William Tell | Digital Playbill

Music by Gioachino Rossini Libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy & L.F. Bis

SEP 25 - OCT 4 | Emerson Colonial Theatre A new BLO production Performed with the BLO Chorus & Orchestra

BRADLEY VERNATTER Stanford Calderwood General Director & CEO | NINA YOSHIDA NELSEN Artistic Director DAVID ANGUS Music Director | ANNE BOGART Artistic Associate

MUSIC IS A VITAL PART OF THE CULTURAL FABRIC OF OUR COMMUNITY. It’s not just about the performances we put on; it’s about how we show everything opera can be. From our Concerts in the Courtyard to Street Stage and innovative programs like Create Your Own Opera and our Audition Workshops, we’re committed to bringing opera into diverse spaces where it can touch lives in meaningful ways.

Help us make wonder possible!

Through your support, we’re able to engage hundreds of Boston youth, foster deep connections with families, and build a vibrant, inclusive community. Donors like you make it possible for us to offer free community operas and transformative educational experiences, inspiring the next generation through the power of music.

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BLO’s 2019 production of Pagliacci.

PROGRAM CONTENTS

LIZA VOLL PHOTOGRAPHY

Welcome................................................................................................................................. 1 Upcoming BLO Events.......................................................................................................... 2 50 Years of Boston Lyric Opera............................................................................................ 4 50th Anniversary Committee.............................................................................................. 9 BLO Champions: The Founding Companies..................................................................... 10 Board of Directors & Advisors............................................................................................. 12 BLO Audiences: In Memory of Sandra Montrone..............................................................14 Creative Team, Cast, & Synopsis........................................................................................16 About This Production........................................................................................................18 Anne Bogart: The Power of Us, and the Cost of One.......................................................20 Meet the Artists................................................................................................................... 24 BLO Artists: Costume Works, Inc....................................................................................... 32 Artistic & Production Personnel........................................................................................ 34 BLO Neighbors: Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC)....................................................... 36 Acknowledgments..............................................................................................................40 BLO Staff...............................................................................................................................41 Donors & Institutional Partners......................................................................................... 44 Venue Information............................................................................................................... 53

Welcome to Boston Lyric Opera’s 50th season.

Opera is the least solitary art there is. Nothing about it can be done alone, and nothing about it survives without an audience willing to sit together with strangers and be moved by the same thing at the same time. That is rarer than it used to be. It is also, we’d argue, the whole point.

Fifty years is long enough to have built something, and just short enough that we still remember how we got here. Not through any single vision, and not in any single building — we have made this work in whatever room in this city would hold it. Through thousands of people: the singers, the carpenters, the teaching artists in classrooms across Boston, the subscriber who bought one ticket decades ago and has been following us from hall to hall ever since. We don’t treat that inheritance as an ornament. We treat it as a debt, and we intend to keep paying it.

This is why we open with William Tell. Rossini’s last opera, written nearly two centuries ago, asks for everything a company has — and companies have been avoiding it for that reason ever since. It demands significant musical, theatrical, and technical resources and offers a showcase for an organization’s artistic ambition. But scale is not why we chose this opera. At its heart, William Tell is about ordinary people, in pursuit of freedom, finding the courage to act together.

We hope you leave tonight with a sense of what people can accomplish when they commit to something in common. Stewarding this company’s 50-year legacy has convinced us of it. We celebrate the five decades behind us, and we remain committed to what this company will build next — what we can build together.

Thank you for beginning the season with us. We’ll see you across the city all year.

