Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel
"A fantasy world audiences will be happy to join."
This production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s enchanting classic was conducted by James Conlon in a revival of Doug Fitch’s dreamlike production, full of fantastical sets and elaborate special effects. The cast was led by our very own Susan Graham, making her role debut as the Witch.
Cast
- Hansel
- Sasha Cooke
- Gretel
- Witch
- Susan Graham
- Mother
- Melody Moore
- Father
- Craig Colclough
- Sandman
- Taylor Raven
- Dew Fairy
- Sarah Vautour
Sasha Cooke
Hansel
Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has been called a “luminous standout” (New York Times) and “equal parts poise, radiance and elegant directness” (Opera News).
Ms. Cooke is sought after by the world’s leading orchestras, opera companies, and chamber music ensembles for her versatile repertoire and commitment to new music. Highlights of her career have included the world premieres of operas by Mark Adamo, Mason Bates, William Bolcom, Laura Kaminsky, Nico Muhly, John Musto and Joby Talbot.
In the 2018/19 season, her operatic engagements include her return to Hansel in Hansel and Gretel with LA Opera and debuts as Eduige in Rodelinda at the Gran Teatre del Liceu and the title role of Orlando with the San Francisco Opera. On the concert stage she makes appearances with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, St. Louis, the National Symphony, Sioux City and a domestic tour with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst.
Ms. Cooke has performed with opera companies worldwide including the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Bordeaux, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, English National Opera, Dallas Opera, Santa Fe Opera and the Israeli Opera. A dedicated recitalist, Ms. Cooke was presented by Young Concert Artists in her widely acclaimed New York and Washington debuts at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall and the Kennedy Center. She has also given recitals at Wigmore Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie’s Weill Hall among others.
Ms. Cooke’s recordings can be found on the Hyperion, BIS, Chandos, Naxos, Bridge Records, Yarlung, GPR Records and Sono Luminus labels. Most recently her recordings include Sasha Cooke LIVE, a collection of her performances from the Music@Menlo chamber music festival, Mason Bates’ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs released on Pentatone and upcoming releases of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra and Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. Click here to learn more.
Gretel
Susan Graham
Witch
From: Midland, Texas. LA Opera: Poppea in The Coronation of Poppea (2006, debut), Hanna in The Merry Widow (2007); Witch in Hansel and Gretel (2018); recitals in 2005 and in 2013; online Signature Recital (2021). Upcoming: soloist in St. Matthew Passion (2022); Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande (2022). She has been Artistic Advisor to LA Opera's young artist program since 2017.
Susan Graham – hailed as “an artist to treasure” by the New York Times – rose to the highest echelon of international performers within just a few years of her professional debut, mastering an astonishing range of repertoire and genres along the way. Her operatic roles span four centuries, from Monteverdi’s Poppea to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, which was written especially for her. A familiar face at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, she also maintains a strong international presence at such key venues as Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet, Santa Fe Opera and the Hollywood Bowl. She won a Grammy Award for her collection of Ives songs, and has also been recognized throughout her career as one of the foremost exponents of French vocal music. Although a native of Texas, she was awarded the French government’s prestigious “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur,” both for her popularity as a performer in France and in honor of her commitment to French music.
Engagements for the truncated 2019/20 season included her celebrated portrayal of Mrs. Patrick De Rocher, mother of the convicted murderer, in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s company premiere of Dead Man Walking. She also starred as Madeline Mitchell in Jake Heggie's Three Decembers with Opera San José. In concert, she sang excerpts from Les Troyens with Donald Runnicles and the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin at the Berlin Musikfest.
For the 2018/19 season, Graham joined Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony for Mahler’s Third Symphony at London’s BBC Proms and in Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, Lucerne, and Paris. She made her role debut as Humperdinck’s Witch in Hansel and Gretel at LA Opera, hosted “An Evening with Susan Graham” at Dallas’s Meyerson Symphony Center, sang Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne with David Robertson and the Sydney Symphony, headlined the Mayshad Foundation’s season-closing gala concert in Marrakech, and returned to Carnegie Hall, first with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and then with Alec Baldwin and Leonard Slatkin for the Manhattan School of Music’s Centennial Gala Concert. To mark the 150th anniversary of Berlioz’s death, she performed Les nuits d’été with the Houston Symphony and made her New Zealand debut in La mort de Cléopâtre with the New Zealand Symphony under Edo de Waart. Other highlights of recent seasons include starring in Trouble in Tahiti at Lyric Opera of Chicago to honor the Bernstein Centennial, making her title role debut opposite James Morris in Marc Blitzstein’s 1948 opera Regina at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and appearing alongside Anna Netrebko, Renée Fleming and a host of other luminaries to celebrate the Metropolitan Opera’s five decades at its Lincoln Center home.
