La Cenerentola (Cinderella)
Music by Gioachino Rossini
Libretto by Jacopo Ferretti
A new BLO production
Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre
Wednesday, November 8, 2023 | 7:30PM
Friday, November 10, 2023 | 7:30PM
Sunday, November 12, 2023 | 3PM
Sung in Italian with English surtitles
Running time: 2 hours and 50 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.
When young Angelina momentarily escapes her ungrateful stepfamily to attend a royal ball in disguise, she meets Prince Ramiro, who vows to find her after she disappears into the night. In this city-centric take on the Cinderella story, two familiar Boston neighborhoods set the stage where boy and girl meet and sweep each other off their feet. With its beautiful melodies and sparkling vocals, the magic of Rossini’s energetic score illuminates the heart of the story. Don’t miss BLO’s new production of La Cenerentola, conducted by David Angus and directed by Dawn M. Simmons in her opera debut.
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“Rossini’s opera version, with libretto by Jacopo Ferretti, dispenses with fairy dust in favor of more earthly interventions, maintaining its magic with beautiful melodies and an energetic score.”
– Broadway World
October 10, 2023
“In a statement, Simmons said, “I hope ‘La Cenerentola’ romances audiences. The magic is in the music, in the simplicity of boy-meets-girl and how they sweep each other off their feet.”
– OperaWire
David Angus
Conductor
David Angus | Conductor
Now in his fourteenth year as Boston Lyric Opera’s music director, David Angus recently served as music director and conductor for the critically acclaimed online productions of desert in and The Fall of the House of Usher, as well as BLO’s backwards La Bohème and Anne Bogart’s striking production of Bluebeard’s Castle. In addition to his work with BLO, he just conducted a new Sweeney Todd at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, The Marriage of Figaro in Prague, and several recordings of new American works with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Prior to his time at BLO, Angus was music director of The Glimmerglass Festival and Chief Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Flanders. He has led orchestras and choirs throughout Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, including the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and several Danish orchestras. Born in England, he has conducted most of the major orchestras in Great Britain, including the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, most of the BBC orchestras, the London Mozart Players, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He recently debuted with the Toscanini Orchestra in Parma and the Porto Symphony Orchestra in Portugal. He returned to Wexford Festival Opera, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the LPO, and the Huddersfield Choral Society, as well as to his former orchestra in Belgium. Angus was a boy chorister at King’s College under Sir David Willcocks and read music at Surrey University. He was a conducting fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he won several prizes for opera conducting.
Dawn M. Simmons
Stage Director
Dawn M. Simmons | Stage Director
Dawn M. Simmons makes her directorial debut with Boston Lyric Opera with this production of La Cenerentola. Regional credits include: The Huntington, JAG Productions, Play On Shakespeare, The Hangar Theatre, and WAM Theatre. Local credits include: Wheelock Family Theatre, Front Porch Arts Collective, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Central Square Theater, New Repertory Theatre, The Gloucester Stage Company, Greater Boston Stage Company, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Bad Habit Productions, New Exhibition Room, Boston Public Works, Fresh Ink Theatre, and Our Place Theatre Project. Simmons is a Co-Producing Artistic Director of the Front Porch Arts Collective. She also serves on the boards of Arts Connect International and White Snake Projects and is Co-Artistic Director of New Exhibition Room.
Jenna Lord
Set Designer
Jenna Lord | Set Designer
Jenna McFarland Lord is an award-winning scenic, environmental, and production designer. Over the past 22 years, Ms. McFarland Lord has designed shows for several professional companies in Boston such as: The Prom, BLKS, and The Color Purple, SpeakEasy Stage Company; Grand Horizons and Spring Awakening, The Gloucester Stage Company; Calendar Girls and Something’s Afoot, Greater Boston Stage; Paradise, The Convert, Central Square Theater; In The Heights, Wheelock Family Theatre; Cherry Docs, New Repertory Theatre; Fabulation and The Last Five Years, Lyric Stage Company of Boston; Così fan tutte, Boston Conservatory at Berklee; and Don Giovanni, New England Conservatory. Off-Broadway credits: The Secret of Mme. Bonnard’s Bath, New York Playwrights’ Lab; and Man in Snow, La MaMa Experimental Theatre. She created the interior industrial design for Station1 and she was the production coordinator for the scenic elements for the Boston Winter Festival in Government Center Plaza. Jenna McFarland Lord was the production designer on the film YE!, written and directed by John ADEkoje. In addition to her professional design career, Ms. Lord is proud to be in her fifteenth year as the set design teacher at Boston Arts Academy, Boston’s only public high school for the arts.
Trevor Bowen
Costume Designer
Trevor Bowen | Costume Designer
Trevor Bowen is a costume designer based in the Twin Cities. He graduated from West Virginia University with a Master of Fine Arts. Since then, he was employed in multiple roles in the Long Wharf Theater costume shop, beginning as an intern while still in graduate school. In 2012, he moved to the Twin Cities to continue work as a design assistant, and moved into becoming a full time costume designer in 2013 with the Pillsbury House Theater production of The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry. Since then, he has worked at various Twin Cities and regional houses, including Asolo Repertory Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Mixed Blood Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, The Jungle Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre, Children’s Theatre Company, and the 5th Avenue Theatre.Bailey Costa | Lighting Designer
Bailey Costa is a NYC-based lighting designer working in theatre, opera, and dance. Recent designs include: Here Be Sirens (upcoming), Mannes Opera; L’incoronazione di Poppea, Manhattan School of Music; LA RACE, Off-Broadway; SKIN: A New Musical, Rattlestick Global Forms Theater Festival; and Don’t Stop Me, a new dance-a-thon musical to the death (Manhattan School of Music). She serves as the assistant lighting designer for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. Ms. Costa received her bachelor’s degree from Boston’s Suffolk University and her MFA from NYU Tisch.
Priscilla Bruce | Wig-Makeup Designer
PRISCILLA BRUCE is an East Coast-based wig, hair, and makeup artist. She has spent over 15 years in nearly every corner of the industry from opera and theatre design to wig building, commercial print work, film, photoshoots, bridal hair, and makeup. Ms. Bruce holds a BA in theatre arts from Salisbury University and received her license and training in cosmetology from Aveda Institute Chicago. Notable engagements include: Il Trovatore, Washington National Opera; Into The Woods, Annapolis Opera; The Mortification of Fovea Munson (World Premiere) and Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie (World Premiere), The Kennedy Center; Bluebeard’s Castle | Four Songs, Boston Lyric Opera; Fellow Travelers, The Fix (World Premiere), Elektra, Carmen, The Daughter of the Regiment, and Don Giovanni (upcoming production), Minnesota Opera; and Faust (upcoming production), Wolf Trap Opera.Angie Jepson | Intimacy Director
ANGIE JEPSON is an intimacy director, fight choreographer, actress, and professor based in the Boston area. Her fight and intimacy work has been seen onstage at theaters including the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Huntington Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Gloucester Stage, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Greater Boston Stage Company, Central Square Theater, and at several universities in the Boston area. She is currently on the faculty of the Brown/Trinity MFA Acting program, and at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she teaches in the theatre and opera departments. She is a certified intimacy director with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, and a certified teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors. She holds an MFA in Acting from Brandeis University.Cecelia Hall | Angelina
Cecelia Hall has appeared since 2014 in leading roles on many of the world’s finest stages, including The Metropolitan Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Canadian Opera Company, Opera Philadelphia, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Oper Frankfurt, where she is currently a member of the ensemble.
Highlights of her 2022/23 season include Serse, Serse, Komische Oper Berlin; A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York’s Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Harry Bicket; Ariodante, Ariodante, Israeli Opera; and leading roles at Oper Frankurt including Charlotte, Werther; Irene, Tamerlano; Second Lady, Die Zauberflöte; and La mère d’Iseult, Le vin herbé. Performances in 2023/24 include appearances with Boston Lyric Opera and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
A noted recitalist, Ms. Hall has appeared at New York’s Carnegie Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall. Concert highlights include Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Requiem with Louis Langrée at the Mostly Mozart Festival; Les nuits d’été with the Bay Atlantic Symphony, and Second Lady, Die Zauberflöte, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.
Ms. Hall is an alumna of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, The Juilliard School, and DePaul University.