With gratitude,

Bradley Vernatter Stanford Calderwood General Director & CEO

Nina Yoshida Nelsen Artistic Director

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UPCOMING EVENTS OCT 10 & 11

VOCAL AUDITIONING BASICS WORKSHOP Opera + Community Studios

OCT 14

OPERA INNOVATORS: MICHAEL FABIANO Opera + Community Studios

OCT 16

THE OPERA GALA Opera + Community Studios

OCT 28

DECONSTRUCTING OPERA: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE Opera + Community Studios

NOV 1

OPERA INNOVATORS: PATRICIA RACETTE Opera + Community Studios

NOV 5-8

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre

JAN 29 & 31

THE QUEEN OF SPADES Symphony Hall

FEB 16-20

OPERA ON TOUR: THE BARBER OF SEVILLE Boston Public Library (multiple branches)

FEB 25

DECONSTRUCTING OPERA: THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO Opera + Community Studios

FEB 28

OPERA INNOVATORS: DAVID ANGUS Opera + Community Studios

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LEARN MORE ABOUT WILLIAM TELL

Opera Guide

Scan to open BLO’s William Tell Opera Guide

Pre-Show Lecture

Scan to open BLO’s William Tell Pre-Show Lecture, featuring Boston University professor & scholar Allison Voth.

Experience BLO’s Values in Action: Learn about BLO’s history, mission, values, strategic plan, and more by visiting us at: BLO.org/about NILE HAWVER/NILE SCOTT STUDIOS

A post-wedding celebration ends with a selfie in Boston Lyric Opera’s 2023 production of La Cenerentola (Cinderella).

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50 YEARS OF BOSTON LYRIC OPERA 1970s Emerging from the merger of three Boston-based opera companies in

1976, the newly formed Boston Lyric Opera entered a period of organic growth, which alternated periods of consolidation and stabilization with periods of more visible change.

• 1976: BLO was founded from a merger of New England Regional Opera, Associate Artists Opera, and New England Chamber Opera Group. Ernest Triplett became BLO’s first artistic director.

•D EC 1976: BLO presented its first performance: Amahl and the Night Visitors.

•M AR 1978: BLO held a fundraising gala concert honoring the career of Jenny Lind.

• 1979: John Balme was engaged as General Director.

1980s As BLO developed its audience and base of supporters and explored new

possibilities with larger and more prestigious venues, the company planned more ambitious performances, engaging in strategic risk-taking with an eye toward growth.

•A UG 1981: BLO and Brookline Symphony performed Aida at the Edward A. Hatch Memorial Shell, attracting 10,000+ audience members.

•S EP 1981: BLO became company-in-residence at Northeastern University. Reviews noted improved musical standards and professional appearance, both helped by this newfound stability.

•S UMMER 1982: BLO produced a scaled-down Ring cycle, hoping to take it on tour.

However, the production resulted in a shortfall.

• 1984: Anne Ewers was made General Director. She instituted more conservative fiscal policies to address the budget shortfall.

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• 1986-88: BLO began collaborating with partners such as the Boston Theater of the Deaf and the Perkins School for the Blind to present accessible performances.

• 1987-88: BLO received its first NEA grant, which focused on “arts groups of unusual promise.” This grant provided enough financial stability for BLO to plan long-term for the first time. In the same season, BLO paid off its remaining debt and was able to develop a small endowment under Ewers’ leadership.

• 1989: Justin Moss was hired as General Director.

1990s BLO presented some milestone productions and continued to expand,

engaging with more audiences in a greater variety of venues and mediums than ever before. With the acquisition of Opera New England in 1998, BLO also developed a robust education branch.

• 1990: Stephen Lord was hired as Music Director.

• 1991: Deborah Voigt debuted with BLO in Ariadne auf Naxos.

• 1992: Patricia Racette debuted in BLO’s premiere of a new critical edition of The Tales of Hoffmann, which garnered international attention.

• 1992/93: Janice Mancini Del Sesto was named the new General Manager.

• 1992/93: John Conklin debuted with BLO, designing for La bohème.

• 1992/93: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson debuted with BLO in Beatrice and Benedict.

• 1994: BLO broadcast a production on WGBH for the first time (Carmen).

• 1998/99: BLO moved out of the Emerson Majestic into the Shubert Theatre, which increased its seating capacity and orchestra pit.