Graham’s earliest operatic successes were in such trouser roles as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Her technical expertise soon brought mastery of Mozart’s more virtuosic roles, like Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, Idamante in Idomeneo and Cecilio in Lucio Silla, as well as the title roles of Handel’s Ariodante and Xerxes. She went on to triumph in two iconic Richard Strauss mezzo roles, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos. These brought her to prominence on all the world’s major opera stages, including the Met, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Covent Garden, Paris Opera, La Scala, Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, among many others. In addition to creating the role of Sister Helen Prejean at San Francisco Opera, she starred in Washington National Opera’s recent revival of Dead Man Walking, making her triumphant role debut as the convict’s mother. She also sang the leading ladies in the Met’s world premieres of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby and Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, and made her Dallas Opera debut as Tina in a new production of The Aspern Papers by Dominick Argento. As Houston Grand Opera’s Lynn Wyatt Great Artist, she starred as Prince Orlofsky in the company’s first staging of Die Fledermaus in 30 years, before heading an all-star cast as Sycorax in the Met’s Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island and making her rapturously received musical theater debut in a new production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
It was in an early Lyon production of Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict that Graham scored particular raves from the international press, and a triumph in the title role of Massenet’s Chérubin at Covent Garden sealed her operatic stardom. Further invitations to collaborate on French music were forthcoming from many of its preeminent conductors, including Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, James Levine and Seiji Ozawa. New productions of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust and Massenet’s Werther were mounted for the mezzo in New York, London, Paris, Chicago, San Francisco and beyond. More recently, she made title role debuts in Offenbach’s comic masterpieces La belle Hélène and The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein at Santa Fe Opera, as well as proving herself the standout star of the Met’s star-studded revival of Les Troyens, which was broadcast live to cinema audiences worldwide in the company’s celebrated “Live in HD” series. Graham’s affinity for French repertoire has not been limited to the opera stage, also serving as the foundation for her extensive concert and recital career. Such great cantatas and symphonic song cycles as Berlioz’s La mort de Cléopâtre and Les nuits d’été, Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer provide opportunities for collaborations with the world’s leading orchestras, and she makes regular appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Orchestre de Paris and London Symphony Orchestra.
Graham recently expanded her distinguished discography with Nonesuch Records’ DVD/Blu-ray release of William Kentridge’s new treatment of Berg’s Lulu, which captures her celebrated role debut as Countess Geschwitz at the Met. She has also recorded all the works described above, as well as appearing on a series of lauded solo albums, including Virgins, Vixens & Viragos on the Onyx label, featuring songs and arias by composers from Purcell to Sondheim; Un frisson français, a program of French song recorded with pianist Malcolm Martineau, also for Onyx; C’est ça la vie, c’est ça l’amour!, an album of 20th-century operetta rarities on Erato; and La Belle Époque, an award-winning collection of songs by Reynaldo Hahn with pianist Roger Vignoles, from Sony Classical. Among the mezzo’s numerous honors are Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year and an Opera News Award, while Gramophone magazine has dubbed her “America’s favorite mezzo.”
Learn more at SusanGraham.com.
Susan Graham’s earliest operatic successes were in such trouser roles as Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Her technical expertise soon brought mastery of Mozart’s more virtuosic roles, like Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, Idamante in Idomeneo and Cecilio in Lucio Silla, as well as the title roles of Handel’s Ariodante and Xerxes. She went on to triumph in two iconic Richard Strauss mezzo roles, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos. These brought her to prominence on all the world’s major opera stages, including the Met, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Covent Garden, Paris Opera, La Scala, Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, among many others. In addition to creating the role of Sister Helen Prejean at San Francisco Opera, she starred in Washington National Opera’s revival of Dead Man Walking, making her triumphant role debut as the convict’s mother. She also sang the leading ladies in the Met’s world premieres of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby and Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, and made her Dallas Opera debut as Tina in a new production of The Aspern Papers by Dominick Argento. As Houston Grand Opera’s Lynn Wyatt Great Artist, she starred as Prince Orlofsky in the company’s first staging of Die Fledermaus in 30 years, before heading an all-star cast as Sycorax in the Met’s Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island and making her rapturously received musical theater debut in a new production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
It was in an early Lyon production of Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict that Ms. Graham scored particular raves from the international press, and a triumph in the title role of Massenet’s Chérubin at Covent Garden sealed her operatic stardom. Further invitations to collaborate on French music were forthcoming from many of its preeminent conductors, including Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, James Levine and Seiji Ozawa. New productions of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust and Massenet’s Werther were mounted for the mezzo in New York, London, Paris, Chicago, San Francisco and beyond. She recently made title role debuts in Offenbach’s comic masterpieces La belle Hélène and The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein at Santa Fe Opera, as well as proving herself the standout star of the Met’s star-studded revival of Les Troyens, which was broadcast live to cinema audiences worldwide in the company’s celebrated “Live in HD” series. Graham’s affinity for French repertoire has not been limited to the opera stage, also serving as the foundation for her extensive concert and recital career. Such great cantatas and symphonic song cycles as Berlioz’s La mort de Cléopâtre and Les nuits d’été, Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer provide opportunities for collaborations with the world’s leading orchestras, and she makes regular appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Orchestre de Paris and London Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Graham recently expanded her distinguished discography with Nonesuch Records’ DVD/Blu-ray release of William Kentridge’s new treatment of Berg’s Lulu, which captures her celebrated role debut as Countess Geschwitz at the Met. She has also recorded all the works described above, as well as appearing on a series of lauded solo albums, including Virgins, Vixens & Viragos on the Onyx label, featuring songs and arias by composers from Purcell to Sondheim; Un frisson français, a program of French song recorded with pianist Malcolm Martineau, also for Onyx; C’est ça la vie, c’est ça l’amour!, an album of 20th-century operetta rarities on Erato; and La Belle Époque, an award-winning collection of songs by Reynaldo Hahn with pianist Roger Vignoles, from Sony Classical.
Melody Moore
Mother
From: Dyersburg, Tennessee. LA Opera: Eva in The Broken Jug (2008, debut)\; First Maid in The Dwarf (2008); title role in Tosca (2017); Mother in Hansel and Gretel (2018). Upcoming: Amneris in Aida (2022).
Soprano Melody Moore is enjoying a thriving career on the world’s leading stages, prompting Opera News to label her “a revelation,” and of her recent sold-out appearance at Carnegie Hall to rave, “As I left the auditorium, I could only think: more of Moore, please.” She recently released her first solo album entitled An American Song Album with pianist Bradley Moore on Pentatone Records.
Engagements for the 2022/23 season include Mother Marie in Dialogues of the Carmelites at San Francisco Opera.
In the 2019/20 season, Ms. Moore made her role debut as Amneris in a new production of Aida at the Houston Grand Opera. In concert, she made her debut with the Houston Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Das klagende Lied under the baton of music director Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Planned performances that were canceled during the COVID-reduced season included a role and house debut as the Foreign Princess in Rusalka at Cincinnati Opera, a return to LA Opera as Bess's Mother in Breaking the Waves, the title role in Salome in concert at Bard College, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Opera Naples, and Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana at Seattle Opera, as well as Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony with the Oregon Symphony and a solo recital and masterclass at Lawrence University.
In the 2018/19 season, Ms. Moore returned to Houston Grand Opera to reprise the roles of Senta in the season opening production of The Flying Dutchman led by Music Director Patrick Summers, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni in a new production by Kasper Holten, and returned to LA Opera for a role debut as Gertrude (the Mother) in Hansel and Gretel under the baton of Music Director James Conlon. On the concert stage, she debuted with the Dresdner Philharmonie in the roles of Giorgetta in Il Tabarro and Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, both of which were recorded for commercial release by Pentatone Records. Ms. Moore also sang Senta with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Music Director Edo de Waart, and debuted with the Grant Park Music Festival for Delius’ A Mass of Life at the Grant Park Music Festival, and sang the title role in Salome in Daegu, South Korea. Other recording projects included Minnie in The Girl of the Golden West in Cluj, Romania, and the title role in Madama Butterfly in Lisbon, both recorded for commercial release by Pentatone Records.
