Transitions

Chris Burkett, a longtime member of Seattle Opera’s development team, has been promoted to director of development.

Pacific Opera Victoria has welcomed Brenna Corner, a stage director, actor, singer, choreographer, and fight director, as its new artistic director and promoted Giuseppe Pietraroia from chorus master to principal conductor.

Katrina Fasulo, who previously served as Opera Saratoga’s director of development, has joined Opera MODO as executive director and Detroit Opera as associate major gifts officer.

Opera Parallèle has announced three new hires: Francis Aviani, a marketer who has worked with groups like EcoVadis and St. Anthony Foundation, has joined as marketing director; Eman Isadiar, most recently director of development at the Santa Rosa Symphony, has joined as director of development; and Phil Lowery, a stage director, production manager, and educator, has joined as director of production.

Vancouver Opera has appointed Jacques Lacombe, who previously served as a visiting conductor, as its new music director.

Opera Steamboat has named Julie Maykowski as its new general director and CEO. Maykowski previously served as director of development at Beth Morrison Projects and as Florida Grand Opera’s director of artistic administration and head of the young artist program.

Opera Columbus has appointed Dr. Everett McCorvey as its inaugural principal guest conductor. McCorvey also serves as artistic director of the National Chorale in New York City.

On Site Opera has named Sarah Meyers, who has served on the directing staff of the Metropolitan Opera, as artistic director.

Stage director Alison Moritz has joined Central City Opera as its new artistic director. Moritz has created productions for companies across the U.S. and previously served as interim managing artistic director of opera at Peabody Conservatory. She was a winner of OPERA America’s 2015 Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize. 

Boston Lyric Opera has named Nina Yoshida Nelsen, a mezzo-soprano and co-founder of the Asian Opera Alliance, as artistic director. Nelson previously served as an artistic advisor to the company.

New Orleans Opera has appointed librettist and producer Lila Palmer as general and artistic director, effective this May. Palmer has previously served as interim managing director and associate director for promotions and partnerships at American Lyric Theater.

Jennifer Rivera has left her post as general director and CEO of Long Beach Opera to become the major gifts officer at The Music Center in Los Angeles.

Washington National Opera has appointed conductor Robert Spano, who made his debut with the company in 2021, as its new music director.

Brian Speck, former director of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, has joined the Metropolitan Opera as artistic administrator.

Florida Grand Opera has appointed Maria Todaro as interim general director. Todaro continues in her role as general director of Hudson Valley International Festival of the Voice.

Stacey Trenteseaux, previously executive director of Opera Mississippi, has joined Opera Idaho as general director.

Tulsa Opera has appointed Lori Decter Wright as general director and CEO. Wright previously served as executive director of Kendall Whittier Inc., a nonprofit focusing on food insecurity in Tulsa.

The Association for Opera in Canada (AOC) has welcomed three new board members: Marie-Annick Béliveau, artistic director of Chants Libres; Sandra Horst, head of opera at the University of Toronto; and Daniel Turp, president of the Réunion des opéras du Québec and of the Observatoire québécois d’art lyrique. In addition, AOC has elected two new board co-chairs: Robin Whiffen, executive director of Against the Grain Theatre, and Bruce Munro Wright, a past chair of Vancouver Opera.

Kudos

The American Academy of Arts and Letters honored Rhiannon Giddens with its biennial Virgil Thomson Award of $40,000, given to an exceptional American composer of vocal works. The organization also awarded a $15,000 Charles Ives Fellowship to composer Fang Man. Both Giddens and Man are former recipients of OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers.

At the 2024 Grammy Awards, the Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Terence Blanchard and Michael Cristofer’ Champion won Best Opera Recording. The award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album went to soprano Julia Bullock and conductor Christian Reif for Walking in the Dark, a recital album that includes Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915.  

Following a December performance of The Elixir of Love, San Francisco Opera presented composer and philanthropist Gordon Getty with its Spirit of the Opera award in recognition of extraordinary artistic excellence and philanthropic leadership.