• 1998: Leon Major was named Artistic Director.

• 1998: BLO acquired Opera New England, adding a strong education- and children’s-opera-focused arm to the company, which enabled the production of its “Opera for Young Audiences” series the following year.

2000s Having built a solid, loyal base of audiences and supporters — and having

deepened its ties with the broader Boston community — BLO refined its plans for the future, balancing higher-risk endeavors with consolidation and long-term financial planning.

• 2001: BLO established the Boris Goldovsky Society for planned giving.

• 2002: The company presented its free production of “Carmen on the Common,” attracting 75,000+ audience members.

• 2002: Lawrence Brownlee debuted with BLO in Il barbiere di Siviglia.

• 2007: Ailyn Pérez debuted with BLO in Le nozze di Figaro.

• 2008: Esther Nelson was appointed the new General & Artistic Director.

• 2008: WGBH reduced its number of BLO broadcasts. They became special programs, rather than continuing as a regular feature.

From left: Morris Robinson’s debut with BLO in Aida (1999). | Ailyn Pérez in Le Nozze di Figaro (2007).

PHOTOS, FROM LEFT: COURTESY OF BLO AND BY JEFFREY DUNN

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2010s Although the idea of championing new works and local artists had been part

of BLO’s DNA since its founding, greater financial security in the 2010s made this possible for the company on a larger scale than ever before.

• FEB 2010: BLO presented its first Opera Annex production (The Turn of the Screw) in a nontraditional performance space.

• 2010: David Angus was hired as BLO’s new Music Director.

• 2011/12: BLO presented its first class of Emerging Artists.

• 2011: Nadine Sierra debuted with BLO in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

• 2013: Continuing its Opera Annex programming of new works, BLO presented the U.S. premiere of Clemency, a co-commission with BLO, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Scottish Opera; and the Britten Sinfonia.

• 2015: The Calderwood Charitable Foundation gave BLO a $5 million gift, the largest single institutional gift the company had ever received.

• 2015/16: BLO presented its final production at the Shubert Theatre and began a pivotal shift to a new model of producing opera across various traditional and nontraditional venues, with BLO taking ownership of the ticketing and patron services experience.

•S EP 2016: This season’s production of Carmen, which opened BLO’s 40th season, became the company’s highest-grossing production to date. Presented at the Boston Opera House, this was the first opera performed there in 25 years.

• 2016: BLO helped establish Boston Opera Alliance, an informal consortium of New England opera companies.

• 2018: BLO commissioned and premiered Schoenberg in Hollywood.

• 2018/19: Anne Bogart directed BLO’s landmark production of The Handmaid’s Tale, which was performed at Harvard’s Lavietes Pavilion.

• 2019: BLO produced a carnival-style installation of Pagliacci at the Steriti Memorial Rink.

Scan to explore BLO’s Repertoire History.

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2020s With its original plans disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, BLO pivoted

with innovation and resilience, emerging from this period with expanded community and education programming, a new approach to strategic planning, and a new physical space for its own artists and the Greater Boston arts community.

• MAR 2020: Just before its opening night, BLO’s Norma shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. BLO partnered with WGBH to release an audio stream of the production, which drew a digital audience of 15,000 listeners.

• 2020/21: Bradley Vernatter was appointed as Interim General & Artistic Director.

• 2020/21: BLO began “The Butterfly Process,” a 3-year exploration of authentic storytelling that reexamined the legacy of Madama Butterfly.

• 2020/21: During the pandemic, BLO launched digital programming that made opera accessible to a wider audience than ever, releasing three opera films including the commission desert in featuring Isabel Leonard.

• 2020/21: BLO launched its free, outdoor Street Stage series.

• 2021/22: BLO opened its new headquarters in Fort Point.

• 2022: After a year of planning, BLO launched its new 5-year Strategic Plan.

