she continues her successes as Abigaille in Nabucco at Staatsoper Hamburg, Odabella in Attila with Münchener Runfunkorchester and Tosca at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.

She returns to Teatro alla Scala as Leonora in Il Trovatore and then to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana. And she finishes her new season at Deutsche Oper Berlin as both Leonora in La Forza del Destino and Abigaille in Nabucco.

The 2018/19 season saw Ms. Monastyrska star in new productions of La Forza del Destino conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano at Covent Garden and Tosca at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. She also made her role debut as Leonora in Il Trovatore at the Staatsoper Berlin and returned to the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Tosca, as well as the Vienna Staatsoper as Abigaille in Nabucco. She also appeared in opera gala concerts in Greece with Dimitri Platanias and Latvia to celebrate the Latvian National Opera’s centennial.

Ms. Monastyrska’s began her 2017/18 season with her LA Opera debut as Abigaille in Nabucco, conducted by James Conlon and opposite Placido Domingo. She also made her role debut as the title role of Norma at the Houston Grand Opera led by Patrick Summers. She returned to Germany for two productions with the Deutsche Oper Berlin where she sang the title role of Tosca and Abigaille in Nabucco. Her season closed in Barcelona at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, where she made her role debut in the title role of Manon Lescaut.

Morris Robinson is considered one the most interesting and sought-after basses performing today.

She enjoyed many great successes on 2018, including the releases of two new recording. She appeared in concert at the Barbican Center with the London BBC as Rosario in Granado´s Goyescas, recorded by Harmonia Mundi, and also appeared in concert with the Manchester BBC as Salud in Falla's La vida breve, recorded by Chandos. She received the Opera Actual Magazine 2018 Lifetime Career Achievement Award. She also made her debut at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires as Isabella in L´Italiana in Algeri.

Other concert appearances included Rossini´s Stabat Mater in Malaga, the Verdi Requiem at Palma de Mallorca´s Cathedral, a concert at Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow with Alexis Soriano, Mahler´s 3rd Symphony with the OSSODRE in Uruguay, a concert tour with the Valencia Soloists Septet, and the Verdi Requiem in San Sebastián and Guadalajara (Mexico) conducted by Plácido Domingo. She also performs recitals at Palau de la Musica de Valencia, and with soprano Ainhoa Arteta at the Benicassim Festival. Another successful debut was as Bernarda in Miguel Ortega's La casa de Bernarda Alba at Madrid's Teatro de la Zarzuela, conducted by the composer.

Carmen is undoubtedly Ms. Herrera´s signature role. Her hypnotic portrayal has been seen at the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, New National Theater in Tokyo, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Munich's Bavarian State Opera, Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Dresden Semperoper, Masada Festival, Israeli Opera, LA Opera (where she received the Plácido Domingo Award for her performance of this role), Teatro Bellas Artes in México, and other Spanish theaters such as Sabadell Opera, Teatro Villamarta in Jerez, San Sebastian, Teatro Pérez Galdós in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santander and Lyric Opera of A Coruña among others. In summer 2009 she opened the season at the Arena di Verona as Carmen and was honored to perform Act IV of the opera with Plácido Domingo in his 40th anniversary gala there.

Since his debut that year with La Traviata, he has conducted 66 different operas and more than 435 performances to date with the company. Highlights of recent seasons include the 2020 company premiere of The Anonymous Lover (L'Amant Anonyme) by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the 2021 company premiere of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, and the 2022 company premiere of Bach's St. Matthew Passion.

(Click here to visit James Conlon's Corner, where you can find essays, videos and conversations he has created especially for LA Opera.)

One of today’s most versatile and respected conductors, James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire. He has conducted virtually every major American and European symphony orchestra since his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1974. He has conducted more than 270 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Through worldwide touring, an extensive discography and videography, numerous essays and commentaries, frequent television appearances and guest speaking engagements, Mr. Conlon is one of classical music’s most recognized interpreters.

In September 2021, he became Artistic Advisor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

He has been Principal Conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Torino, Italy (2016–20); Principal Conductor of the Paris Opera (1995–2004); General Music Director of the City of Cologne, Germany (1989–2003), simultaneously leading the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Opera; and Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (1983–91).