In the 2017/18 season, Moore made three major role debuts: Elisabetta in Don Carlo at Washington National Opera; the title role in Salome at Florida Grand Opera; and Tatyana in Eugene Onegin at Hawaii Opera Theater, as well as singing her signature roles of Tosca in a return to Opéra de Montréal and for her house debut with Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile, and Senta in The Flying Dutchman in a new production by Tomer Zvulun at Atlanta Opera. Her portrayal of Desdemona in a full recording of Verdi’s Otello was released by Pentatone Records.
Recent career highlights include a house and role debut at Seattle Opera in the title role of Janáček’s Kátya Kabanová; appearances with San Francisco Opera in the title role of Tosca, Susan Rescorla in Heart of a Soldier, Mimì in La Bohème, and the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro; Houston Grand Opera as Julie in Show Boat, Marta in the American premiere of Weinberg’s The Passenger, the title role in Carmen, Dorabella in Così fan tutte; Washington National Opera as the title role of Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, Phillip Glass’ Appomatox, and in Francesca Zambello’s highly acclaimed production of the Wagner’s full Ring cycle; Opéra de Montréal as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly; Glimmerglass Festival as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Senta in The Flying Dutchman; Lincoln Center Festival in The Passenger; English National Opera as Mimi and as Marguerite in Faust; New York City Opera as Rita Clayton in the New York premiere of Stephen Schwartz’s Séance on a Wet Afternoon and as Regine St. Laurent in Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna; and Austin Lyric Opera as Senta in The Flying Dutchman. Additional performances include the title roles of Manon Lescaut at New Orleans Opera, Tosca with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Pamina in The Magic Flute at Opéra de Bordeaux; and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with the Atlanta Opera and Opera Colorado.
On the concert stage, Ms. Moore has appeared with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for Bruckner’s Te Deum led by Music Director Donald Runnicles; Bard SummerScape Festival as the title role in Turandot; Bavarian Radio Symphony in performances and recording of excerpts of Gordon Getty’s opera Plump Jack, conducted by Ulf Shirmer and with the New Century Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. She has joined Rufus Wainwright for gala concerts at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, and has sung Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Madison Symphony and at Festival of the Arts Boca. Her solo recital performances have included a sold-out debut recital at Carnegie Hall and the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, as well a program featuring suppressed music of the Holocaust presented under the auspices of the Atlanta Opera.
A graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Melody Moore is a former Adler Fellow of San Francisco Opera and a participant of the Merola program.
Learn more at MelodyMooreSoprano.com.
Craig Colclough
Father
From: Claremont, California. LA Opera: Guccio in Gianni Schicchi (2008, debut); 12 roles to date including Monterone in Rigoletto (2018); Father in Hansel and Gretel (2018); Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro (2022); Leporello in Don Giovanni (2023). He is a 2021 recipient of the Eva and Marc Stern Artist Award.
Bass-baritone Craig Colclough initially studied as a cellist and eventually attended the University of Redlands in California. Before training with Wolf Trap Opera and Florida Grand Opera, he began his career appearing in several roles with LA Opera. The company awarded him the Eva and Marc Stern Artist Award during the 2020/21 season, celebrating artists with deep connections to LA Opera.
Verdi’s Macbeth has become a signature role, serving as Colclough’s debut at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Bayerische Staatsoper and Luxembourg Opera. 2022 saw his return to the Royal Opera House Covent Gardens where he reprised his role as Telramund in Wagner’s Lohengrin. Colclough is currently building the character of Alberich under the direction of Brigitte Fassbaender for the Tiroler Festspiele in Austria. Having debuted Alberich in her 2021 Rheingold to great acclaim, Colclough will complete the cycle in 2024.
The 2022/23 season saw Colclough as Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro at LA Opera, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at the Atlanta Opera with continued appearances as Monterone in Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera. The 2018/19 season included appearances as Peter in Hansel and Gretel at LA Opera, Fra Melitone in La Forza del Destino for his company debut with Oper Fankfurt, as well as the Storyteller in A Flowering Tree for his company debut with Opera Queensland. During the summer, he returned to the title role of Don Pasquale with the Berkshire Opera Festival.
A house favorite with Belgium’s Opera Vlaanderen, he has appeared with the company as Telramund, Kurwenal, Macbeth and the title role of Falstaff, in a production directed by Oscar-winning actor Christoph Waltz.