• 2022/23: Bradley Vernatter was appointed Stanford Calderwood General Director & CEO. • JAN 2022: BLO produced the a cappella opera Svadba, which won OPERA America’s 2023 Awards for Digital Excellence in the Artistic Creation category.

• MAY 2023: BLO sold out its run of the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar, cocommissioned with LA Opera, Spoleto Festival USA, Carolina Performing Arts, San Francisco Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago.

• SEP 2023: As a culmination of “The Butterfly Process,” BLO produced a reimagined Madama Butterfly set in San Francisco during World War II. • MAR 2024: BLO premiered a new chamber arrangement of Aucoin’s Eurydice, cocommissioned with Opera Grand Rapids.

• 2024/25: BLO began operating its Opera + Community Studios, a 16,000-square-foot center in Fort Point, designed for performances, rehearsals, community gatherings and events.

• 2024/25: BLO celebrated the 15th season of its Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artists.

• MAY 2025: In collaboration with nearly a dozen performing arts organizations, BLO produced Noah’s Flood — a free, participatory community opera performed by hundreds of youth and community members — at Symphony Hall.

• MAR 2026: After 6 months of renovations and construction, BLO re-opened the Opera + Community Studios to the public with Mahler’s Song of the Earth.

• MAY 2026: BLO launched its 50th Anniversary Season.

From left: The Handmaid’s Tale (2019) | Eurydice (2024) PHOTOS, FROM LEFT: BY LIZA VOLL PHOTOGRAPHY AND BY NILE HAWVER/NILE SCOTT STUDIOS

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OPERA INNOVATORS

MASTERCLASSES • MENTORSHIP • COMMUNITY Presented in partnership with Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Boston University, New England Conservatory, Longy School of Music, and Boston Singers’ Resource

The Opera Innovators Series brings internationally acclaimed opera professionals together with emerging singers for an afternoon of coaching, artistic exploration, and community building.

Whether you’re performing or observing, these masterclasses offer an opportunity to learn from distinguished artists while connecting with singers, faculty, and professionals from across Greater Boston.

All Opera Innovators events are free and open to the public.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BLO

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50TH ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE Boston Lyric Opera’s 50th Anniversary Committee brings together distinguished leaders, artists, civic partners, and community voices whose work reflects the breadth and vitality of Boston’s cultural landscape. Representing a range of sectors and perspectives, committee members lend their names and support to this milestone moment as BLO celebrates five decades of artistic and community impact and looks ahead to its next 50 years.

Michael Abels Composer

Councilor Ed Flynn District 2, City of Boston

Hilina D. Ajakaiye Chief Strategy Officer, National Coalition of Black Meeting Professionals

Mary Grant President, Massachusetts College of Art

Matthew Aucoin Composer John Balme Former General Director, BLO (1979 – 1984) John Barros Interim Executive Director, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority State Representative David Biele Massachusetts State Representative, 4th Suffolk Vanessa Calderón-Rosado CEO, Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción State Senator Nick Collins Massachusetts First Suffolk Josh Davis Executive Director, Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston Edgerley Family South Boston Club Janice Mancini Del Sesto Former General Director, BLO (1992 - 2008) Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Melissa Gilliam President, Boston University Ashleigh Gordon Co-Founder & Artistic Director Emerita, Castle of our Skins Governor Maura Healy Commonwealth of Massachusetts David Henry Hwang Playwright and Librettist Imari Paris Jeffries President & CEO, Embrace Boston Andrea Kalyn President, New England Conservatory

Justin Moss Former General Director, BLO (1989 – 1992) Esther Nelson Former General & Artistic Director, BLO (2008 – 2021) Michelle O’Connor President & CEO, MEDITECH Lee Pelton Former President & CEO, The Boston Foundation Ellen Reid Composer Joey Riddle General Manager, Emerson Colonial Theatre Marinell Rousmaniere President, EdVestors Sarah Ruhl Playwright and Librettist Huang Ruo Composer

