Composer and conductor harold farberman has
written diverse works for orchestra,
three operas, numerous chamber works, an Academy Award–winning
score for a documentary film, and music for dance companies. His
works have been
performed all over the world; many are represented on three CDs
devoted to his music, released by Albany Records. An advocate of
modern music,
Farberman received the Ives Award for his
definitive interpretations of the work of Charles Ives. His recordings
of Mahler, Michael
Haydn, and Irwin Bazelon, as well as that of Ives and his own music,
have earned
worldwide recognition for excellence. Farberman founded the Conductors
Guild and is the author of a pioneering work, related to physical
movement of the
baton, titled The Art of Conducting Technique: A New Perspective.
He is also the founder
and artistic director of the Conductors Institute, now in its third
decade and its sixth year at Bard
College, and director of Bard’s master of fine arts degree program in conducting.
As artistic director of the American
Chamber Opera Company in New York, andrew joffe has
staged more than 40 works, including the premieres of
Alice Shield’s Mass for the Dead; Douglas Anderson’s My Year, My Life;
Larry Lipkis’s Peronelle; and Bruce Adolphe’s The
Tell-Tale Heart. He is librettist
for Beast and Superbeast, a trilogy based on short stories by the English
author
Saki, the first of which, Tobermory, won first prize in a National Opera
Association competition. His other libretti include the chamber operas
Faust Triumphant and
Medea in Exile and a two-act opera based on the classic French novel A
Rebours. He is at work on an operatic version of Kate Chopin’s The
Awakening that was featured by the New York City Opera in its 2003 VOX
Festival of
new works;
works based on the classical figures Antigone and Cassandra; and an original
opera for video. He is a 1982 graduate of Bard College.
Beth Greenberg has directed numerous productions for the New York City Opera, including Turandot, Les Contes des Hoffmann, Der Rosenkavalier, La Bohème, Tosca, and La Traviata. Recent productions she has directed include Tosca for the Asociación Bel Canto in Lima, Peru; Carmen for Tokyo’s City Opera; Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale, and Regina for the Pittsburgh Opera Center; Eugene
Onegin for Opera Delaware; and The Pirates of Penzance and La Bohème for the Asheville Lyric Opera. She directed the New York premiere of the Jorge Martin/Andrew Joffe award-winning chamber opera Tobermory from their trilogy Beast and Superbeast. Greenberg has also directed comic plays, including Paul Rudnick’s Jeffrey at Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater. In Austria she was the assistant director for Gotz Friedrich’s
production of Porgy and Bess for the Bregenz Festival Lake Stage, and in Germany she assisted Francesca Zambello for Berlin’s Theater des Westen’s production of Street Scene, also filmed for German television. Greenberg serves as a juror for the finals for the Center for Contemporary Opera’s International Competition.
THE CAST
September Bigelow appeared at the 2003 Bard SummerScape Festival as Košinská in Janáček’s Osud; with Bronx Opera as Ernestina in Rossini’s L’Equivoco Stravagante; with Opera Company of Brooklyn as Suzy in Puccini’s La Rondine; with DiCapo Opera Theatre as Mistress (covering Clara) in Sondheim’s Passion; as Giannetta in L’Elisir d’Amore; and in Soong Fu-Yuan’s new opera, Return
to Paradise, with Jerry Hadley. She made her Carnegie Hall debut as Noah’s wife in Stravinsky’s The Flood with the London Sinfonietta, and returned in a benefit concert of Carousel as Arminey, in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, and in Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra. For Lincoln Center, she was involved in the live recording of Strauss’s Die ägyptische Helena conducted by Leon Botstein, and in the Grammy-nominated live
recording of Sweeney Todd. She sang with New York City Opera in I Capuletti e I Montecchi and with South Carolina Opera as Jessie Bond in Topsy-Turvy in Love, an original Gilbert and Sullivan adaptation conceived and directed by Bill Fabris.
back to top
Soprano Vanessa Conlin has been hailed by Opera News as having an “incisive, personal timbre and real dramatic presence in her portrayal of Miss Jessell” in Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. The Boston Globe said, “Vanessa Conlin’s Chrerubino, with ‘his’ out-front, sunny exuberant celebration of sexuality . . . made her an endearing stage presence with a lush soprano to go along with it.” Conlin was a member
of the original cast of Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Bohème on Broadway. Recent engagements have included Micaëla in Carmen with the Evansville Philharmonic, Musetta in La Bohème with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Zerlina in Don Giovanni at the Bardavon Opera House, and Musetta at the Belleayre Summer Music Festival. She has been heard with the West Virginia Symphony as soprano soloist in Carmina Burana, Handel’s Messiah,
and in an evening of opera arias. Upcoming engagements include a return to the Toledo Opera for the role of Abigail in The Crucible and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette with Milwaukee’s Skylight Opera. In 2003, Conlin won the Encouragement Award at the Sullivan Foundation competition and was the third-place finalist in the Excellence in Arts competition, and received a study grant from the Musician’s Club of New York. Conlin received a bachelor of music degree
from the Manhattan School of Music and a master’s degree from Boston University, where she was the winner of the concerto competition. She has been coached by Enza Ferrari (teacher of Maria Callas) in Spoleto, Italy, and also by Marilyn Horne, Phyllis Curtin, Sherrill Milnes, Warren Jones, and Martin Katz.
