Karen Myers as Violetta and Gilda
Acclaimed for her “exquisite artistic and dramatic interpretation”, Ms. Myers has performed extensively across the U.S., as well as in Germany, Austria, Australia and Greece. Her operatic performances include Konstanze, Zerbinetta, Die Königin der Nacht, Violetta, Gilda, Micaëla, Susanna, and Clorinda, among others. She also performed the “Mad Scene” from Lucia di Lammermoor in both Weiz and Graz, Austria under the baton of Edoardo Müller. Ms. Myers has performed with the Baltimore Opera, Baltimore Concert Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Fort Worth Opera Outreach, Abeline Opera, Summer Opera Theater Company, Dallas Opera Project, Opera Aegean, Peabody Opera Theater, Baylor Opera Theater, and the Lyric Opera of Waco. Ms. Myers is a recipient of the George Castel Memorial Award for Outstanding Vocal Performer from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University

Equally at home in oratorio and symphonic works, she has been engaged as the soloist for Carmina Burana, Judas Macabeus, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate, numerous Bach’s Cantatas, b minor Mass and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Recent solo performances include Handel’s Messiah , a Christmas Pops Concert, a Cole Porter/George Gershwin concert and the role of Magnolia in Showboat with the Annapolis Chorale , two operatic recitals and the Faure Requiem on the Mosaic Concert Series in Baltimore, St. John’s Passion, the Bach Magnificat, the Vivaldi Magnificat and Cantata 51 with the Baltimore Bach Concert Series, as well as the Vivaldi Magnificat, the Vivaldi Gloria, Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum and Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli with the Harford Choral Society. Ms. Myers also recently performed as soloist for the Baltimore premiere of Directions in Singing by Andrew Fowler, a large work for orchestra, soloists and chorus commissioned in honor of the 300th birthday of composer Charles Wesley. She joined the Baltimore Opera Chorus two years ago for La Forza del Destino, Madama Butterfly, Aida and Norma and recently returned to the Lyric Opera House for New Jersey Opera’s production of Carmen. She also recently covered the role of Micaëla in Summer Opera Theater Company’s production of Carmen at the Harman Center for the Arts. Ms. Myers is engaged to appear this spring with the Annapolis Chorale in their annual gala and as soprano soloist for St Matthew’s Passion, as a featured soprano for Sotto Sopra’s monthly Opera Night in Baltimore, on the Mosaic Concert Series in Baltimore, with Baltimore Opera Theater as Il Paggio in Rigoletto and as both Gilda (Rigoletto) and Violetta (La Traviata) in Baltimore Concert Opera’s season finale, A Flight of Verdi.

Thomas Booth as Otello
Internationally acclaimed tenor Thomas Booth has performed widely in opera and concert around the United States and throughout Europe and other parts of the World.  His principal vocal training was at the Juilliard School in New York with Russian Bass Alexander Kipnis and also privately with Metropolitan Opera tenors James King and John Alexander.  He holds his Masters in Voice and Opera Performance form Northwestern International University in Denmark and his Bachelors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Under management with Columbia Artists and later ICM Artists Ltd., Mr. Booth sang with the Metropolitan Opera in Principal and Leading Roles for nine seasons and sang for five seasons with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and also with the New York City Opera. He has performed across the United States in most every state and in New Orleans, Miami, Memphis, Seattle, Dallas, Philadelphia,  Milwaukee, Portland ( Maine and Oregon), Boston, San Diego, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Disney's Epcot Center, The Spoletto Festival USA and many other cities.  In Europe and Internationally  Mr. Booth has sung in Rome, London, Nice on the French Riviera, Nantes and Montptellier, France, in Belgium, Ireland, Warsaw, Stockholm, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Mexico City, Monterrey, Montreal, the Spanish Canary Islands, Frankfurt, Aachen, Saarbrucken and other German cities,  in South Africa and Tokyo.  He has sung the World Premier of George Lloyd's The Vigil of Venus at London's Royal Festival Hall, The American Premier of John Cage's Europa in New York the Israeli Premier of Naom Sherif's The Sephardic Passion in Tel Aviv.  Mr. Booth has been heard numerous times on National Public Radio via performances from the Met, Lyric Opera and broadcasts of his recordings of John Socman and The Vigil of Venus and Boris Godunov.  He has appeared on PBS in Illinois in a US premier of Verdi’s Messa Solenne. He has also appeared onstage with each of the Three Tenors.