Jim Lucchese President, Berklee College of Music

Marc Scorca President Emeritus, OPERA America

Congressman Stephen F. Lynch U.S. Representative, Massachusetts

Michael Shinn Executive Director, Boston Conservatory at Berklee

Keeril Makan Vice Provost for the Arts, MIT Quincy Miller President & Chief Operating Officer, Eastern Bank

Councilor Sharon Durkan District 8, City of Boston

Yo-Yo Ma Cellist

Anne Ewers Former General Director, BLO (1984 – 1989)

Tod Machover Composer and Faculty Director, MIT Media Lab

Leverett Wing Executive Director, Commonwealth Seminar Mayor Michelle Wu City of Boston Karen Zorn President, Longy School of Music of Bard College Check BLO.org for the current membership listing.

As of September 15, 2026.

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BLO CHAMPIONS: The Founding Companies

In 1976, three opera companies — New England Regional Opera, Associate Artists Opera, and New England Chamber Opera Group — merged to form Boston Lyric Opera, thus creating the longest enduring opera company in Boston history. The following has been excerpted and abridged from The 40 Seasons of Boston Lyric Opera: A History by Jane Pisciottoli Papa.

In the post-World War II years Boris Goldovsky, director of the opera department of the New England Conservatory and founding director of the opera department of Tanglewood Music Center in the Berkshires, founded the New England Opera Theater, a professional company that performed in Boston and then took its productions on tour nationally. Goldovsky is widely considered to have been a pivotal figure in the history of opera in America and a significant innovator in all aspects of opera production. One of the first to perform all works in English and to train singers as naturalistic actors, he presented the American premieres of a number of important works and also explored the field of stage technology, for example, experimenting with the acoustical properties of various set-building materials. Even though he and his company were highly admired by both critics and the opera-going public, the collapse of his financial backing forced him to cease performing in Boston in the 1960s, although the touring company endured until the 1980s.

Various different concepts spurred the founding of other Boston opera-producing groups that arose in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Several of the groups met with enough initial success that they sought to continue producing operas and applied for tax-exempt status as non-profit organizations in order to raise funds to support further activity and growth. Among these companies were New England Regional Opera, Associate Artists Opera, and New England Chamber Opera 10

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Group, the ultimate merger of which three laid the foundation for today’s Boston Lyric Opera. Although each of these three groups had a specific and unique reason for producing opera, they were strikingly similar in their insistence on featuring Boston-based artists.

New England Regional Opera (NERO) had been founded in 1966 by Dr. Richard Marshall, then the head of the opera department at Boston Conservatory. His intent was to establish a touring repertory company that would produce chamber operas throughout New England for both adults and children. He attempted to affiliate with Boston Conservatory and to perform as company-in-residence in its theater, but he met with administrative opposition and was unable to achieve this goal.

In 1970 during a performance hiatus of NERO, Ernest Triplett established Associate Artists Opera (AAO). A recent New England Conservatory graduate, he had sung in NERO performances and had taken small parts with Sarah Caldwell’s Opera Company of Boston.

Eager for more challenging performance opportunities for himself and for other local young professional singers, he programmed relatively new music as well as neglected older operas, some of which were larger in scale than chamber works. This was also a self-described repertory company, but one that aimed to become a bigger player on the scene.

Again, in 1972, at a time when these two older ensemble companies appeared to be faltering, Rafael de Acha and his wife Kimberly Daniel founded New England Chamber

Opera Group (NECOG) to fill the possible void. Both singers in the New England Conservatory Masters program, they were soon joined in their venture by Philip Morehead, also NEC educated, as conductor and music director. They intended to function as a small ensemble repertory group with a focus on presenting young New England singers who were preparing for bigger careers, and they were especially interested in producing, and ultimately commissioning, works by local composers.