Mr. Conlon has served as the Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, summer home of the Chicago Symphony (2005–15), and is now Music Director Laureate of the Cincinnati May Festival―the oldest choral festival in the United States―where he was Music Director for 37 years (1979–2016), marking one of the longest tenures of any director of an American classical music institution. As a guest conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, he has led more than 270 performances since his 1976 debut. He has also conducted at leading opera houses and festivals including the Vienna State Opera, Salzburg Festival, La Scala, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Mariinsky Theatre, Covent Garden, Chicago Lyric Opera, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

As LA Opera's Music Director since 2006, Mr. Conlon has led more performances than any other conductor in the company’s history—to date, over 420 performances of more than 60 different operas by over 20 composers. Highlights of his LA Opera tenure include conducting the company’s first Ring cycle, recently re-aired in a marathon webcast celebrating the performances’ tenth anniversary; initiating the groundbreaking Recovered Voices series, an ongoing commitment to staging masterpieces of 20^th-century European opera that were suppressed by the Third Reich; and spearheading Britten 100/LA, a city-wide celebration honoring the centennial of that composer’s birth. During the period in which Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was closed due to the pandemic, Mr. Conlon conducted LA Opera’s live-streamed, socially distanced production—staged at the Colburn School—of The Anonymous Lover by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a prominent Black composer in 18^th-century France. The performance was presented as an online-only event in fall 2020 and marked the work’s West Coast premiere. The Pavilion reopened in June 2021 with Mr. Conlon conducting the company premiere of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, with which LA Opera became the first major American opera company to perform live in its own theater since the coronavirus outbreak. The performance was subsequently released online for at-home viewing. During LA Opera’s 2021/22 season, Mr. Conlon conducts three operas long absent from the company’s repertory: Verdi’s Il Trovatore, which opens the season; Wagner’s Tannhäuser; and Verdi’s Aida. He also conducts John Neumeier’s ballet adaptation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, performed at LA Opera for the first time.

He recently created new productions of The Tales of Hoffmann in Innsbruck, Martinů’s The Greek Passion at Ekaterinburg Opera, Rubinstein’s The Demon at Bard Summerscape and Carmen with The Danish National Opera. His acclaimed staging of Nabucco, first seen at Washington National Opera, has also been presented in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Miami and Montreal. Other highlights include The Two Foscari and the world premiere of Glare for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; the world premiere of David T. Little’s JFK, a co-production with Fort Worth and Montreal; the Russian premieres of The Passenger and of Satyagraha, which won a Golden Mask Award for Best Production, at the Ekaterinburg Opera and the Bolshoi Opera; and The Marriage of Figaro, The Rape of Lucretia and Don Giovanni for the Norwegian Opera. (TStrassberger.com)

Recent opera productions include Pelléas et Mélisande for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Giulio Cesare in Tel Aviv, the world premiere of David T. Little and Royce Vavrek’s JFK in Montreal and Fort Worth, Satyagraha in Ekaterinburg and Moscow, Don Giovanni in Oslo, The Two Foscari in Vienna, Valencia and at Covent Garden, The Oresteia for Bard Summerscape, Cavalli’s Eliogabalo for Gotham Chamber Opera, Nabucco in Washington DC, Montreal, Miami and Philadelphia, and Lucia di Lammermoor in San Francisco. She previously designed the costumes for LA Opera's recently productions of Nabucco and The Two Foscari. Off-Broadway credits include The Starry Messenger with Matthew Broderick, The Pride directed by Joe Mantello, Fault Lines directed by David Schwimmer, Things We Want directed by Ethan Hawke and Bad Dates starring Julie White at Playwrights Horizons. Film projects include Year of the Fish (Sundance), Shoplifting Chanel and the multi-festival award-winning short Sovereignty. (MattieUllrich.com)

Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, he collaborates frequently with the Glimmerglass Festival, where he has designed more than 20 productions. Other highlights include the lighting designs for The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera; Cyrano de Bergerac at La Scala, The Queen of Spades at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Norma at the Ópera Nacional de Chile and The Pearl Fishers at Houston Grand Opera.

Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, he collaborates frequently with the Glimmerglass Festival, where he has designed more than 20 productions. Other highlights include the lighting designs for The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera; Cyrano de Bergerac at La Scala, The Queen of Spades at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Norma at the Ópera Nacional de Chile and The Pearl Fishers at Houston Grand Opera.

Hailed for his adventurous and bold artistic leadership, and for eliciting technically precise and expressive performances from musicians, Grammy Award-winner Grant Gershon celebrated his 20th anniversary as Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale in the 2021/22 season. The Los Angeles Times has said the Master Chorale "has become the most exciting chorus in the country under Grant Gershon,” a reflection on both his programming and performances. 
 
During his tenure, Gershon has led more than 200 Master Chorale performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall in programs encompassing a wide range of choral music, from the early pillars of the repertoire to contemporary compositions. He has led world premiere performances of major works by John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Eve Beglarian, Billy Childs, Gabriela Lena Frank, Ricky Ian Gordon, Shawn Kirchner, David Lang, Morten Lauridsen, Steve Reich, Ellen Reid, Christopher Rouse, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Chinary Ung, among many others.  

Gershon is committed to increasing representation in the choral repertoire, and in 2020 he announced that the Master Chorale will reserve at least 50% of each future season for works by composers from historically excluded groups in classical music. 
 
In July 2019, Gershon and the Master Chorale opened the famed Salzburg Festival with Lagrime di San Pietro, directed by Peter Sellars. The Salzburg performances received standing ovations and rave reviews from such outlets as the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which called Lagrime “painfully beautiful” (Schmerzliche schön). Gershon and the Master Chorale debuted the production in Los Angeles in 2016 and began touring the world with it in 2018. In its review of the premiere of Lagrime, the Los Angeles Times noted that the production “is a major accomplishment for the Master Chorale, which sang and acted brilliantly. It is also a major accomplishment for music history.”

He was the Resident Conductor of LA Opera from 2012 to 2022, and in this capacity conducted the West Coast premiere of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha in November 2018. He made his acclaimed debut with the company with La Traviata in 2009 and has subsequently conducted productions including Il Postino, Madama Butterfly, Carmen, Florencia en el Amazonas, Wonderful Town, The Tales of Hoffmann and The Pearl Fishers. In 2017, he made his San Francisco Opera debut conducting the world premiere of John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West directed by Peter Sellars, who also wrote the libretto, and made his Dutch National Opera debut with the same opera in March 2019. Gershon and Adams have an enduring friendship and professional relationship which began 27 years ago in Los Angeles when Gershon played keyboards in the pit for Nixon in China at LA Opera. Since then, Gershon has led the world premiere performances of Adams’ theater piece I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, premiered his two-piano piece Hallelujah Junction (with Gloria Cheng), and conducted performances of Harmonium, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, El Niño, The Chairman Dances, and choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer. 

In New York, Gershon has appeared at Carnegie Hall and at the historic Trinity Wall Street, and he has performed on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center and the Making Music series at Zankel Hall. Other major appearances include performances at the Ravinia, Aspen, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Salzburg, and Vienna festivals, the South American premiere of LA Opera’s production of Il Postino in Chile, and performances with the Baltimore Symphony and the Coro e Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino in Turin, Italy. He has worked closely with numerous conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Simon Rattle, and his mentor, Esa-Pekka Salonen. 
 
His discography includes the 2022 Grammy Award-winning recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as well as Grammy–nominated recordings of Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) and Ligeti’s Grand Macabre (Sony Classical); six commercial CDs with the Master Chorale, including Glass-Salonen (RCM), You Are (Variations) (Nonesuch), Daniel Variations (Nonesuch), A Good Understanding (Decca), Miserere (Decca), and the national anthems (Cantaloupe Music); and two live-performance albums, the Master Chorale’s 50th Season Celebration recording and Festival of Carols. He has also led the Master Chorale in performances for several major motion pictures soundtracks, including, at the request of John Williams, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Gershon was named Outstanding Alumnus of the Thornton School of Music in 2002 and received the USC Alumni Merit Award in 2017.