Candide

Conductor of opera, oratorio and symphonic works, and educator, Joseph Colaneri’s achievements are outstanding in each of the areas in his multi-faceted career.  After fifteen seasons as a member of the conducting roster of the Metropolitan Opera, Maestro Colaneri is the newly appointed Artistic Director of the West Australian Opera in Perth and concurrently serves as Artistic Director of  Opera at Mannes College The New School for Music in New York.

Joseph Colaneri made his conducting debut at the Metropolitan Opera with a performance of La bohème in fall 2000.  In the 2009-2010 season he replaced James Levine for the run of the Metropolitan’s Luc Bondy production of Tosca, and led performances of Don Pasquale in the 2010-2011 season.  In most recent  seasons Maestro Colaneri had led the Robert Carsen production of La fanciulla del west at Den Norske Opera in Oslo, returned to the Chautauqua Opera for Norma Luisa Miller and Lucia di Lammermoor, and returned to the West Australian Opera in Perth for Tosca.

Maestro Colaneri opens the 2012-2013 season in Perth with Madama Butterfly, followed by Tosca for the Portland Opera, Un giorno di regno at Glimmerglass, and continues his leadership in Perth with La traviata in April of 2013.

From the time of his Metropolitan Opera debut he has conducted Luisa Miller in season 2001-2002 and conducted all of the popular Met in the Parks performances of Turandot with Andrea Gruber in season 2002-2003, L’Italiana in Algeri with Olga Borodina in season 2003-2004, Nabucco featuring Maria Guleghina in spring 2005 at Lincoln Center, as well as Rigoletto in the Metropolitan Opera Parks performances.   In 2005-2006 he conducted Falstaff at the Metropolitan with Bryn Terfel in the title role. Continuing with the Italian repertoire, he conducted Il trittico in season 2006-2007.  In the 2007-2008 Metropolitan Opera season, Maestro Colaneri conducted two of Donizetti’s masterpieces: La Fille du Régiment with Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez and Mary Zimmerman’s new production of Lucia di Lammermoor with Miss Dessay in the title role.

Maestro Colaneri is also in demand as an opera conductor abroad. He made his debut conducting Madama Butterfly for the West Australian Opera and has returned to that company for productions of La bohème and Il barbiere di Siviglia.  He made his Glimmerglass conducting debut in the Kevin Newbury production of La Cenerentola in 2009 and has conducted Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, and Le nozze di Figaro, at Chautauqua Opera, where he has also conducted productions of Don Pasquale, Macbeth, Werther, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, as well as all-Verdi and all-Puccini concerts with the Chautauqua Symphony.  Maestro Colaneri made his conducting debut at the Portland Opera in Oregon with performances of Frank Corsaro’s production of Madama Butterfly returning in subsequent seasons for Norma and Carmen. In the spring of 2009 he conducted double bill of Suor Angelica and Cavalleria rusticana for the Orlando Opera.

Equally at home on the concert podium, Maestro Colaneri has conducted the Tokyo Philharmonic in a concert program of opera arias and musical theater selections starring Renée Fleming, which was telecast throughout Asia by the NHK. Building on their collaboration at the Met, he conducted Jianyi Zhang and Richard Zeller in an opera highlights program with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan in Taipei, and bass Samuel Ramey in an ‘All-Devils concert’ in Orlando, Florida. He also conducted the prestigious 2004 Richard Tucker Gala at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in a celebrated Gay Men’s Health Crisis benefit at Avery Fisher Hall.   A regular guest of the Berkshire Choral Festival since 1995, Maestro Colaneri lead a performance of the Verdi’s Messa da requiem, which marked the Festival’s 20th anniversary. He made his Canadian conducting debut was with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in performances of Handel’s Messiah.