Each of the three companies achieved some of their goals and met with some degree of artistic success. But ultimately all three companies were forced to face greater challenges than they could overcome. In 1976, representatives of each company met to negotiate a consolidation of the three by means of which they hoped to continue both providing Boston audiences with an alternative to [Opera Company of Boston, the dominant producer of opera in Boston at the time] and offering Boston singers opportunities to perform. They pooled their stores of costumes and sets, their mailing lists and the talents, to create a new entity operating under the charter of AAO. They chose the name “Boston Lyric Opera” for several reasons: they thought “Boston” should be the primary focus of the company and therefore of its name; the new name should be unlike the names of the antecedent companies, signaling a fresh start; and the inclusion of “Lyric” would call to mind other successful American opera companies (e.g. Chicago).

Organic growth often follows a pattern of periods of consolidation and stabilization alternating with periods of active risktaking and more visible change. This model describes the evolution of BLO from its earliest days onward.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

This piece is part of a season-long celebration of BLO’s community, anchored by our Artists, Audiences, Champions, and Neighbors. The individuals and groups recognized in these features represent just some of the thousands who have shaped, supported, and sustained us for the past 50 years.

Right, from top: Ernest Triplett, founder of Associate Artists Opera (AAO), the first Black-owned opera company in Massachusetts. He was considered BLO’s first leader. | BLO’s first production — Amahl and the Night Visitors — was performed at Church of the Covenant in December 1976.

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A Message from BLO’s Board Chair & Board President Dear Friends, On behalf of the Board of Directors, welcome to Boston Lyric Opera’s 50th Anniversary Season.

There could hardly be a more fitting way to begin this milestone year than with the first fully staged production of William Tell in Boston in over 130 years!

One of opera’s grandest achievements, Rossini’s masterpiece is rarely performed because of its extraordinary scale. Yet its music has become part of our shared cultural imagination, inspiring generations through everything from The Lone Ranger to Looney Tunes and beyond.

Beyond its iconic score is a story that continues to resonate across two centuries.

William Tell celebrates the courage of ordinary people who stand together to defend what they love — their families, their freedoms, and their future. It reminds us that our voices are more powerful when we come together, and that lasting change is possible when people are united by a common purpose.

As we celebrate 50 years of Boston Lyric Opera, that message feels especially meaningful. Our history has been shaped by generations of artists, audiences, supporters, and partners who have believed in opera’s unique ability to bring people together. Every performance is the result of countless acts of creativity, generosity, and community.

And now, you have become part of that story.

Thank you for joining us as we open this landmark season. We hope William Tell is just the beginning of an unforgettable year, and we look forward to welcoming you back throughout our anniversary celebration.

With gratitude,

Alicia M. Cooney Board Chair

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Alexander Senchak Board President

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Alicia Cooney Board Chair Alex Senchak Board President Miguel de Bragança Vice Chair Andrew Eisenberg Vice President Jennifer Ritvo Hughes Treasurer Dr. Irving H. Plotkin Clerk Wayne Davis Immediate Past Board President Bradley Vernatter Ex Officio | Stanford Calderwood General Director & CEO

BOARD OF ADVISORS Russell López Lawrence St. Clair Lydia Kenton Walsh Co-Chairs Dr. Susan E. Bennett Richard M. Burnes, Jr. Ellen Cabot Carole Charnow Carol Deane Larry DeVito JoAnne Walton Dickinson Laura Dike Robert Eastman

Priscilla H. Douglas Timothy Fulham Christine Goerke Jack Gorman Frank Graves Susan W. Jacobs Amelia Welt Katzen Sally Kornbluth Maria J. Krokidas John Loder Laura Mandel Ben Markham Abigail B. Mason Jo Frances Meyer Maria Park Winfield Perry Michael Puzo Erinn Rhodes Susan Rodgerson Daniel Romanow Vincent D. Rougeau Ray Stata Peter Wender George Yip