At its conference in January, the National Opera Association bestowed its Lifetime Achievement Award on librettist Mark Campbell for his contributions to the opera repertoire.

Musical America named Kevin Puts, composer of operas including Silent Night and The Hours, as its composer of the year. On its Top 30 Professionals of the Year list, the organization included Sarah Edgar, stage director at Haymarket Opera Company; Josh Shaw, founding artistic director and CEO of Pacific Opera Project; and Michael Solomon, director of media relations at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

At the 2023 International Opera Awards, mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition, soprano Nadine Sierra won the Opera Readers’ Award, baritenor Michael Spyres won the Male Singer Award, and soprano Lisette Oropesa won the Solo Recital Recording Award for French Bel Canto Arias.

Baritone Justin Austin was the winner of Washington National Opera’s 2023 Marian Anderson Vocal Award, which recognizes a young American singer with outstanding promise.

At the 52^nd annual George and Nora London Foundation Competition, the top prizes of $12,000 each went to soprano Katerina Burton; mezzo-sopranos Emily Treigle and Erin Wagner; tenor Samuel White; and baritones Benjamin Dickerson and Darren Drone.

At Canadian Opera Company’s annual Centre Stage: Ensemble Studio Competition, soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais won First Prize ($7,500) and the Audience Choice Award, soprano Emily Rocha took Second Prize ($5,000), and bass Duncan Stenhouse took Third Prize ($2,500).

In Memoriam

“A lot of what I do is by instinct — I couldn’t write a book on anything,” Richard Gaddes once said. Gaddes’ pivotal role in shaping American opera stands as proof that his instincts were unerringly correct. The British-born administrator, who served at the helms of both Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and the Santa Fe Opera, died on December 12 at age 81.

Gaddes was working as an artist manager in London before joining the Santa Fe Opera in 1965. During his initial Santa Fe stint, he arranged the company debuts of Frederica von Stade and Edo de Waart, along with the 1971 U.S. debut of Kiri Te Kanawa. In 1976, he met with a group of Saint Louis businesspeople to discuss starting an opera company in their city. They had planned a scattering of grand-scale, standard-repertory productions throughout the year, but Gaddes steered them toward creating a more intimate operation on a festival schedule. He came aboard as Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ founding general director in 1976.

He served at OTSL through 1985, a period in which the company presented a number of world premieres, including Stephen Paulus’ The Postman Always Rings Twice, and the American premieres of Prokofiev's Maddalena and Rameau’s Pygmalion. He subsequently served as president of Saint Louis’ Grand Center before rejoining the Santa Fe Opera. Gaddes was appointed associate general director there in 1995 and in 2000 became the second general director in the company’s history. One of his signature initiatives was the repositioning of the company as a community resource, establishing a two-for-one ticket scheme that helped expand the New Mexican contingent in the audience to over 50%. From 1979 to 1980 he served as board vice president of OPERA America. Gaddes stayed at the Santa Fe Opera until 2008, and that same year became one of the first honorees to receive the NEA Opera Honors.

The master teacher Marlena Malas died on December 4 at age 87. A longtime member of the faculties of both Manhattan School of Music and the Curtis Institute, Malas started her opera career as a mezzo-soprano. Under the name Marlena Kleinman, she studied at Curtis and went on to sing with several American opera companies, most frequently at New York City Opera. Prone to stage fright, Marlena turned to teaching in the 1970s, and she went on to guide some of the most prominent singers of our time, including Susan Graham, Brandon Jovanovich, Jarrett Ott, and Matthew Rose. In 1963, she married bass Spiro Malas, in a ceremony that took place between City Opera rehearsals; he died in 2019. She was named to OPERA America’s Opera Hall of Fame in 2022.

