The halls of BLO’s rehearsal space have been filled with music and laughter since our cast and creative team arrived, and we can’t wait to share La Cenerentola with you! Rossini’s sparkling music requires immaculate comic timing and vocal fireworks from the entire cast, and our singers are up to the challenge. A true ensemble cast, this team of internationally acclaimed artists will wow you with their voices, make you laugh, and warm your heart. Let’s meet them!
Cecelia Hall sings leading roles as a member of Oper Frankfurt’s prestigious ensemble and appears regularly as a guest artist on many of the world’s finest stages.
Highlights of her 2022/23 season included A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York’s Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) conducted by Harry Bicket; Serse, Serse, Komische Oper Berlin; Ariodante, Ariodante, The Israeli Opera conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi; and leading roles at Oper Frankurt including Charlotte, Werther and Irene, Tamerlano.
La Cenerentola marks her role and house debut with Boston Lyric Opera. Other highlights of her 2023/24 season include her debut with the New York Philharmonic for Mozart’s Requiem, conducted by Jaap van Zweden; Ascanio, Ascanio in Alba with Oper Frankfurt; and Bach’s St. John Passion with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century.
Ms. Hall is an alumna of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s PATRICK G AND SHIRLEY W RYAN OPERA CENTER, The Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, The Juilliard School, and DePaul University.
South African tenor Levy Sekgapanestudied under Kamal Khan and Hanna van Niekerk at theSouth African College Of Music(University of Cape Town). In 2015, he won First Prize at theInternational Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competitionand the Monserrat Caballé International Singing Competition. In 2017, he won First Prize at Operalia, subsequently debuting atOpera National de Paris,Bayerische Staatsoper,Fundació del Gran Teatre del Liceu, and other major houses.
Sekgapane’s 22/23 season highlights included Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Wiener Staatsoper; Idreno, Semiramide, Deutsche Oper Berlin; Don Pasquale, Teatro Petruzzelli; La Cenerentola, Opernhaus Zürich 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, LA Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Hamburgische Staatsoper GmbH, and Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège; Ernesto, Don Pasquale, Hamburgische Staatsoper and Latvian National Opera and Ballet (LNOB); Adina, Rossini Opera Festival and Wexford Festival Opera; Count Almaviva, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Malmö Opera, FONDAZIONE TEATRO MASSIMO, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Opera National de Paris, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Glyndebourne; Il Turco in Italia, Hamburgische Staatsoper; Arbace, Idomeneo, Salzburger Festspiele; Conte di Libenskof, Il viaggio a Reims, Det Kongelige Teater; and Nemorino, L’elisir d’amore, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden.
Concert work includes performances with Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Theatre du Capitole Toulouse, Salle Gaveau, and Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar. In 2019, his first solo CD of Rossini arias was released by Prima Classic.
In the 2022/23 season, Levi Hernandez sang inOpera 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 Bozeman. 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 Orchstra Assn, Charlotte Symphony, The Phoenix Symphony, Philadelphia Ballet, and Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, 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 theThe Academy of Vocal Arts.
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, The Metropolitan Opera; Hercules, Hercules, The Händel-Festspiele Badisches STAATSTHEATER Karlsruhe; Don Giovanni, Don Giovanni, The Atlanta Opera; and Bottom, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Glyndebourne. 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, Leporello, Don Giovanni and Argante, Rinaldo, Glyndebourne Festival; Dan Brown, The Hours (World Premiere), The Philadelphia Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Zuniga, Carmen, Chicago Opera Theater; Masetto, Don Giovanni, The Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago; Collatinus, The Rape of Lucretia, Boston Lyric Opera; Figaro, Le nozze di Figaro, Opera Philadelphia and Staatsoper Stuttgart; 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.
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, Connecticut Lyric Opera, 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’s 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.
In the 2023/24 season, Alexis Peart joins Boston Lyric Opera as an Emerging Artist, making her company debut as Tisbe, La Cenerentola; Big Stone, Eurydice; and Dorothée (cover), L’Amant Anonyme. She is featured as the Vocal Quartet Mezzo-Soprano in Jorge Sosa’s Monkey with WHITE SNAKE PROJECTS and as the mezzo in a world premiere by Kitty Brazelton to accompany FirstWorks (RI)’s bespoke public art experience with MASARY Studios.
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 Carmen (cover) in La Tragédie de Carmen, Chautauqua Opera. She appeared frequently with the Boston University Opera Institute, most recently as Jo, Little Women; Ruggiero, Alcina; and Brittomara, If I Were You. Ms. Peart is a two-time alumna of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts Opera Studio (2020/2021) and 2022 winner of the Boston University Carnegie Hall competition.
Ms. Peart debuted as 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, a song cycle commissioned by Boston Opera Collaborative. She can be heard on the Grammy-nominated recording of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera; and on several art song recordings released by PARMA Recordings, LLC.
Philip Lima has sung leading roles with the Kurt Weill Festival, numerous regional American opera companies, and the Handel and Haydn Society in works including Semele, Così fan tutte, Samson et Dalila, Tosca, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Vanessa, and The Rape of Lucretia. Other notable work includes roles in the world premieres of operas by Leslie Burrs, Nathan Davis, Mary Watkins, and Larry Thomas Bell.
Mr. Lima has sung with over 70 orchestras, choral societies, and concert series nationally and internationally. Notable repertoire includes Bach’s St. John Passion, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles, Brubeck’s The Light in the Wilderness, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, Mendelssohn’s Grosse Festmusik zum Dürerfest, and Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée. He has been acclaimed for his performances of Hoiby’s setting of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and is featured on the recording of pioneering African-American composer Florence Price’s Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight that won the 2020 American Prize for the Performance of American Music.
A native of New Bedford, Massachusetts and an alumnus of Yale University, Mr. Lima studied at Tanglewood Music Center and Boston University, and is Assistant Chair of Berklee College of Music’s Voice Department.
Join us for a magical evening of music, comedy, and romance! La Cenerentolaplays November, 8, 10, and 12 at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre.