El Pasado Nunca Se Termina

LEONARD FOGLIA (Librettist / Director) is a theater and opera director as well as librettist. He directed the world premieres of Moby Dick, (Dallas Opera, San Francisco Opera etc.- filmed for PBS), Everest (Dallas Opera, etc.); Cold Mountain (Santa Fe Opera, etc.); The End of the Affair (Houston Grand Opera, etc.); Three Decembers (HGO, etc.); It’s a Wonderful Life (HGO, etc.); Stonewall (New York City Opera). His production of Dead Man Walking was produced by New York City Opera and continues to be seen across the US and has played Teatro Real in Madrid and The Barbican in London.

For Broadway he directed: Master Class with Zoe Caldwell, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, Wait Until Dark with Marisa Tomei and Quentin Tarantino, Thurgood with Laurence Fishburne (filmed for HBO), The People in the Picture, On Golden Pond with James Earl Jones, The Gin Game with Cecily Tyson and Mr. Jones. Off-Broadway: Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes From The Field (filmed for HBO) and Let Me Down Easy (filmed for PBS).

As an opera librettist, he wrote and directed Cruzar la Cara de la Luna/To Cross the Face of the Moon with composer José “Pepe” Martínez which premiered at Houston Grand Opera, A Coffin in Egypt with composer Ricky Ian Gordon which also premiered at HGO, El Pasado Nunca Se Termina/The Past Is Never Finished, with composer Martínez which premiered at Lyric Opera of Chicago; El Milagro Del Recuerdo / The Miracle of Remembering with composer Javier Martinez which premiered at HGO. His “mariachi operas” have played across the country and on three continents.

A graduate of San Francisco Opera's prestigious Adler Fellow Program, American Daniel Montenegro is recognised for a flexible and distinctive tenor voice and a varied repertoire of bel canto, verismo and contemporary roles. 

Recent seasons have seen Daniel make his European opera debut at the Théâtre du Châtelet as Mario in Daniel Catán’s Il Postino alongside Plácido Domingo, as well as a number of significant role and company debuts including Roderigo (Otello) with San Francisco Opera under Nicola Luisotti, Alfredo (La traviata) with Minnesota Opera, Nemorino (Elixer of Love) with Washington National Opera, Pang (Turandot) at the Hollywood Bowl conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and most recently Romeo (Roméo et Juliette) for Tulsa Opera and at the Castleton Festival. This season Daniel makes his role and company debut reprising the role of Mario in Il Postino with Opera Saratoga. 

As a San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow and former Resident Artist of the Minnesota Opera, Daniel has sung a wealth of roles including Liverotto and Rustighello (Lucrezia Borgia), Pong (Turandot), Remendado (Carmen), Tamino (The Magic Flute), Nick (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Flavio (Norma). He has also sung Steuermann (The Flying Dutchman) with both Portland and Arizona Operas and the Shepherd in Peter Sellars’ production of Oedipus Rex at the Sydney Festival under Joana Carneiro. An ongoing collaboration with Los Angeles Opera has brought appearances in several productions including the world premiere of Lee Holdridge’s Concierto para Mendez, La traviata (released on DVD), Carmen, Luisa Fernanda and Il tabarro.

Daniel features on ‘Great Voices Sing John Denver’ alongside Plácido Domingo and many other key operatic names; produced by legendary arranger and music producer Milt Okun, the disc was released on the MRI Associated label in June 2013. 

http://www.daniel-montenegro.com/

In the spring of 2015, baritone Ricardo Rivera — who was a semi-finalist in the Met Opera National Council Auditions and is the recipient of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant— made major debuts at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, and San Diego Opera in the first performances of El pasado nunca se termina, directed by Broadway and opera director Leonard Foglia, in the leading role of Acalán which he will perform in 2019 with Fort Worth Opera

In the 2018/2019 season, Ricardo will perform as Lt. Gordon in Silent Night with Arizona Opera, as Acalán in El pasado nunca se termina with Fort Worth Opera, and as Don Giovanni in Don Giovanni in New York at the renowned Bay Street Theater.

Engagements from the past two seasons include performances as Hérode in Hérodiade with Washington Concert Opera with Michael Fabiano and Joyce El-Khoury; as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor and as Lt. Audebert in Kevin Puts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night with Opera San José; as Escamillo in Carmen with Musica Viva Hong Kong and Heartbeat Opera; as Schaunard in La Bohème with Musica Viva Hong Kong; as El payador in María de Buenos Aires with Des Moines Metro Opera; and as Germont in La Traviata with the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra

Operatic performance highlights, of recent past seasons, include: Orsini in Rienzi and Mathieu in Andrea Chenier with the Opera Orchestra of NY in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall; Moralès and Escamillo (cover) in Stephen Wadsworth's new production of Carmen, Thomas Martin and the Hotel Managers in the world premiere of Theodore Morrison's Oscar, and Germont (cover) in La Traviata at Santa Fe Opera; Marcello in La Bohème and Escamillo in Carmen with El Paso Opera; Sharpless in Madama Butterfly with the Opera Company of Middlebury; Thomas Martin and the Hotel Managers in Oscar with Opera Philadelphia; Le chat in L’enfant et les sortilèges and Spinelloccio in Gianni Schicchi at the Castleton Festival with the late conductor Lorin Maazel; Moralès in Carmen and Fiorello/L'Ufficiale in The Barber of Seville with Opera North; Ashby in La fanciulla del West with Knoxville Opera; the baritone soloist in both Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Fauré’s Requiem with the Pioneer Valley Symphony; Uncle John in Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath with Sugar Creek Opera; and Corifeo in Jorge Liderman's opera Antigona Furiosa in Chicago with Contempo and members of the multi-Grammy Award-winning ensemble eighth blackbird.