Dana Varga | Clorinda
Dana Lynne Varga is a dynamic interpreter of a wide variety of repertoire on opera and concert stages. She frequently solos at Carnegie Hall, most recently singing the Fauré Requiem and Mozart Requiem with the New York City Chamber Orchestra, as well as the Brahms Requiem and Haydn Lord Nelson Mass with the New England Symphonic Ensemble. Favorite opera roles include Pallas Athene, Paride ed Elena, Odyssey Opera; Micaëla, Carmen, MassOpera; Fiordiligi, Così fan tutte, Commonwealth Opera, CT Lyric, and Boston Midsummer Opera; Donna Elvira, Don Giovanni, MassOpera; Alcina, Alcina, Boston Opera Collaborative; Adina (cover)/Giannetta, L’elisir d’amore, Teatro Nuovo; and Musetta, La bohème, PANopera. Highlights of Ms. Varga’s busy concert career have included Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Cantata Singers, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony with the Metropolitan Chorale, Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor with Coro Allegro, Beethoven’s Mass in C at Tanglewood and countless performances of Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony across the eastern seaboard. Ms. Varga was the first-place winner of the 2016 Classical Singer National Vocal Competition. An accomplished voice teacher and career coach, Ms. Varga is a fierce advocate for singers, devoted to progressive change in the classical vocal industry.Alexis Peart | Tisbe
Mezzo-soprano Alexis Peart joins Boston Lyric Opera as a Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist, making her company debut as Tisbe, La Cenerentola, also singing Big Stone, Eurydice and covering Dorothée, L’Amant Anonyme. She is the featured mezzo-soprano in a world premiere by Kitty Brazelton to accompany FirstWorks (RI)’s bespoke public art experience in collaboration with Masary Studios. She also performs frequently with groups like Castle of Our Skins and the Assabet Valley Mastersingers.In 2022/23, Ms. Peart performed as the Voice of Israel, The Ordering of Moses, Rochester Oratorio Society; the mezzo soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Boston University Philharmonic Orchestra; and covered Carmen, La Tragédie de Carmen, Chautauqua Opera. She appeared with the Boston University Opera Institute as Jo, Little Women; Ruggiero, Alcina; and Brittomara, If I Were You, and is a 2022 winner of the Boston University Carnegie Hall competition.
Especially apt with new music, Ms. Peart debuted Ada Lovelace, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage (world premiere), Guerilla Opera; and presented the first live performance of Love in the Time Of (world premiere), Boston Opera Collaborative. She can be heard on the Grammy-nominated recording of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X produced by Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera.
Levy Sekgapane | Don Ramiro
South African tenor Levy Sekgapane studied under Kamal Khan and Hanna van Niekerk at the South African College of Music (University of Cape Town). In 2015, he won First Prize at the Belvedere Competition and the Monserrat Caballé International Singing Competition. In 2017, he won First Prize at Operalia, subsequently debuting at Paris National Opera, Bavarian State Opera, El Liceu, and other major houses.
Sekgapane’s 22/23 season highlights included Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Vienna State Opera; Idreno, Semiramide, Deutsche Oper Berlin; Don Pasquale, Teatro Petruzelli; La Cenerentola, Zürich Opera and Semperoper Dresden; and Nadir, Les Pecheurs de perles.
Notable past engagements include The Time of Our Singing (World Premiere), La Monnaie; Ramiro, La Cenerentola, Los Angeles Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Staatsopera Hamburg, and Opéra royal de Wallonie; Ernesto, Don Pasquale, Staatsoper Hamburg and Latvian National Opera; Adina, Rossini Opera Festival and Wexford Opera; Count Almaviva, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Malmö Opera, Teatro Massimo Palermo, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Paris Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Glyndebourne; Il Turco in Italia, Staatsoper Hamburg; Arbace, Idomeneo, Salzburg Festival; Conte di Libenskof, Il viaggio a Reims, Royal Danish Opera; and Nemorino, L’elisir d’amore, Staatstheater Wiesbaden.
Concert work includes performances with Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, Salle Gaveu, and Basílica de Santa María del Mar. In 2019, his first solo CD of Rossini arias was released by Prima Classic.