Prior to joining the Metropolitan Opera, Joseph Colaneri was associated with the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center for fifteen years culminating in his appointment, in 1995, as Acting Music Director.  He was honored with the company’s Julius Rudel Award during the 1994 season.  Beginning with his New York City Opera debut conducting South Pacific, he has since led over 60 performances of  The Barber of Seville, La bohème, Carmen, Rigoletto, Tosca, La traviata, The New Moon and The Merry Widow.  Highlights of his New York City Opera career include the highly acclaimed 1993 world premiere of Hugo Weisgall’s Esther, the 1995 American Premiere of the Toshiro Mayuzumi opera Kinkakuji: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and Britten’s parable Curlew River with performances incorporating Noh theatre elements.

Early in his career Maestro Colaneri served as Music Director of the New York City Opera National Company.  In his final season, he cast and led the touring company’s production of La bohème in performances throughout the United States.  Writing of his performance, The Plain Dealer reported  “the excellence began in the pit, where music director Joseph Colaneri led an account of Puccini’s score that had poetry, thrust and a sense of textural wonderment.  Colaneri obviously has lived with the piece and explored its every nook and cranny.”  With the National Company he produced and conducted national touring productions of La fille du Régiment, Tosca, Carmen, Madama Butterfly, The Barber of Seville, and La traviata.  Continuing his work with young artists and audience outreach, Mr. Colaneri frequently conducted productions for the Western Opera Theater, among them La traviata, Rigoletto, Die Fledermaus, Gianni Schicchi and Suor Angelica. 

With uncommon dedication for an active conductor, Joseph Colaneri continues to thrive in preparing and guiding young vocalists in the early years of their professional careers.  This commitment led to his appointment as Director of the Opera Program at Mannes College of Music in New York.  Mr. Colaneri enjoys his work with his faculty colleagues as they mold a program best suited to help these emerging artists prepare for the demands of professional careers.  He frequently gives master classes with apprentices at companies such as Opera North and Chautauqua Opera and is a regular guest conductor in Graz for concerts at the American Institute for Musical Studies.  Building on the success of the annual opera scenes program at the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse in New York, in 2004 he initiated fully-staged productions which he conducts.  The students of Mannes College of Music received outstanding praise from Anne Midgette in The New York Times. “People in the opera world often ask: Where are all the good, healthy young voices? Here's an answer: at the Mannes College of Music... Credit goes to Joseph Colaneri, the evening's conductor, who has been the director of the Mannes Opera since 1998. If this is the kind of work he does here, the program should be getting even more attention.”

The recipient of the 1994 Distinguished Alumni Award from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, Joseph Colaneri entered the professional field as an organist and choral conductor.  Having held a number of sacred music posts, he made his opera debut as Chorus Master of the New Jersey State Opera, and continued his choral-conducting career as Chorus Master of the New York City.  Joseph Colaneri is a graduate of New York University and holds the Master of Music degree from Westminster Choir College.

Miles Mykkanen has garnered recognition on the world’s concert and operatic stages for his “focused, full-voiced tenor” (The New York Times).  Of his performances in Eugene Onegin at the Juilliard School, Opera News wrote, “Mykkanen was a knockout as Lensky. The lyric intensity of his singing made each moment count, and the duel- scene aria was a stretch of sheer vocal gold.”

The 2016-17 opera season sees Mr. Mykkanen as Belmonte in Die Entführung aus den Serail at Opera Columbus, Tichon in Juilliard's Katya Kabanova, and the title role in a fully-staged production of Candide with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. His concert work brought debuts with St. Thomas Church Choir of Men and Boys, Sarasota Orchestra, and saw his return with Steven Blier and the New York Festival of Song. Mr. Mykkanen received prizes from The Gerda Lissner Foundation, Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and was named a 2016 Sullivan Foundation award recipient. 