Concert performance highlights include his Alice Tully Hall debut in an Eve Queler and Friends Concert with Eve Queler at the piano and his Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center debut in the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Gala with Eve Queler conducting the Opera Orchestra of NY. Concert performance highlights of standard repertoire include the baritone solos in: Ein deutsches Requiem with both The New York Choral Society and The Westchester Chorale Society; Carmina Burana with Monmouth Civic Chorus; and Bach’s “Coffee Cantata” at the White Mountains Music Festival.

Ricardo is a graduate of Mannes College the New School for Music where his B.M. M.M. and PDPL were conferred. As a Mannes Opera Young Artist, he performed the title role in Don Giovanni, Ford in Falstaff, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, and Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas. At Mannes, he was mentored by Met Opera conductor and Music Director at The Glimmerglass Festival, Joseph Colaneri, and the great, late American mezzo-soprano Regina Resnik.

Ricardo was an apprentice singer with Santa Fe Opera, a young artist with Opera North, and an Eva and Marc Stern Fellow at SongFest where he coached with Martin Katz, Graham Johnson, and composer Lori Laitman on her music. As an apprentice artist at Chautauqua Opera, he covered Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor; performed the Sergeant and covered Lescaut in Manon Lescaut; and performed in two concerts with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

In a review of Ricardo’s performance in Sophia Gubaidulina's Perception with multi-Grammy Award–winning ensembles eighth blackbird and the Pacifica Quartet, the Chicago Tribune declared him "amazingly precise of musical and verbal gesture." In continuation of his commitment to the vitality of contemporary music, Ricardo performed Steven Stucky's Four poems of A.R. Ammons with the FLUX Quartet, the world premiere of Reinaldo Moya's Soliquio en las olas with the Arts Symphony Orchestra, and the world premiere of Aaron Dai's Con furia with the Chelsea Symphony. 21st-century operatic roles which have been composed for and have been performed by Ricardo include leading roles in Robert Cuckson's A Night of Pity and Horace: a Portrait, Christopher Park's Phaedra and Hippolytus, Alexander Berezowsky's The Nine Billion Names of God, and Andrew McManus's Killing the Goat.    

Ricardo won 1st Prize in the Eastern Region of the 2012 Met Opera National Council Auditions (MONC) which led him to the semi-finals of that competition. He received two awards upon graduating from Mannes College: the Richard F. Gold Career Grant in 2008 and the Michael Sisca Memorial Opera Award in 2012.  He was awarded 3rd Prize in the Gerda Lissner Competition, a Career Grant from the Licia Albanese-Puccini Competition, 1st and Audience Prizes in the NY Lyric Opera Competition, and Encouragement Awards from the Opera Index, Career Bridges, and Connecticut Opera Guild Competitions.

Owner of a "wonderful creamy chocolate voice" Cassandra Zoe Velasco is considered one of Mexico’s rising stars of opera. A recent graduate of the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at the Los Angeles Opera, Cassandra was a semi- finalist of the 2012 edition of Operalia. Additionally, she represented Mexico at the Monserrat Caballé Competition (Spain), the Competizione dell ́Opera (Germany) and the Teatro Colón Competition (Argentina).

Since the young age of 22, Ms. Velasco has been staring in productions in Mexico City, including La Scala di Seta, and L’Ocassione fa il Ladro with ProOpera, Angelina in Cinderella and Isolier in Count Ory with Mexico National Opera Company, Isabella in Italian Girl in Algiers with Arpegio Productions, and Charlotte in Werther with Festival Frances. She made her Opera de Bellas Artes debut as Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana, followed by Rosina in The Barber of Seville.

In the United States, her performances include Second Flower in Catan's La Hija de Rappaccini with Gotham Chamber Opera, Myrtale in Thaïs, sharing the stage with Plácido Domingo, Mercedes in Carmen conducted by Placido Domingo, 2nd Lady in The Magic Flute, and the world premiere of Jonah and the Whale, all with Los Angeles Opera.

Engagements for 2014-2015 included Laura in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in her Metropolitan Opera debut, singing de Falla’s El Amor Brujo in Poland, Vivaldi’s Salve Regina in México, Philomène in Bohuslav Martinů’s Alexandre Bis with Gotham Chamber Opera, and her debuts with San Diego Opera, Houston Grand Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago as Isabel/Dolores in El Pasado Nunca Se Termina, as well as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro with the Princeton Festival. 

The 2015-2016 season will see her return to the Metropolitan Opera for productions of Madama Butterfly and Simon Boccanegra, at Teatro Degolldo will make her debut as Maddalena in Verdi's Rigoletto, her debut as Suzuki in Puccin's Madama Buttrfly and she will sing Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte at Ash Law Festival as Dorabella.

On the concert stage, Ms. Velasco has been a soloist with Los Angeles Opera Camera Orchestra, the Dream Orchestra, Charlemagne Orchestra in Belgium, Vivi Vilvaldi Festival and the Aguascalientes Philharmonic in Mexico. Her performed concert repertoire includes Ravel’s Chansons Madecasses, Mozart’s Requiem, Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, Beethoven’s C Minor Mass, Verdi’s Requiem, Dvorak’s Requiem, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

Ms. Velasco is the First Prize winner of several competitions in Mexico, among them the Carlo Morelli Competition (2011), where she also won the Audience Award, Maria Callas Award, Opera de Bellas Artes Award, and the Domingo- Embil Zarzuela Award. In 2012, she won First Prize in the National Competition of Young Voices in Bel Canto. Most recently, Ms. Velasco received the Encouragement Award at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (2013), an Encouragement Prize from the Loren Zachary Competition (2014), the Therese Anne McCarthy Memorial Prize at Opera San Miguel (2014), and she received a grant from Opera Buffs (2014).