LEADERSHIP COUNCIL David Scudder Chair

Willis Emmons Brian Gokey Sylvia Han David Hoffman Amy Hunter Louise Johnson Janika LeMaitre Lynne Levitsky Anita Loscalzo Kathryn McDaniel Jillian McGrath Kate Meany Elaine Murphy Jane Pisciottoli Papa Koren Phillips

Bill Poduska Susanne Potts Stephen Ricci Allison Ryder Simone Santiago Barbara Senchak Tricia Swift Wynne Szeto Frank Tempesta Richard Trant Amy Tsurumi Archana Venkataraman Robert Walsh Yin-Yin Wang Tania Zouikin

Steven P. Akin Linda Cabot Black Willa Bodman Paul Montrone Ray Stata EMERITI Steven P. Akin J.P. Bargeru Horace H. Irvine IIu Sherif A. Nada E. Lee Perryu

As of September 15, 2026 u

Deceased

Opera begins long before opening night.

NILE HAWVER/NILE SCOTT STUDIOS

Your membership supports artists and new work, and expands access across our community — while bringing you closer to it all.

Become a BLO Member blo.org/membership

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BLO AUDIENCES:

In Memory of Sandra Montrone Sandra Montrone was a beloved, longtime audience member and supporter of Boston Lyric Opera, along with her husband, Boston Lyric Opera Leadership Council member Paul Montrone.

COURTESY OF THE MONTRONE FAMILY

Sandra Montrone was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1941. In grade school she became a well-admired dancer, which continued throughout her life. She attended Scranton Central High School in the 1950s, where she embraced student life with energy, enthusiasm, and a natural gift for bringing people together. She was a majorette, served as a class officer, President of her sorority as well as the Junior Red Cross, and Future Teachers of America. It was also at Scranton Central that she met Paul. By their senior year, they were a couple, beginning a journey of 68 years together defined by devotion and shared faith. Although life eventually took her far from Scranton, Sandra remained deeply connected to her roots and the values formed there: hard work, humility, service to others, and a steadfast Catholic faith.

Sandra began her professional life as an elementary school teacher. Though she paused her formal teaching career to raise her family, her humble passion for educating and nurturing young minds remained a constant throughout her life. Alongside being a devoted mother, she quietly gave her time to tutor elementary students, teach CCD, and actively support the PTA. Whether in the classroom, teaching faith lessons, or cheering from the sidelines of her children’s sporting events, Sandra gave her time and encouragement with boundless warmth and humility.

Sandra lived her Catholic faith daily through active service. Her deep empathy drew her to hospice ministry, where she offered comfort to individuals and families during life’s most vulnerable moments. Her leadership eventually led her to serve as President of Seacoast Hospice, where she strengthened its foundation and expanded its reach across the region.

She brought the same determination, grace, and collaborative spirit to hospice work that guided her entire life, often repeating her favorite motto: Working together to get it done!

Throughout her life, Sandra maintained a meaningful relationship with her Scranton college alma maters. At Keystone College she studied merchandizing and was on the College Board of the Globe Store in downtown Scranton. At graduation, she was also awarded a Keystonian of the Year award. She went on to Marywood University, where she was in the Class of 1963.

She greatly admired the IHM nuns and studied teaching, which became her lifetime role.

Sandra viewed both these educational institutions as vital communities that helped shape her character. Over more than five decades, she led alumni engagement, guided capital campaigns, championed Campus Ministry, established the Jerome F. Gaudenzi 14

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Scholarship, and helped make possible the Marian Chapel at Marywood. In recognition of her extraordinary dedication and intellect, in 2013 Marywood awarded Sandra its prestigious Presidential Medal.

Sandra enjoyed sharing her lifelong love of music and the performing arts with Paul. She supported Paul at The Metropolitan Opera in New York City while he was President, hosting guests at 15-20 operas each season. Music brought her tremendous joy. She was proud to support the arts through her service as a member of The Kennedy Center’s Board in Washington. Whether listening to a beautiful aria or gathering her family around the table, Sandra cherished sharing these experiences with her family and many friends over the years.

