Bel Cantanti is an American opera company under the direction of Dr. Katerina Souvorova. It was formed in 2003 to give performance opportunities to operatic talent in the Washington, D.C. area. It has produced more than 50 different fully staged operas and gala events with young professionals since 2003. The productions has been in a variety of venues including: the Austrian Embassy in D.C., the French Embassy in Georgetown, and the German Embassy in D.C.. Bel Cantanti performed at the Randolph Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, located in a Montgomery County, Maryland community center, until the County closed the center in favor of an affordable housing project. Most performances are now held at the Bender Jewish Community Center in Rockville, Maryland.
In December 2003, Bel Cantanti held its first fully–staged opera production, Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, at St. James Episcopal Church in Leesburg, Virginia. Bel Cantanti has had continued success with its productions of : Donizetti's L'elisir d'Amore, Verdi's Rigoletto, Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin , Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia , Donizetti's La fille du régiment , Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel , Rachmaninoff's Aleko , Tchaikovsky's Iolanta , Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro , and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor . The company's 2007-2008 season produced fully staged versions of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio, performed in German, March 2008) and G. Puccini's birth with an abridged version of La bohème . In December 2007 Bel Cantanti is performing a concert version of Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel .
Bel Cantanti and its young performers, coached by Katerina Souvorova, have garnered excellent reviews over the years in The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Ionarts.blogspot.com, and other local papers.
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor.
A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; Italian: [ˌmɛddzosoˈpraːno]; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above (i.e. A3–A5 in scientific pitch notation, where middle C = C4; 220–880 Hz). In the lower and upper extremes, some mezzo-sopranos may extend down to the F below middle C (F3, 175 Hz) and as high as "high C" (C6, 1047 Hz). The mezzo-soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, lyric, and dramatic mezzo-soprano.
The German Fach system is a method of classifying singers, primarily opera singers, according to the range, weight, and color of their voices. It is used worldwide, but primarily in Europe, especially in German-speaking countries and by repertory opera houses.
The Canadian Opera Company (COC) is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and one of the largest producers of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. For forty years until April 2006, the COC had performed at the O'Keefe Centre.
Sir John Michael Pritchard, was an English conductor. He was known for his interpretations of Mozart operas and for his support of contemporary music.
Lucia Popp was a Slovak operatic soprano. She began her career as a soubrette, and later moved into the light-lyric and lyric coloratura soprano repertoire and then the lighter Richard Strauss and Wagner operas. Her career included performances at Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, and La Scala. Popp was also a highly regarded recitalist and lieder singer.
Union Avenue Opera is an opera company based in St. Louis, Missouri. The company was founded in 1994 by Scott Schoonover, the music director of Union Avenue Christian Church, which serves as the company's venue in St. Louis' Visitation Park neighborhood.
Diana Damrau is a German soprano who achieved international fame for her performances, primarily in opera, but also in concert and lieder. She has been successful in coloratura soprano roles since her early career, and gradually proceeded into heavier roles 19th-century Italian bel canto repertoire. Her signature roles include the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, and Violetta in La traviata.
Pittsburgh Festival Opera (PFO), formerly Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, is a professional American opera company based in Pittsburgh's university and museum district. Pittsburgh Festival Opera performs at non-traditional venues around the city.
Gail Robinson was an American operatic soprano who sang with many of the world's leading opera companies during the 1970s and 1980s. She spent most of her career singing lyric coloratura roles at the Metropolitan Opera. After her performance career ended she taught singing to young artists and also directed the Metropolitan Opera's Young Artist Program for over ten years. Upon leaving the Met, she joined the voice faculty at the University of Kentucky.
Cyril and Libbye Hellier are identical twins and American operatic sopranos. Natives of Houma, Louisiana, they are the great-grandchildren of the Confederate Colonel John Henry Hellier.
Karl Scully is an Irish opera tenor.
Lisette Oropesa is an American operatic soprano of Cuban ancestry. She has a wide repertoire that includes works from Gluck, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Wagner, Verdi, Bizet, Massenet and Puccini. With her lyric coloratura soprano voice, she has performed roles in her native Spanish and English, as well as German, French and Italian. She is particularly noted in the roles of Susanna, Gilda, Konstanze, Lucia and Manon.
This list includes opera productions of the Opera Group and Opera Company of Boston from 1958 to 1990.
Konstantinos Paliatsaras is a Greek operatic tenor.
The Australian Contemporary Opera Company (ACOCo) is a not-for-profit contemporary opera company, based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was formerly known as "Gertrude Opera".
Ruth Welting was an American operatic soprano who had an active international career from the early 1970s through the mid-1990s. A specialist in the coloratura soprano repertoire, she was particularly associated with the Metropolitan Opera where she performed regularly from 1976 until her retirement from performance in 1994. Endowed with a powerful coloratura voice, she is remembered as one of a few sopranos capable of singing the Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor in the original F major key.
John Longmuir is a Scottish-born Australian tenor. Known primarily for operatic roles he is also in demand on the concert platform and has appeared as a judge on channel seven's music competition show 'All Together Now'. Noted for his "generous voice, bright ringing vocal quality and legato phrasing" His operatic studies took place at the Australian Opera Studio. In 2019 John received his first Helpmann Award nomination, for his role as the Captain in Berg's Wozzeck, for Opera Australia.
Opera Columbus is an American professional opera company in Columbus, Ohio, founded in 1981, and is a member of Opera America. OC employs nearly 350 artists and creative professionals annually—vocalists, artisans, stagehands, costumers, and scenic designers—many of whom are members of the Columbus community.