Mr. Mykkanen’s opera credits include championing new work in addition to leading roles drawn from the classic repertoire. He gave the world premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Crossing at the American Repertory Theatre directed by Diane Paulus and Opera News wrote, “Miles Mykkanen’s work was especially distinctive: his burnished high tenor seemed like the organizing principle around which the other voices cohered.” He was involved in the world premieres of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Twenty-Seven and Jack Perla’s Shalimar the Clown. Other operatic highlights include performances of Die Zauberflöte, Eugene Onegin, The Barber of Seville, Ariadne auf Naxos, Les mamelles de Tirésias, La traviata, The Marriage of Figaro, La finta giardiniera, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, The Cunning Little Vixen, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Le donne curiose, A Hand of Bridge, and Down in the Valley. The tenor has sung with Wolf Trap Opera Company, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Pine Mountain Music Festival, and Juilliard Opera.

Miles Mykkanen celebrated his Carnegie Hall recital debut last year, and has performed with the New World Symphony, New York Festival of Song, National Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Caramoor Center for Music, Juilliard415, and at the Franz Schubert Institut, Royal Irish Academy of Music, and Interlochen Academy. His rich and varied concert repertoire includes Bach’s Magnificat, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes, Britten’s Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac and Canticle V: The Death of St. Narcissus, Händel’s Messiah, Mozart's Requiem, Schubert’s Auf dem Strom, and Stravinsky’s Cantata.

PBS Great Performances produced a documentary of Renée Fleming’s American Voices Festival in 2015, featuring Miles Mykkanen in a master class with Tony Award-winner Sutton Foster. He also was seen on Medici.tv in Juilliard’s live-stream master classes with Renée Fleming, Emmanuel Villaume, and Fabio Luisi, respectively.

Currently in Juilliard’s esteemed Artist Diploma in Opera Studies program working with Stephen Wadsworth and Brian Zeger, Miles Mykkanen earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the school under the tutelage of Cynthia Hoffmann. He was a 2009 youngARTS Gold Winner in Voice and Juilliard has distinguished the tenor as a winner of the 2016 Juilliard Honors Recital, as a Toulmin Foundation Scholar, and with the Joseph W. Polisi Award, named for the institution’s president, for exemplifying the school’s values of the “artist as citizen.”

The Oregonian praises soprano Katrina Galka for her recent performances of Adina in L’elisir d’amore, exclaiming that she “looked like a young Glenn Close, projecting power over Nemorino as she thrilled with fine coloratura filigree and pure high notes.” In the 2020/21 Season, she makes her role and company debut as Olympia in Les contes d’Hoffmann at the Opernhaus Zürich as well as sings a solo digital recital for Portland Opera. Her San Francisco Opera debut as Janine (Ofwarren) in Ruder’s The Handmaid’s Tale was unfortunately cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, as were the roles she added to her repertoire last season: Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos and the Charmeuse in Thais for performances at Arizona Opera and Utah Opera. In the first half of last season, she returned to the Wiener Staatsoper to reprise Fritzi in Staud’s Die Weiden following her debut with the company in the work’s world premiere in the season prior. She sang her first performances of the Controller in Dove’s Flight with Minnesota Opera and returned to the Las Vegas Philharmonic for Handel’s Messiah.

Galka recently role and company debuts as Blondchen in Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Atlanta Opera—followed by reprisals at New Orleans Opera and Opera San Jose, Atalanta in Xerxes at the Glimmerglass Festival, and Serpetta in La finta giardiniera with On Site Opera at the Caramoor International Music Festival, and Aithra in Die ägyptische Helena with Odyssey Opera. She sang her first performances of Gilda in Rigoletto in a return to Portland Opera, where she was previously a resident artist and host of role debuts that include Adina in L’elisir d’amore, Johanna in Sweeney Todd, Elvira in L’italiana in Algeri, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, and Frasquita in Carmen. With Arizona Opera Opera, she sang Cunegonde in Candide, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Woglinde in Das Rheingold, and a quartet of roles in Morganelli’s Hercules vs Vampires, the First Wood Nymph in Rusalka and Clorinda in La cenerentola as a resident artist. She joined the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy as a guest artist for Frasquita in Carmen and sang prior performances of Papagena in Die Zauberflöte with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis at which she has been both a Festival Artist and a Gerdine Young Artist. She joined the CoOperative Program as Marie in La fille du régiment and sang the Cat in Schuller’s The Fisherman and his Wife with Odyssey Opera and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She also joined Dallas Opera as Voice I in Cuomo's Arjuna's Dilemma, presented as the company hosted the annual Opera America conference.

