ARIA SERIOUS?

Wisconsin native mezzo-soprano Emily Fons made her debut with SDO in 2015 as Zerlina in Don Giovanni . Her success in opera has included appearances with the Atlanta Opera, Kentucky Opera, the Berlin Philharmonic, Opéra de Lille, and the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy in Tokyo, Kyoto. Emily also created the role of Ruby in Santa Fe Opera's world premiere of Jennifer Higdon's GRAMMY nominated Cold Mountain. We're excited to host her (and her dog) when she gets in to San Diego in less than two weeks! 1. What was your last gig before coming to San Diego? My last gig was the title role in Cesti's L'Orontea with Haymarket Opera in Chicago. 2. How do you relate to/feel about your character (Cherubino) in The Marriage of Figaro ? I just love Cherubino. I feel like he is the child inside of me that needs to be nurtured and allowed to play and explore and get in trouble and find his way. I love the freshness of his experiences and his emotions, I love the emotio...

American mezzo-soprano and graduate of The Julliard School, Susanne Mentzer made her Company debut as Rosina in 1987’s The Barber of Seville and returned to sing Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier in 1992. We're excited to have here back this season to play Marcellina in our Fall production of The Marriage of Figaro (October 20,23,26,28). Boasting an impressive career that features her voice on over 25 recordings, Ms. Mentzer maintains a private voice studio at San Francisco Conservatory and answered ten questions for us to get to know her a little bit better behind-the-scenes. 1. What was your last gig before coming to San Diego? Teaching at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I do not perform as regularly as I used to and have turned much of my attention to teaching and special projects.  2. How do you relate to/feel about your character in The Marriage of Figaro, Marcellina? After singing hundreds of performances as Cherubino, I turned down early offers to sing Marcell...

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...