Levi Hernandez | Dandini
In the 2022/23 season, Levi Hernandez sang in Opera Idaho’s Celebrando a México concert; Lescaut, Manon Lescaut, North Carolina Opera; and Papageno (cover), Die Zauberflöte and Dulcamara, L’elisir d’amore, The Metropolitan Opera. He appeared as Rappaccini, La hija de Rappaccini, Chicago Opera Theater; Tonio, Pagliacci, Opera Colorado and El Paso Opera; and Aba, El milagro del recuerdo, Houston Grand Opera. He has sung Pa Joad, The Grapes of Wrath with numerous companies. Other recent performances include Marcello, La bohème, Opera Colorado; Inspector Kildare, Elizabeth Cree, Chicago Opera Theater; Álvaro, Florencia en el Amazonas, San Diego Opera and Madison Opera; and Ford, Falstaff, Intermountain Opera. He debuted with Houston Grand Opera as Sharpless, Madama Butterfly, and has covered roles at the Metropolitan Opera in The Death of Klinghoffer, Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Carmen.
Mr. Hernandez has been a concert soloist with the El Paso Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Pennsylvania Ballet, and Cheyenne Symphony, among others. Recent repertoire includes Handel’s Messiah, Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, Handel’s Alexander’s Feast, Dvorak’s Te Deum, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. He was a 2002 Metropolitan Opera National Council Awards and OPERALIA finalist, and a Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation grant recipient. After graduating from Westminster Choir College, Mr. Hernandez studied at the Academy of Vocal Arts.
Brandon Cedel | Don Magnifico
American bass-baritone Brandon Cedel is a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and was an ensemble member of Oper Frankfurt from 2016-2019.
Highlights of his 2022/23 season include Dan Brown, The Hours, Metropolitan Opera; Hercules, Hercules, Karlsruhe Handel Festival; Don Giovanni, Don Giovanni, Atlanta Opera; and Bottom, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Glyndebourne Festival. On the concert platform, he sings Levite in an international tour of Handel’s Solomon with The English Concert under Harry Bicket, and Christus in Bach’s Matthäus-Passion with Music of the Baroque under Dame Jane Glover.
Recent appearances include Figaro, Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne Festival; Dan Brown, The Hours (World Premiere), Philadelphia Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Zuniga, Carmen, Chicago Opera Theater; Masetto, Don Giovanni, Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago; Leporello, Don Giovanni and Argante, Rinaldo, Glyndebourne Festival; Collatinus, The Rape of Lucretia, Boston Lyric Opera; Figaro, Le nozze di Figaro, Opera Philadelphia and Stuttgart Staatsoper; and Colline, La bohème and Basilio, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Canadian Opera Company.
His roles for Oper Frankfurt include Masetto, Don Giovanni; Sprecher, Die Zauberflöte; Lieutenant Ratcliffe, Billy Budd; Argante, Ariodante; Xerxes, Xerxes; Cesare, Giulio Cesare; Angelotti, Tosca; Brander, La damnation de Faust; and Achior, La Betulia liberata.
James Demler | Alidoro
Bass-baritone James Demler is known for his versatile range of repertory. He has been an annual favorite with Boston’s Odyssey Opera, with recent roles including Pistol, Sir John in Love; Jov, Dimitrij; Pietro de Wissant, L’Assedio di Calais; and Earl of Arundel, Chronicle of Nine (world premiere), which was recorded with the Grammy-winning BMOP Orchestra. In 2023, Mr. Demler joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera, covering the Notary in Der Rosenkavalier. This season, he also sings Don Alfonso, Così fan tutte, Newport Festival and Benoit/Alcindoro, La Bohème, Berkshire Opera Festival; and will debut with Orlando Opera as The Water Goblin, Rusalka.
Recent engagements include performances with Boston Lyric Opera, White Snake Projects, The Boston Pops, Houston Symphony, and Ottawa Orchestra. He played Noah in Wes Anderson’s film Moonrise Kingdom and has performed internationally in Belgium, Germany, Egypt, and Canada. Features on opera recordings include The Importance of Being Earnest, Odyssey Opera; Bandanna, Las Vegas Philharmonic, and Shining Brow, Buffalo Philharmonic.
Mr. Demler holds degrees in vocal performance from The University of New Mexico, The University of Arizona, and The Eastman School of Music. He was a Fellow at the Aspen School of Music and the Houston Opera Studio, and teaches at Boston University.
Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont Street | Boston, MA | 02116
