Scalia/Ginsburg
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Rachel PolicarJustice Ruth Bader Ginsburg |
Rachel Policar is thrilled to make her Arizona Opera debut in one of her signature roles. Policar is a versatile performer across many genres and was recently seen across the street as 14 different characters in Forbidden Broadway with The Phoenix Theatre Company and joined the cast of Joel Grey’s Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish at the Soraya Center in Los Angeles with the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. Favorite credits include Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Scalia/Ginsburg (Utah Festival, Anchorage Opera, Pacific Opera Project, Penn Square Opera), Dot, Sunday in the Park with George (NYU Broadway Orchestra), and Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank (Maine Jewish Museum). Policar is a Meisner-trained actor, an avid traveler and is happiest sipping a cappuccino while planning her next trip.
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Benjamin WerleyJustice Antonin Scalia |
Pittsburgh native Benjamin Werley has been praised for his “gleaming, flexible tenor” (Opera News) and has appeared with many of the country’s leading opera companies. Equally at home in standard repertoire and contemporary works, Werley has created roles in new operas while continuing to add cornerstone tenor parts to his repertoire.
His recent performances include Cavaradossi (Tosca) with Opera Montana, Anchorage Opera, and St. Petersburg Opera; Narraboth (Salome) with San Diego Opera, Dayton Opera, and Florida Grand Opera; Roméo (Roméo & Juliette) with El Paso Opera; Don José (Carmen) with Anchorage Opera; Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor) with St. Petersburg Opera and the New Jersey Festival Orchestra; Des Grieux (Manon Lescaut) with Opera Festival of Chicago; Red Whiskers (Billy Budd) with Central City Opera; Nemorino (The Elixir of Love) with Dayton Opera; and The Prince (Rusalka) with Opera Ithaca. He also appeared as Sheriff Garnett Brooks/Judge Leon M. Bazile in the World Premiere of Loving v. Virginia with Virginia Opera. A frequent collaborator with the Southern Illinois Music Festival, Werley has sung Ruggero (La rondine), Percy (Anna Bolena), Nemorino (The Elixir of Love), and Herod (Salome).
Upcoming engagements include his Arizona Opera debut as Justice Antonin Scalia in Scalia/Ginsburg and his return to San Diego Opera as Elder Gleaton in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah.
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Jesús Vicente MurilloCommentator |
Praised by Opera News as “utterly loveable, with an expansive sound and easy stage presence,” bass-baritone, Jesús Vicente Murillo is a multidisciplinary artist who has been performing opera, musical theater, concerts and art song across North America since making his debut with Detroit Opera as The Android in The Very Last Green Thing at the age of eighteen.
In the 2025/26 Season, Murillo makes several major role and house debuts, including Voltaire/Pangloss in Candide with Opera Tampa, and Sgt. José Maria Gomez in Zorro with Opera San Jose where he “supplied great Papageno-like charm” (Opera Today), and a “vibrant, vigorous bass-baritone” (Theatre Eddys). Concert engagements include the Bass Soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with The Pittsburgh Concert Chorale, Hollywood Spectacular with Symphony San Jose, a recital series at Filoli Gardens, Holiday POPS with The Stockton Symphony, and Sounds of the Season with Folsom Symphony.
Murillo made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2022 as the Flemish Deputy in Don Carlo, and since then has gone on to perform Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro with Portland Opera where he “exhibited energy and style with a robust baritone” (Northwest Reverb), Papageno in The Magic Flute with Nashville Opera where “he filled the comedic shoes not only with debauchery and buffoonery, but with a formidable stage presence and impressive vocals” (The Frenetic Peripatetic), and Zuniga in Carmen with Opera Theatre of St. Louis where he “proved a scene-stealer” (Opera News).
Murillo is also an accomplished painter, and has won numerous awards for his work including top prize at The Utah Latino Arts Competition (2019), an Artist 4 Artist Global Fellowship with The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (2025), and an Illuminate the Arts Career Grant from Creative Philadelphia (2026). At the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, he pioneered his hallmark expressionist technique with, Winterreise, improvisationally painting five canvases while performing Franz Schubert’s 75-minute magnum opus of the same name. Many of his paintings are held in private collections across North America and Europe. Additionally, he is an avid composer, writer, director, conductor, and educator.
He received his Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Music in Opera and Voice Performance from McGill University in Montréal, Québec. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and currently resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Cara ConsilvioDirector |
Cara Consilvio is a director and producer of opera, theater, and film. For the 2026/27 Season, Consilvio is the Guest Artistic Director for Opera Grand Rapids. Recent directing projects include productions of La Bohème for Portland Opera, Opera Grand Rapids, and Opera Carolina. Other recent productions include Carmen and The Elixir of Love for Charlottesville Opera.
