The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra also serves as the accompanying orchestra for the Seattle Opera.
Adam Guettel is an American composer-lyricist of musical theater and opera. The grandson of musical theatre composer Richard Rodgers, he is best known for the musical The Light in the Piazza, for which he won two Tony Awards, for Best Score and Best Orchestrations, and two Drama Desk Awards, for Best Music and Best Orchestrations.
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende Holländer, Wotan/Der Wanderer in the Ring Cycle and Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Wagner labelled these roles as Hoher Bass —see fach for more details.
Pelléas and Mélisande is a Symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck about the forbidden, doomed love of the title characters. It was first performed in 1893.
Eve Queler is an American conductor and the emerita Artistic Director of the Opera Orchestra of New York (OONY). She founded the OONY in 1971, after having worked on the staff of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera. She is notable for her advocacy for, and conducting of, lesser known and less-frequently performed operas, such as Rienzi and Jenůfa.
Pelleas und Melisande, Op. 5, is a symphonic poem written by Arnold Schoenberg and completed in February 1903. It was premiered on 25 January 1905 at the Musikverein in Vienna under the composer's direction in a concert that also included the first performance of Alexander von Zemlinsky's Die Seejungfrau. The work is based on Maurice Maeterlinck's play Pelléas and Mélisande, a subject suggested by Richard Strauss. When he began composing the work in 1902, Schoenberg was unaware that Claude Debussy's opera, also based on Maeterlinck's play, was about to premiere in Paris.
Albert Louis Wolff was a French conductor and composer of Dutch descent. Most of his career was spent in European venues, with the exception of two years that he spent as a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and a few years in Buenos Aires during the Second World War. He is most known for holding the position of principal conductor with the Opéra-Comique in Paris for several years. He was married to the French mezzo-soprano Simone Ballard.
Jean-François Lapointe is a Canadian baritone opera singer.
Ralf Georg Nils Gothóni is a Finnish-German pianist and conductor. He is also active as a chamber musician, professor, composer, and author. Born in Rauma, Finland he made his orchestra debut at age 15. Besides his worldwide concert career he has made some 100 recordings with major labels. He often performs in a double role conducting from the keyboard.
Joshua Roman is an American cellist.
Harolyn Blackwell is an American lyric coloratura soprano who has performed in many of the world's finest opera houses, concert halls, and theaters in operas, oratorios, recitals, and Broadway musicals. Initially known for her work within musical theater during the early 1980s, Blackwell moved into the field of opera and by 1987 had established herself as an artist within the soubrette repertoire in many major opera houses both in the United States and in Europe. Feeling that she was being "type cast" into one particular kind of role, Blackwell strove to establish herself within the lyric coloratura repertoire beginning in the mid-1990s. With the aid of such companies as Seattle Opera, Blackwell successfully made this move and is now an interpreter of such roles as Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Olympia in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffman. She has also periodically returned to musical theater performances throughout her career in staged productions, concert work, and recitals. Blackwell is known for her interpretations and recordings of the works of Leonard Bernstein.
Hector Dufranne was a Belgian operatic bass-baritone who enjoyed a long career that took him to opera houses throughout Europe and the United States for more than four decades. Admired for both his singing and his acting, Dufranne appeared in a large number of world premieres, most notably the role Golaud in the original production of Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902, which he went on to sing 120 times at that house. He had an excellent singing technique which maintained the quality of his voice even into the latter part of his career. His wide vocal range and rich resonant voice enabled him to sing a variety of roles which encompassed French, German, and Italian opera.
Ludovic Morlot is a French conductor. He was Music Director of the Seattle Symphony from 2011 to 2019.
Bern Herbolsheimer was an American composer.
Julian Patrick was an American operatic baritone and voice teacher. Born in Mississippi, Patrick grew up in Birmingham, Alabama where he was a member of the Apollo Boys Choir. After graduating from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, he began his professional career as a musical theatre performer in the 1950s; appearing in the original Broadway productions of The Golden Apple (1954), Bells Are Ringing (1956), Juno (1959), Once Upon a Mattress (1959), and Fiorello! (1959). He also studied singing privately in New York City with Cornelius L. Reid.
Jay Hunter Morris is an American operatic tenor. He is best known internationally for the role of Siegfried in the Metropolitan Opera's 2011–12 series of Wagner's Ring Cycle, performances of which were cinecast and radio broadcast live worldwide, aired on U.S. television, and released on DVD.
Diane Curry is an American operatic mezzo-soprano who is particularly known for her performances of the works of Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, and Giuseppe Verdi. She was notably the mezzo-soprano soloist on the 1987 recording of Verdi's Requiem by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus and conductor Robert Shaw which won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance.
Peter Kazaras is an American stage director, artistic director and opera singer (tenor) from New York City.