On the concert stage, she has joined the Rhode Island Civic Chorale for the Angel in Respighi's Laude to the Nativity and Handel's Messiah and returned to the latter previously with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. With the Florida Orchestra, she sang Bernstein favorites in a concert celebrating his work on Broadway. She sang Elvira in excerpts of L’italiana in Algeri with the Oregon Symphony and Violetta in excerpts of La traviata with the Metropolitan Youth Symphony. With various Dallas-based chamber ensembles and orchestras, she has sung Fauré’s Requiem, Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate, and Bach’s St. John Passion. In 2011, Katrina performed in the east coast premiere of Jake Heggie’s Pieces of 9/11 as the Girl Soprano, with Mr. Heggie at the piano.

Galka is a three-time regional award winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She is the first-place winner of the Mario Lanza Scholarship and has received further awards from the National Opera Association Vocal Competition, Marcello Giordani International Vocal Competition, and the Heida Hermanns International Vocal Competition.

She holds a Master of Music from Boston University, at which she sang Servilia in La clemenza di Tito, Carolina in Il matrimonio segreto, and Rosalba in Catan’s Florencia en el Amazonas. She earned a Bachelor of Music from Southern Methodist University, from which she graduated summa cum laude.

Praised for his “imposing baritone” and “supple vibrant baritone that he deploys with unaffected lyricism and manifest honesty” by Opera News, American baritone Jarrett Porter is quickly making a name for himself with a fearless talent and commanding intellect. Porter is currently a member of the Artist Diploma in Opera Studies at The Juilliard School.

In the 2020/21 Season, Jarrett makes his professional debut at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Neil Armstrong in the world premiere of Steve Mackey’s Moon Tea, and as the Adjudicator in the world premiere of Damien Sneed’s The Tongue & The Lash. He joins Internationale Meistersinger Akademie in Neumart, Germany where he will make appearances on Bavaria Radiofunk, as well as with the Nürnburg Symphony. At Juilliard, he appears in their Liederabend series, with New York Festival of Song@Juilliard, and as Polyphemus in Händel’s Acis & Galatea with Juilliard415.

In the 2021/22 Season he looks forward to making his professional debut at Arizona Opera as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. He will return to Opera Theater of Saint Louis to create the role of Oliver Sacks in the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Awakenings, based on the memoir of the same name.

Porter’s 2019/20 Season included his principal debut at Tulsa Opera as Dancaïre in Carmen. At the Santa Fe Opera in his second year as an Apprentice, he sang the Sergeant in La boheme, covered Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, appeared in scenes as the title role in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and joined Renée Fleming and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra under the baton of Harry Bicket as a soloist in Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music.

In the 2018/19 Season he finished his second and final year as a Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artist at Arizona Opera, where he performed as Antonio and the cover of Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Father Palmer in Silent Night, and Baron Douphol in La traviata. In the 2017/18 Season at Arizona Opera, he was seen as the title role in Patrick Morganelli’s Hercules vs. Vampires, Maximilian in Candide, Sciarrone in Tosca, and Fiorello in Il barbiere di Siviglia. He joined Santa Fe Opera in 2018 as a member of the company’s Apprentice Program, singing Der Perückenmacher in Ariadne auf Naxos, and covering Maximilian in Candide. Role engagements elsewhere have included the title role of Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin, Le Chevalier des Grieux in Massenet’s Le portrait de Manon, Sid in Albert Herring, Harry Easter in Weill’s Street Scene, and Morales in Carmen. Other programs include Opera Saratoga (2016) and The Glimmerglass Festival (2017), as well as Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artist Vocal Academy (2014).