Consilvio is passionate about New Work and has directed nine World Premieres; Bernadette’s Cozy Book Nook by Joe Illick and Mark Campbell for Fort Worth Opera, Inheritance by Lei Liang and Matt Donovan at UC San Diego, Our Trudy by Anna Pidgorna and Maria Reva for Ad Astra Music Festival, Let’s Celebrate, three short chamber operas for White Snake Projects, I Give You My Home by Beth Weimann for Guerilla Opera, and The Leader by Karim Al-Zand and Kassandra by Anthony Brandt and Neena Beber, which both premiered at Opera in the Heights. Consilvio has also directed new productions of contemporary operas such as Glory Denied, After Life, Scalia/Ginsburg, The Last American Hammer, Penny, Second Nature, and An American Dream.
Other directing highlights include Hydrogen Jukebox at The Chautauqua Opera, Rigoletto for HALO, Suor Angelica at Tri-Cities Opera, The Threepenny Opera for Syracuse Opera, The Sound of Music for Charlottesville Opera, The Elixir of Love for Piedmont Opera and Il Trovatore for Opera in the Heights.
As a teacher and guest director, Consilvio has taught at Oberlin Conservatory, The Boston University Opera Institute and directed productions for Loyola University at New Orleans, The Cleveland Institute of Music, UC San Diego, Depauw University and The Hartt School of Music. Consilvio brings her extensive performance background and training as a dancer, actor, and singer to her work. She earned a BA in Dramatic Art and Dance from University of California at Berkeley. She pursued advanced acting training with the American Conservatory Theater and Williamstown Theater Festival and completed three years of post-baccalaureate studies in vocal performance at SUNY Fredonia.
Consilvio is a co-founder of Hup! Productions. Her feature film debut, For the Love of Friends, is currently streaming on PBS Passport. Other film directing projects include narrative short films C.I.T., and Dry. Consilvio is a producer and co-story writer of the horror comedy feature film Camp Wedding, which is distributed by Gravitas Pictures. She has also produced and directed many tribute videos, promotional videos, and behind the scenes mini-docs for the NEA Opera Honors, the NEA Jazz Masters videos, OPERA America, and the American Composers Orchestra.
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Brian DeMarisConductor |
Equally at home in opera, musical theatre, symphony, ballet and pops, and involved with the development of over two dozen new works, Brian DeMaris has led productions with Anchorage Opera, Arizona Opera, Opera Columbus, El Paso Opera, Mill City Summer Opera, Syracuse Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, Charlottesville Opera, American Lyric Theatre and American Opera Projects. He has served as Principal Conductor of Anchorage Opera, Music Director of Mill City Summer Opera, and was previously associate conductor of the New York City Opera, assistant conductor at Florida Grand Opera and Glimmerglass Opera, and served on the music staff of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. He has led concerts with the St. Cloud Symphony, Music St. Croix, the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra, Syracuse Symphoria, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra, and has performed at the United Nations, the Aspen Music Festival, Boston’s Jordan Hall, New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Alice Tully Hall, and in recitals, competitions, and master classes throughout the United States and abroad. Previously Director of Opera and Musical Theatre at Ithaca College, he has served as Professor and Artistic Director of Music Theatre and Opera at Arizona State University since 2015.
DeMaris has also taught at Aspen Music Festival, New England Conservatory School of Continuing Education, Lawrence University, George Mason University’s International Opera Alliance, the International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, and “Meet the Artist” at Lincoln Center. He has served on numerous panels with Opera America and the National Opera Association, and presented master classes with the National Association of Teachers of Singing, New York State Music Teachers Association, New York State School Music Association and the Arizona Music Educators Association. He has presented master classes at numerous universities and programs across the U.S., and his students have performed on Broadway, film and television, and at opera companies and festivals throughout the world. He also serves as Arizona Governor of the National Opera Association and Director of the Arizona District Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition.
A frequent performer and advocate of contemporary music, he conducted the Middle Eastern premiere of Mark Adamo’s Little Women with the Israel Chamber Orchestra at the International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, as well as the World Premiere of Stefan Weisman’s Darkling with American Opera Projects at the Classical Stage Company with additional performances in Gniezno, Poland, at Frei Universität in Berlin, Germany, the New York City Opera VOX Festival and the United Nations. He also leads the World Premiere recording of Darkling, released on Albany Records in 2011. DeMaris was also involved with the professional American premiere of Richard Rodney Bennett’ s Mines of Sulphur at Glimmerglass Opera, as well as the World Premieres of Peter Ash’s The Golden Ticket and John Corigliano’s revised version of The Ghosts of Versailles at Opera Theater of Saint Louis, for which he provided assistance with the preparation of the published piano-vocal score through G. Schirmer. He has worked with Beth Morrison Projects and American Lyric Theater in New York, through which he has done several workshops of new works including The Golden Ticket at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Adam and Eve at Symphony Space and Why Is Eartha Kitt Trying To Kill Me at Le Poisson Rouge. He has produced developmental workshops of more than a dozen new works at Arizona State University with professional collaborators including American Lyric Theatre, Beth Morrison Projects, and The Phoenix Theatre Company. DeMaris is also a composer himself: his musical The Portrait of Dorian Gray received a developmental workshop at Ephrata Playhouse in the Park in 2003, and his art songs have been performed in recitals throughout the United States. His 2022 album Gratitude features his complete songs for voice and piano.