Known for his versatility, Craig Colclough has appeared as Peter Vogel in Korngold's Der Ring des Polykrates with the Dallas Opera; Hare in the world premiere of Burke and Hare with Boston Lyric Opera; Pistola in Falstaff with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; and Doristo in L’arbore di Diana with Minnesota Opera.
He has collaborated with acclaimed conductor Gustavo Dudamel for performances of Timur in Turandot with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Additional credits include the Israeli Symphony Orchestra, California Philharmonic, Capitol Records, Abbey Road Studios and the soundtrack of the film Rolled.
Learn more at CraigColclough.com.
Taylor Raven
Sandman
Mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven joined LA Opera's young artist program during the 2017/18 season and made her company debut as Vanderdendur in Candide.
Her mainstage appearances during the 2018/19 season include Tebaldo in Don Carlo, the Sandman in Hansel and Gretel and Annio in The Clemency of Titus. Additionally, she was the mezzo-soprano soloist for the world premiere of Joby Talbot's new score for Vampyr at the Theatre at Ace Hotel, and she appeared as Jocabed in the world premiere of Henry Mollicone's Moses at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Her LAO appearances for the 2019/20 season included the Third Lady in The Magic Flute.
In March 2022, she will make her North Carolina Opera debut in Sanctuary Road by Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell. In the 2022/23 season, she will make her debut with San Francisco Opera as Charmian in Antony and Cleopatra, followed by appearances there as Sister Mathilde in Dialogues of the Carmelites and as Flora in La Traviata.
In the summer of 2019, she returned to Wolf Trap Opera Company as a Filene Artist to perform the roles of Rosina in The Barber of Seville and Concepción in Ravel's L’heure espagnole.
In 2018, she appeared with Wolf Trap Opera Company as Gertrude in Romeo et Juliette. Ms. Raven was a Pittburgh Opera Resident Artist in the 2016/17 season, where she performed as Oronte in Handel’s Riccardo Primo and as "Hannah after" in Laura Kaminsky's As One for its Pennsylvania premiere. In 2016, Ms. Raven performed in the Schwabacher Summer Concert with San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program. She recently performed the role of Marian Anderson in Deep River: Marian Anderson's Journey with Virginia Opera. As a Young Artist with Central City Opera in 2015, Ms. Raven was seen in scenes from Carmen, Street Scene and The Ballad of Baby Doe.
She earned her Master of Music degree at the University of Colorado-Boulder and her Bachelor of Music degree at the University of North Carolina. In 2015, Ms. Raven won both the Adelaide Bishop Award with Central City Opera and First Place in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition. She won first prize in the 2018 Loren L. Zachary competition and is a recipient of the 2017 Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation.
Sarah Vautour
Dew Fairy
Soprano Sarah Vautour joined LA Opera's young artist program in 2018.
She made her LA Opera debut as the Dew Fairy in Hansel and Gretel under the baton of James Conlon. Ms. Vautour will return to the LA Opera stage in the 2019/20 season as Papagena in The Magic Flute and as Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro, and she will cover Musetta in La Bohème. Prior to this, Ms. Vautour joins Teatro Nuovo for their 2019 summer season as a Resident Artist to cover the title role in Bellini’s La Straniera. Additionally, she makes her Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra debut as the soprano soloist in Mahler’s Das klagende Lied with the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus and James Conlon.
Ms. Vautour’s other assignments during the 2018/19 season included covering both the Celestial Voice in Don Carlo and Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, and appearing as Zipporah/Voice of God in the world premiere of Henry Mollicone’s Moses, conducted by James Conlon. She came to LA Opera following a summer as an Apprentice Artist at Des Moines Metro Opera, where she covered Adele in Die Fledermaus.
Sarah Vautour earned her Master of Music from Rice University and a Bachelor of Music from University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. Her notable engagements include the title role in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and Morgana in Handel’s Alcina with CCM Opera d’arte, as well as Rose Maurrant in Street Scene with Harrower Summer Opera Workshop. Ms. Vautour made her Aspen Music Festival debut in the role of Mozart and Donna Anna in Stephen Stucky’s The Classical Style, under the baton of Robert Spano. In the 2017/18 season, she appeared under the baton of Thomas Jaber as the soprano soloist in the Poulenc Gloria, and again, later, with the Houston Masterworks Chorus as the soprano soloist in Mendelssohn’s Elijah.
Creative Team
- Conductor
- James Conlon
- Director / Designer
- Doug Fitch
- Lighting
- Duane Schuler
- Children's Chorus
- Fernando Malvar-Ruiz
James Conlon
Conductor
James Conlon has been LA Opera's Richard Seaver Music Director since 2006.
Since his debut that year with La Traviata, he has conducted 67 different operas and more than 450 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, the 2022 company premiere of Bach's St. Matthew Passion and a 2023 production of Verdi's Otello.
(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 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 450 performances of 67 different operas by more than 30 different composers. Highlights of his LA Opera tenure include conducting the company’s first Ring cycle; initiating the groundbreaking Recovered Voices series, an ongoing commitment to staging masterpieces of 20th-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 18th-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 2022/23 season, Mr. Conlon conducted two operas long absent from the company’s repertory, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Verdi's Otello, along with a new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.
Mr. Conlon’s first season as Artistic Advisor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra includes three weeks of concerts, starting with an October 2021 program of music by historically marginalized composers. The featured works are Alexander Zemlinsky’s Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid), which is the piece that sparked Mr. Conlon’s interest in suppressed music from the early 20th century, and William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, which reflects a theme that will recur throughout Mr. Conlon’s advisorship—the bringing of attention to works by American composers neglected due to their race. He returns in February 2022 for performances including Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony and the final scene of Wagner’s Die Walküre, with guest artists Christine Goerke and Greer Grimsley. The BSO season concludes in June 2022 with Mr. Conlon conducting an orchestra co-commission from Wynton Marsalis, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Beatrice Rana, and Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony (“Leningrad”). As Artistic Advisor, in addition to leading these performances, Mr. Conlon will help ensure the continued artistic quality of the orchestra and fill many duties off the podium, including those related to artistic personnel—such as filling important vacancies and attracting exceptional musicians.
Additional highlights of Mr. Conlon’s season include Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at Rome Opera, Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman at New National Theatre, Tokyo, the Paris Opera’s Gala lyrique with Renée Fleming, and concerts with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony and works by Beethoven and Bernstein), Gürzenich Orchester Köln (Sinfoniettas by Zemlinsky and Korngold), Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra (works by Shostakovich and Zemlinsky), and at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Mr. Conlon’s 2021/22 season follows a spring and summer in which he was highly active amidst the re-opening of many venues to live performance. These engagements included concerts with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and RAI National Symphony Orchestra. He also led a series of performances in Spain scheduled around World Music Day (June 21). In Madrid, over a period of two days, he conducted the complete symphonies of Schumann and Brahms in collaboration with four different Spanish orchestras: the Orquesta Nacional de España, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and Joven Orquesta Nacional de España (JONDE). He subsequently conducted JONDE at the Festival de Granada and Seville’s Teatro de la Maestranza. Additional summer 2021 engagements included the Aspen, Napa, Ravello, and Ravinia Festivals.
In an effort to call attention to lesser-known works of composers silenced by the Nazi regime, Mr. Conlon has devoted himself to extensive programming of this music throughout Europe and North America. In 1999 he received the Vienna-based Zemlinsky Prize for his efforts in bringing that composer’s music to international attention; in 2013 he was awarded the Roger E. Joseph Prize at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion for his extraordinary efforts to eradicate racial and religious prejudice and discrimination; and in 2007 he received the Crystal Globe Award from the Anti-Defamation League. His work on behalf of suppressed composers led to the creation of The OREL Foundation, an invaluable resource on the topic for music lovers, students, musicians, and scholars; the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at the Colburn School; and a recent virtual TEDx Talk titled “Resurrecting Forbidden Music.”
Mr. Conlon is an enthusiastic advocate of public scholarship and cultural institutions as forums for the exchange of ideas and inquiry into the role music plays in our shared humanity and civic life. At LA Opera, he leads pre-performance talks, drawing upon musicology, literary studies, history, and social sciences to contemplate—together with his audience—the enduring power and relevance of opera and classical music in general. Additionally, he frequently collaborates with universities, museums, and other cultural institutions, and works with scholars, practitioners, and community members across disciplines. His appearances throughout the country as a speaker on a variety of cultural and educational topics are widely praised.