As a sought after recitalist, Porter has held fellowships at the Ravinia Stean’s Music Institute at The Ravinia Festival, and at SongFest at the Hidden Valley Music Festival under the mentorship of Sir Thomas Allen and Graham Johnson. Accompanied by narration from Allen and Johnson, he made his National Public Radio debut with selections from Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, and in the spring of 2018 joined pianist Taylor Hutchinson in recital to present Winterreise in Katzin Hall at Arizona State University.

Awards include: winner of The Sullivan Foundation (2019), winner of the 2019 St. Louis District of the Metropolitan Opera National Council, the Lisa and Bernie Kalvelage Award at the 2018 Holt Competition, the 2017 Grand Prize Winner of the Pacific Music Society Competition, the Ellie Silver Award Winner at the 2017 Holt Competition, and the First Prize of the inaugural Esther C. Weill Competition. A native of coastal New Jersey, he holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music (2015) and a Master of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (2017), where he was a James Schwabacher Fellow. He can be seen in the June 2020 issue of Opera News, where he was the magazine’s Soundbite. A student of Darrell Babidge, Porter resides on the Upper East Side in New York City.

Tenor Anthony Ciaramitaro, a Florida native, is currently pursuing his Master’s degree at Florida State University under David Okerlund, and has recently performed the role of Don Ramiro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Florida State Opera.

Mr. Ciaramitaro had the privilege to perform as a Studio Artist with Wolf Trap Opera during their 2015 season as Basilio from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, The Messenger from Verdi's Aida, and among the ensemble of Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles.

In previous seasons, Mr. Ciaramitaro made his professional debut with Florida Opera Theater as Ferrando in Mozart's Così fan tutte, the 2nd trio member in Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti, Piquillo from Jacques Offenbach's La Perichole with the Franco-American Vocal Academy in Perigueux, France, and scenes from Verdi's La forza del destino, La Traviata and Mozart's Don Giovanni in Oberaudorf, Germany with Music Theater Bavaria.

Mr. Ciaramitaro graduated in 2014 with his Bachelor's in music from Rollins College, where he studied under Richard Owens, who has been a great inspiration to the advancement of his career. Mr. Ciaramitaro has been a concert soloist for The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, The Messiah Choral Society, and The Villages Philharmonic.

Mr. Ciaramitaro has an avid love of the stage and is eager to one day have an illustrious career as a singer of opera, oratorio, and concert repertoire.

Dale Dreyfoos (Professor of Opera/Music Theater at Arizona State University and Resident Stage Director for Lyric Opera Theatre) has had a multi-faceted career as a Stage Director, Character Tenor, Actor, Educator, and Arts Administrator.  Dreyfoos made his Arizona Opera debut in 2000 in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville in the role of Ambrogio and has returned to perform the roles of the Duchess of Krackenthorp in La Fille du Regiment (Donizetti), Njegus in The Merry Widow (Lehar) and Pelligreen in Arizona Lady (Kalman). Dreyfoos has also been an active participant in Arizona Opera’s Education and Outreach Program, having served as the Stage Director for the first Arizona Opera Outreach production of Rossini’s Cinderella. The company’s Opera Dell’Arte Series was created for his unique blend of talents as an actor, singer, and writer, for which he presented previews of operas from the perspective of a character in the opera. His preview for Hansel and Gretel, as told from the perspective of the Witch, was one of his most memorable.

Dreyfoos began his performing career at the age of 10 as the Boy Soprano soloist with the Atlanta Boy Choir, during which time he appeared as a soloist in Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes de Confessore with Robert Shaw & the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, as well as appearing in the French, Spanish, and Moroccan premieres of Benjamin Britten’s chamber opera The Golden Vanity. For his performance in Paris, he received special accolades from the musical icon, Mlle. Nadia Boulanger (the protégé of Faure and teacher of Bernstein and Copland) and Mme. Khachaturian (the wife of the famous composer).