back to top
With keen theatrical and musical insight and an uncommonly flexible and handsome voice, Dean Elzinga is among the most sought-after bass-baritones on the concert and opera scene. He made his professional leading-role debut at the Vienna Volksoper—Mozart’s Figaro, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Escamillo in Carmen, and Méphistophélès in Faust. Since then, he has appeared in these and other principal roles with New York City
Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera San Jose, Opera Carolina, Opera Pacific, and l’Opéra Français de New York, among others. Current career highlights include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the San Diego, Long Beach, and New West Symphonies; Mozart’s Requiem with the Eugene Symphony; Handel’s Messiah with the Ann Arbor and Baltimore Symphonies; Haydn’s Creation with the Florida Orchestra; and Bach’s
B Minor Mass with the Master Chorale of Washington (in the Kennedy Center). In addition he performed Ramfis in Verdi’s Aida for his debut with the Vancouver Opera; and his “signature” role of Méphistophélès at the Sacramento Opera. Elzinga made his Chautauqua Festival debut with Uri Segal conducting the Mozart Requiem. He sang Biterolf in Tannhäuser and Alidoro in La Cenerentola, both under James Levine, at the Metropolitan
Opera. Other engagements include the Four Villains in Les Contes d’Hoffmann with the Seattle Opera, Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette with the Portland Symphony, his Opera Omaha debut as Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and his Nashville Symphony debut in Britten’s War Requiem. The world-premiere recording of his appearance in a concert performance of Elliott Carter’s What next? at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw was just issued on
the ECM Records. Elzinga earned international acclaim for his portrayals in modern monodramas including Peter Maxwell Davies’s masterpiece Eight Songs for a Mad King with Jonathan Sheffer and New York’s Eos Orchestra (a work he reprised this season with Sheffer and his Cleveland-based orchestra Red). Equally at home on the concert platform, Elzinga has sung with the American Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, San Diego Chamber Orchestra, Florida Philharmonic, Pacific
Chorale, William Hall Master Chorale, and at the Pacific Choral Festival. At New York’s Bard Music Festival he performed Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten, Schoenberg’s Die glückliche Hand and a recital of songs by Schoenberg, Strauss, Reger, Marx, and Berg.
back to top
Baritone Graham Fandrei has performed leading roles with Opera Theatre of St. Louis’s recent production of Dream of the Pacific and DiCapo Opera’s La Perichole. He appeared as Schaunard, Marcello, and the Sergeant on Broadway in Baz Luhrman’s production of La Bohème. He has also appeared with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Juilliard Opera Theater, Bay Area Summer Opera Institute, Longwood Opera, Orchestra X, Berkshire Opera Company, and
Encompass Opera Theater. He was a New England regional finalist in the 1999 Metropolitan Opera Competition and a winner of the N.E.C. Vocal Concerto Competition. Fandrei attended The Juilliard School and received a bachelor or music degree from the New England Conservatory.
back to top
Tenor William Ferguson has performed leading roles with New York City Opera, Opera Festival of New Jersey, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Music Academy of the West, the Chautauqua Institution, and at the Tanglewood Music Center (with Maestro Seiji Ozawa). In concert, Ferguson has performed with Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Wheeling Symphony Orchestra; and has been presented in recitals with the Marilyn Horne Foundation and New York Festival of Song.
He made his Alice Tully debut recital in November 2003. Ferguson attended The Juilliard School, where he received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
back to top
Tenor Gregory Mercer has been hailed throughout the world for the sweetness and agility of his voice, his musicality, and his acting ability. He is equally at home on opera, concert, and recital stages. He sang in four productions at the New York City Opera during the 2003–2004 season: Tosca, Of Mice and Men, The Marriage of Figaro, and a new production of Rossini's recently discovered Ermione. Among numerous other U.S. opera companies he has sung with
are the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera’s Western Opera Theater, Virginia Opera, and L’Opera Francais de New York. As a concert artist, Mercer has been featured with several major orchestras, including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Grant Park Symphony in Chicago. Choral groups include the Oratorio Society of New York, New York Choral Society, and Dessoff Choirs. Mercer has appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, German
National Television, Czech National Television and Yugoslav National Television. He has recorded for the Albany, Caedmon, Vox, Koch, New World, and Original Cast record labels. He is tenor soloist, cantor, and assistant conductor at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.
back to top
Soprano Jody Sheinbaum is on the roster at New York City Opera, where she made her company debut as Papagena, and has covered Sandrina in La Fina Giardiniera, Beth in Little Women, and Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito. Other roles include Mabel in Pirates of Penzance and the Slave in Salome with the Santa Fe Opera; Servilia with Christopher Hogwood and the National Symphony Orchestra; Despina in Così fan tutte with San Francisco Opera’s
Western Opera Theater; Baby Doe in The Ballad of Baby Doe with Israel Vocal Arts Institute; and Dona Clara in The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Miss Regan in The Bridal Night, and Nezira in To Triumph with American Opera Projects. She has appeared with the Louisiana Philharmonic, Santa Fe Symphony, Orchestre du Moulin d’Andé, and Mannes Orchestra. She specializes in Japanese art song, and her recital engagements include a wide variety of song literature,
ranging from regional European dialects to contemporary American song. Sheinbaum performed several works by composer Tom Cipullo, including the world premiere of his song cycle How to Get Heat without Fire in New York, and recently recorded the role of Young Alice for his new opera, Glory Denied. She has received numerous, awards including Richard F. Gold Career Grant, the Anna Case Mackay Memorial Award from the Santa Fe Opera, and a Liederkranz Foundation award for voice.
A native of New Jersey, Sheinbaum received a bachelor’s degree in Asian studies and Japanese language from the University of Pennsylvania, and a master’s degree from the Mannes College of Music.
back to top