Jonathan Carle as Germont, Iago and Rigoletto
Jonathan Carle has performed with some of North America’s leading regional opera companies such as Opera North, Minnesota Opera, Commonwealth Opera, Opera in Concert (Toronto), Sarasota Opera, Green Mountain Opera Festival and Glimmerglass Opera. Building a comprehensive repertoire of some twenty leading roles, Mr. Carle’s resume includes the title roles in Don Giovanni, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Nixon in China and Don Quixote (Telemann), as well as Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Dr. Miracle (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), Ford (Falstaff), Frank (Die Fledermaus), Escamillo (Carmen), Janusz (Halka), Filippo (Beatrice di Tenda), Count di Luna (Il Trovator), Silvio (Pagliacci), and Seid (Il Corsaro).

In the title role of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Jonathan Carle was described as a singer with “a natural feeling for line, fluid stage movement and nefarious good looks [whose] voice is a model of melodious charm.”  In La Boheme, Mr. Carle’s “full-bodied baritone carried well across Puccini's chocolaty orchestration,”while “his strong acting gave Marcello the weight the character requires.”  As Sharpless, Mr. Carle was “successful both vocally and dramatically. His Sharpless… was deeply felt and expressed, as well as beautifully sung.”

Equally at home in oratorio, Mr. Carle’s solo concert credits are Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, the Brahms and Mozart Requiems, Handel’s Messiah, Vaughan William’s Five Mystical Songs and Hodie, Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ, the Bach and Saint-Saëns Christmas Oratorios, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. As a recitalist, Mr. Carle has performed for Glimmerglass Opera, Radio Canada and the Resident Artist series at the Minnesota Institute of Art. His song repertoire covers the Renaissance to contemporary works including world premieres.

Rolando Sanz as Alfredo and Duca
Tenor Rolando Sanz is quickly gaining recognition for his “sensitive” and “luminous” portrayals of such leading lyric tenor roles as Rodolfo, Tamino, Nemorino, Alfredo, Pinkerton and Le Prince Charmant.

In the 2008-2009 season, Rolando debuted with Palm Beach Opera as Rodolfo in La boheme and Flavio in Norma, as well as covering Duca di Mantua in Rigoletto. Upcoming engagements include a solo recital in Washington, DC and a debut with Opera Costa Rica, as well as a world premiere song cycle by preeminent American composer, Ezra Laderman.

The 2007-2008 season included a debut with Opera Idaho as Nemorino in L’elisir d’Amore, and a return to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis to sing Nathaniel in The Tales of Hoffmann under Stephen Lord as well as to cover Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly. Most recently, he was a finalist for the Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Recent engagements include Alfredo in La traviata, conducted by Julius Rudel and L’Aumônier in Dialogues des Carmélites under the baton of James Conlon with the Aspen Music Festival. Other Aspen appearances include Mozart in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart & Salieri and Lippo Florentino in Street Scene.
[ Full Biography ]

Sarah Lambert as Annina, Emilia and Maddalena
Praised by critics as possessing a “strong, glamorous, clear voice full of color and emotion”, Mezzo-Soprano Sarah Lambert “uses her musical instinct, marvelous acting skills, and commitment to the psychological drama to great effect in all her performances” to “create fascinating, moving character portrayals onstage”. Her work “has elicited continuous praise of her dramatic malleability and has “achieved many memorable dramatic moments” onstage. “Conquering and seducing audiences not only with her voice but with her presence and her sensual and sure movements on the stage”, Ms. Lambert “rules the stage as Carmen” ~ Diario el Comercio, Quito, Ecuador. 18 October 2007 /~ Sarah Boslaugh, KDHX.org (KDHX Community Media) Saint Louis, MO. 29 August 2008.

Ms. Lambert has been affiliated with apprenticeship and education programs with the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and Lyric Opera Cleveland. She received a Bachelor of Music from the University of Miami in 1998, and a Master of Music in Performance and Literature from The Eastman School of Music in 2000.

Lesley Anne Friend as Desdemona
Lesley Anne Friend, 2010 Metropolitan Opera National Council Awards Semi-Finalists, and winner of awards from New Hampshire Opera Idol, Saritelli-DiPanni Bel Canto Fund, and Orpheus Competition, was recently seen creating the starring role of Myra Foster in a workshop staged reading of award winning composer Stephen Schwartz's first opera, Seance on a Wet Afternoon and as Mrs. Gobineau in Menotti's The Medium with Victoria Livengood as Baba, both at the Seagle Music Colony. Her other roles include: Miss Jessel in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw; the Female Chorus in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia; Elisabetta in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda; Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff; Ariadne in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos; Contessa D’Almaviva in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro; Geraldine in Barber’s A Hand of Bridge; and Magda Sorel in Menotti’s masterpiece, The Consul. Reprising her role from July 2005, Lesley can be heard on Albany Records premiere recording of Pasatieri's Signor Deluso as Clara with the Opera Company of Brooklyn. Ms. Friend recently sang her first Verdi Requiem with Boston’s Chorus Pro Musica. Lesley received her B.M. cum laude in Performance, in 2006 from Montclair State University, where she studied with Dr. Stephen Oosting; and her M.M. in Opera from The Boston Conservatory in 2008 and studies with Dr. Rebecca Folsom. This summer, she will sing the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica in Fidenza, Italy.

Matthew Curran as Lodovico
A native of Princeton, NJ, Matthew Curran, has garnered attention internationally with his broad range of repertoire and strong physical presence.  Critics have described him as having “the voice of a poet,” and a sound “that is confident and comes with a twinkle."

Mr. Curran has focused on the core bass repertoire such as Sarastro, Colline, Sarastro, Frère Laurent, Sparafucile and Gremin, while actively pursuing contemporary and lesser-known works such as Britten's Gloriana, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Rape of Lucretia, Stephen Schwartz’s Séance on a Wet Afternoon, Daron Hagen’s Shining Brow, Lowell Lieberman's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness, and Christopher Berg’s Cymbeline. He has also been a regular singer with American Opera Projects in numerous works in development as well as being a resident singer for their Composer and the Voice workshop for three seasons.

A cum laude graduate of the Loyola University New Orleans School of Music, he received his Master's degree at the prestigious Indiana University School of Music, which led him to being immediately accepted into the Seattle Opera's young artist program where he sang Colline in La Bohème, Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola and Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin on the main stage.  Following Seattle he furthered his training at the International Opera Studio in Zurich singing Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte, Macrobio in Rossini's La Pietra del Paragone, and Max Hammer in Der Musikfeind along with numerous smaller roles on the Main stage along side many of the world’s top names. He has performed with Seattle Opera, Zürich Opera, Opera New Jersey, New Orleans Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Central City Opera, Skagit Opera, Washington East Opera, Center City Opera Theater, Opera Company of Brooklyn, Castleton Festival, American Symphony Orchestra, and Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra among others.

Upcoming performances include Sparafucile in A Flight of Verdi with the Baltimore Concert Opera and Colline in La Bohème with Atlanta Opera.

Steven White - Conductor
Highly regarded for his inspirational leadership and musical integrity, Steven White is one of North America’s premiere opera conductors.  In the 2009-2010 season, Mr. White continues his relationship with the Metropolitan Opera, serving as cover conductor for La fille du régiment, La traviata, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert. Additionally, he conducts Tosca a tNashville Opera, followed by Hänsel und Gretel at Kentucky Opera, and a return to the Naples Philharmonic for Rigoletto.

In February of 2009 he joined the conducting staff of the Metropolitan Opera to serve as cover conductor for a new production of Bellini’s La sonnambula starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez. Other engagements during the 2008-2009 season included appearances with L’Opéra de Montréal (Lucia di Lammermoor), Baltimore Opera (Gala Concert), Opera Roanoke (Falstaff, Otello and Das Lied von der Erde) and the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra (Carmen). [ Full Biography ]

James Harp - Pianist
James Harp is well known in the Baltimore area as a stage director, pianist, organist, singer, composer, lecturer, writer and conductor. He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. He has been the Artistic Administrator of the Baltimore Opera Company since 1989 and has been the Chorus Master since 1993. Since 1983 he has served as organist for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and since 1987 has been the Cantor (Organist/Choirmaster) for Baltimore's historic St. Mark's Lutheran Church, where he also serves as Artistic Director of the St. Cecilia Society Concert Series.

His stage direction credits include such well known operas as Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni, Cosi Fan Tutte, and Carmen, as well as less well-known American works: Buxom Joan (Raynor Taylor); Slow Dusk(Carlisle Floyd); Beauty and the Beast (Vittorio Giannini); The Village Singer (Steven Paulus); Too Many Sopranos (Edwin Penhorwood); The Music Shop (Richard Wargo). As a solo singer he has performed with Baltimore Opera Company, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, Summer Opera Theatre of DC, Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia, and the Contemporary Music Forum of Washington, DC. He has appeared with the Young Vic in three productions: Ruddigore (Sir Despard Murgatroyd); The Gondoliers (Don Alhambra); and Iolanthe (Earl Mountararat).