Since that time, Dreyfoos has made a specialty of appearing in a wide variety of character roles including Vespone in La Serva Padrona, Ambrogio in The Barber of Seville, Goro in Madama Butterfly, Frosch & Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus, The Old Prisoner in La Perichole, Senex in A Funny Thing That Happened On The Way To The Forum, Henry in The Fantasticks, Herr Schultz in Cabaret, King Sextimus in Once Upon A Matress, Moonface Martin in Anything Goes, Voltaire/Dr. Pangloss/Governor/Host and Sage in Candide, Frisellino in Le Pescatrice, Njegus in The Merry Widow, Mozart in A Visit with Amadeus, Ben in The Telephone, the Duchess of Krackenthorp in The Daughter of the Regiment, Edna in Bye,Bye, Birdie and Queen Elizabeth II in Hms Pinafore with such companies as the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Arizona Opera, Opera Carolina, Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, Birmingham Civic Opera, Mississippi Opera, Newberry Opera, Charleston Opera Company, Shakespeare Sedona, and ASU’s Lyric Opera Theatre. He has also appeared as the “Bargain Countertenor soloist” in P.D.Q. Bach’s The Seasonings with the Alabama Symphony under the direction of Peter Schickele. He has also made special guest appearances for television and public radio stations in Charleston, SC, Charlotte, NC, Phoenix, AZ, and Atlanta, GA, and is a featured performer on two educational compact discs, Bible Times I & III, and a cd-rom Opera-Ha Ha, produced by Arizona Opera. A specialist in “character voices”, Dreyfoos’s voice can be heard on several historical audio tours including the State of Georgia’s commemorative audio tours for the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War, the Edgar Allan Poe House in Richmond, Virginia and on a Civil War Tour of Lexington, Kentucky.

Dreyfoos is also the author of two highly acclaimed educational music dramas, A Visit With Amadeus and A Visit With Mr. & Mrs. Bach, which have received over 2,000 performances throughout the eastern United States. He has also recently served as a the author of two narration scripts for the 50^th Anniversary of the Santa Fe Opera and an Opera Gala for Arizona Opera, which were narrated by Frederica Von Stade and Hugh Downs, respectively. Dreyfoos has been on the faculty of Arizona State University since 1994, where he received the “Distinguished Professor Award” for the College of Fine Arts in 1996.

As a Stage Director, Dreyfoos has directed productions ofThe Marriage of Figaro, Die Zauberflote, Cosi Fan Tutte, Elixir of Love, Oklahoma, Giulio Cesare, Xerxes, Ariadne auf Naxos, Hms Pinafore, La Perichole, The Secret Garden, the Turn of the Screw, Dido and Aeneas, Amahl and the night visitors, the Coronation of Poppea, Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, Nunsense, Susannah, La Serva Padrona, Hansel and Gretel, Don Pasquale, The Impresario, The Bartered bride, Riders to the Sea, The Barber of Seville, The Daughter of the Regiment, Albert Herring, Gallantry, Die Fledermaus, La Cenerentola and the world premiere of the Ransom of Red Chief for such companies as Opera Carolina, Piccolo Spoleto festival, Charleston Opera Company, Birmingham Civic Opera, Arizona Opera Education Tour, Milton Center Series, and Arizona State University’s Lyric Opera Theater. He has also served as an assistant director for productions of La Cenerentola, The Mikado, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Boheme, and Don Pasquale with the Lyric Opera of Chicago Center for American Artists, Opera Carolina, Des Moines Metro Opera, Birmingham Civic Opera and the Mississippi Opera. Since 1996, he has served as a Stage Artistry Instructor for the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.