Mr. Conlon’s extensive discography and videography can be found on the Bridge, Capriccio, Decca, EMI, Erato, and Sony Classical labels. His recordings of LA Opera productions have received four Grammy Awards, two respectively for John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles and Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Additional highlights include an ECHO Klassik Award-winning recording cycle of operas and orchestral works by Alexander Zemlinsky; a CD/DVD release of works by Viktor Ullmann, which won the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik; and the world-premiere recording of Liszt’s oratorio St. Stanislaus.
Mr. Conlon holds four honorary doctorates and has received numerous other awards. He was one of the first five recipients of the Opera News Awards, and was honored by the New York Public Library as a Library Lion. He was named Commendatore Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana by Sergio Mattarella, President of the Italian Republic. He was also named Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture and, in 2002, personally accepted France’s highest honor, the Legion d’Honneur, from then-President of the French Republic Jacques Chirac.
Learn more at JamesConlon.com.
Doug Fitch
Director / Designer
Photo © 2018 Chehalis Hegner
Visual artist, designer and director Doug Fitch is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Giants Are Small. He has created Giants are Small productions for the New York Philharmonic that include Le Grand Macabre (cited as the top opera of 2010 by The New York Times, New York magazine and Time Out New York), The Cunning Little Vixen (New York magazine’s “Best Classical Event of the Year”), A Dancer’s Dream: Two Works by Stravinsky (screened worldwide); and HK Gruber’s Gloria – A Pig Tale (with forces from The Juilliard School for the NY Phil Biennial). He was the inaugural visiting artist at SUNY, where he created an opera of images, How Did We...? He has created productions of Peter and the Wolf for the LA Philharmonic and Turandot for Santa Fe Opera, and he has directed projects for Canada’s National Arts Centre, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and Tanglewood. (DouglasFitch.com)
Duane Schuler
Lighting
From: Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. LA Opera: Tancredi (1989, debut); 35 productions to date including, most recently, Hansel and Gretel (2018) and Cinderella (2021). Upcoming: Tosca (2022).
Duane Schuler has achieved national and international acclaim as a theatrical lighting designer. He has designed for the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, New York City Opera, Salzburg Festival, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Seattle Opera, and American Ballet Theatre. His extensive work with LA Opera includes Simon Boccanegra, Manon, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, Ariadne auf Naxos, Rigoletto and Tristan und Isolde. He is a founding partner of the theater planning and architectural lighting design firm Schuler Shook.
Fernando Malvar-Ruiz
Children's Chorus
From: Vigo, Spain. LA Opera: Hansel and Gretel (2018, debut); La Boheme (2019); St. Matthew Passion (2022).
Grammy Award winner Fernando Malvar‐Ruiz is serving his fourth season as Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, having commenced his tenure in 2018. He is an internationally regarded choral conductor, clinician, and educator who has worked with children’s and youth choirs his entire career. From 2004 to 2017, he was the Artistic Director of the American Boychoir, leading the ensemble in over 150 performances and up to five national and international tours annually. He has prepared choirs for appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has worked with such conductors as Gustavo Dudamel, Marin Alsop, Pierre Boulez, Yannik Nézet-Seguin, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Valery Gergiev, as well as artists ranging from cellist Yo‐Yo Ma, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, pop legends Billie Eilish, Beyoncé Knowles, Sir Paul McCartney, Josh Groban, and opera singers Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. He conducted the American Boychoir on six recordings, led its performances on the Academy Awards and a 9/11 memorial service broadcast globally on CNN. Mr. Malvar-Ruiz was the music director on the film Hear My Song (Boychoir), starring Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Debra Winger, and Josh Lucas.
His discography includes the 2022 Grammy Award-winning recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Mr. Malvar‐Ruiz previously served as the American Boychoir’s Associate Music Director from 2000 to 2004 under James Litton. An expert in the adolescent voice, he has guest conducted children’s and youth choirs around the globe. He has a master’s degree in choral conducting from Ohio State University and completed the coursework toward a doctoral degree in choral music from the University of Illinois.
Behind the Curtain: Susan Graham, The Witch in “Hansel and Gretel,” with Brian Lauritzen
Production made possible with generous support from The Okun Family in memory of Milton, and from GRoW @ Annenberg. Susan Graham's appearance made possible by generous support from The Eva and Marc Stern Principal Artists Fund.
