ARIA SERIOUS?

For Falstaff rehearsals we once again invited a group of painters, sketchers, and comic book artists to live sketch the action on stage. You can find many of them o n our Facebook page . Julie Hampton was one of the artists that joined us. Julie is an architect, author and illustrator. Most of her illustration work has been developed for the children’s picture book world, so plenty of animals, children, and fantasy creatures. And robots!   She loves to draw pattern and detail. Her work is created in graphite pencil, Prismacolor, and marker. She is also experienced in Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash Animation and other digital media. You can see more of her work at her website: juliehampton.com

Photo by Victoria Janishvili Soprano Ellie Dehn was last with us in 2015 as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and was a favorite in town as Mimi in La Boheme back in 2010. Ellie easily avoids the diva stereotype in rehearsals and has already been a joy to be around this week. Did I mention she sounds incredible to boot? You'll get to hear her sing the role of Alice Ford in a few weeks (Falstaff opens on February 18th, 2017) but here are ten questions she answered for us where she speaks about her love of teaching, Bryn Terfel, and Sufjan Stevens. 1. What was your last gig before coming to San Diego? I was just in Napoli singing Musetta in La Boheme. The theater was stunningly beautiful, and it’s always fun to perform Puccini to an audience that knows every word of the score 2. Can you tell us a little about your role in Falstaff? This is my first Alice Ford. Falstaff is based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. It’s a very int

Roberto di Candia's long awaited debut in San Diego can't come soon enough, so we reached out to him earlier this month for a casual interview and to cool our toes. Can you tell us a little about your role in Falstaff? Sir John Falstaff is an impoverished noble man that carries his life trying to survive with all the means he can and living with two thieves that ensure him a certain amount of money in order to get wine, mostly, and food. Without going too deeply into the plot, we see him trying to “seduce” two ladies, Alice and Meg, in order to get into their purses.Not only, according to me. He also feels like he could be sexy again and really he will feel desirable again. What he doesn’t know is that everybody is making plans against him but he is too smart and wit and in the end he will win over everybody else with his irony. "Tutto nel mondo è burla"  How do you relate/feel about your character or their personality? I just love this character