Arts educator Marthalie A. Furber died on December 10 at age 83. As director of education at OPERA America in the 1980s, she developed Music! Words! Opera!, a pioneering K–12 textbook and curriculum program that brought opera education directly into school classrooms. Over her career, Furber also worked with The Kennedy Center, GRAMMY Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe Opera, and Butler University, among other organizations.

The Wagnerian tenor Stephen Gould died on September 19 at age 61. Before making the switch to the heldentenor fach, Gould appeared in Tancredi with Los Angeles Music Center, sang small roles at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and toured for a number of years with the national company of The Phantom of the Opera. But in his later years, his career was centered in Europe and Asia, especially at the Bayreuth Festival, where he appeared over 12 summers between 2004 and 2022, singing the most demanding roles in the Wagnerian repertory, including Parsifal, Tristan, and Siegfried in Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Writer/editor James Jorden, the founder of the “queer opera zine” Parterre Box, died in early October at age 69. Parterre started as a mimeographed handout that Jorden would sneak into Met’s pamphlet racks and men’s rooms. With its snarky reviews and irresistible bits of opera-world gossip, it soon developed a must-read reputation among New York’s opera aficionados. Eventually it moved onto the internet; as parterre.com, its bulletin boards continue to serve as a virtual gathering space for opera lovers around the world. 

Robert Lyall, director and principal conductor of New Orleans Opera from 1998 to 2021, died on January 5 at age 76. In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Lyall organized the March 2006 Night for New Orleans gala, persuading top stars like Plácido Domingo, Frederica von Stade, and Denyce Graves to donate their services. Lyall appeared as a guest conductor with Seattle Opera, Cleveland Opera, The Chautauqua Festival, Opera Carolina, Hawaii Opera, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. In 2016, the French government named him a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Mildred Miller, a Metropolitan Opera stalwart, died on November 29 at age 98. The mezzo-soprano made her debut with the company as Cherubino — her most frequently performed role there — and gave 338 performances there through 1974. In the early 1960s, she made a series of now-classic recordings, including Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, with conductor Bruno Walter. In 1978, she cofounded Opera Theatre of Pittsburgh, now known as Pittsburgh Festival Opera.

The Polish contralto Ewa Podleś died on January 19 at age 71. Podleś attracted a cult following through her distinctive, rich sound and consummate florid technique. Her repertory ranged from Handel to Stravinsky, with special attention to Rossini and the songs of her countryman Chopin. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1984, and also appeared at Seattle Opera, San Diego Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Florentine Opera, Detroit Opera, Minnesota Opera, The Atlanta Opera, Vancouver Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, and the Caramoor Festival.

Artist manager John A. Anderson died on October 31 at age 83. After stints at CAMI and ICM, he joined Herbert Barrett Management in 1985, eventually running the firm under his own name. Among his clients were singers Sherrill Milnes, Gary Lakes, and Kevin Maynor.

Soprano Dolores Mari died on January 29 at age 98. She sang frequently at New York City Opera in the 1950s and 1960s, and went on to work with New York’s Amato Opera as a teacher, supporter, and board member.

Collaborative pianist Thomas Muraco died on February 3 at age 74. A member of the faculty of Manhattan School of Music, over the course of his career he collaborated with singers like Martina Arroyo, Phyllis Curtin, Maureen Forrester, Denyce Graves, Susanne Mentzer, and Dolora Zajick.

Composer Alice Parker died on December 24 at age 98. Chiefly known for her choral music, she also wrote four operas, and in 2021 received the Sacred in Opera Achievement Award from the National Opera Association.

Composer and pianist Alan Louis Smith died on October 31 at age 68. He served as chair of Keyboard Studies at the USC Thornton School of Music and served 20 years on the vocal coaching faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center. Among his compositions are the song cycles Vignettes: Ellis Island and Covered Wagon Woman, both introduced by Stephanie Blythe and Warren Jones.

Tenor Eduardo Villa died on December 15 at age 70. After winning the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in 1982, he went on to sing with Opera Hamilton (Canada), The Atlanta Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Arizona Opera, and Connecticut Opera, as well as the Met.

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