For decades, Sandra lived with multiple sclerosis. While the disease gradually imposed physical limits, it never diminished her sharp intellect, her radiant spirit, or her profound concern for others. Those around her witnessed remarkable perseverance, quiet courage, and an abiding grace. Even while facing her own significant physical challenges, Sandra constantly reached out to friends and family, setting aside her own difficulties to offer comfort, encouragement, and love. She demonstrated that true strength is found not in dramatic moments, but in the quiet daily choice to live with hope, dignity, and purpose.

At the heart of Sandra’s life was the extraordinary marriage she shared with her beloved husband, Paul. Through 63 years of marriage, the two truly became one as they built a life anchored in love, faith, and shared mission. As Sandra’s MS progressed over the years, Paul served as her constant, devoted helper, tending to her day and night with selfless love and tenderness. Their enduring partnership — grounded in quiet evenings together, shared prayer, and unwavering commitment — remained an inspiration to all who knew them.

Above all accomplishments and recognition, Sandra’s greatest joy was her family. Food and hospitality were her ways of expressing love. The savory Italian dishes and treasured family recipes passed down through generations became the centerpieces of joyful gatherings.

What began as small family meals grew over the years into vibrant celebrations with over 20 family members regularly gathered around a full table. Sandra was the heart of her family: the keeper of traditions, the gentle encourager, and the quiet anchor who made everyone feel deeply valued.

Her life leaves a profound legacy of compassion, service, and love that will continue to inspire all who were fortunate enough to know her.

This piece is part of a season-long celebration of BLO’s community, anchored by our Artists, Audiences, Champions, and Neighbors. The individuals and groups recognized in these features represent just some of the thousands who have shaped, supported, and sustained us for the past 50 years.

Left: Sandra Montrone | Below: Boston Lyric Opera and Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2026 production of Vanessa, its second major consecutive collaboration since 2024.

WINSLOW TOWNSON

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CREATIVE TEAM

Music by GIOACHINO ROSSINI Libretto by VICTOR-JOSEPH ÉTIENNE DE JOUY & L.F. BIS David Angus, BLO Music Director 2026/27 Season Sponsor Linda Cabot Black PERFORMANCES FRI, SEP 25 | 7:30PM SUN, SEP 27 | 3:00PM FRI, OCT 2 | 7:30PM SUN, OCT 4 | 3:00PM Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes, with one 20-minute intermission EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE 106 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02116 Performed in French with English surtitles All performances of William Tell are Audio Described.

Audio Description and Accessibility services made possible

by ThinkOutsideTheVox.org

W Boston Lyric Opera Debut l Boston Lyric Opera Jane & Steven Akin

Emerging Artist

t B oston Lyric Opera Jane & Steven Akin

Emerging Artist Alum

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Conductor DAVID ANGUS Stage Directors VICTORIA (VITA) TZYKUN & DAVID ADAM MOOREW Scenic, Costume, and Projection Designers VICTORIA (VITA) TZYKUN & DAVID ADAM MOOREW Lighting Designer ERIC SOUTHERN Hair & Makeup Designer BRITTANY RAPPISEW Intimacy Director/Fight Choreographer ANGIE JEPSON Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra ANNIE RABBAT Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser Orchestra Leader Boston Lyric Opera Chorus BRETT HODGDONt Chorus Director Coaches/Rehearsal Pianists JI YUNG LEE DOUGLAS SUMI This production of William Tell is dedicated to the memory of Sandra Montrone.

George Gagnidze’s appearance is supported

by Paul & Catherine Buttenwieser.

CAST

SYNOPSIS

William Tell GEORGE GAGNIDZEW

The Helvetians are being occupied by the Allemanians, who suppress their rights and cultural heritage. A wedding celebration and the events that follow become the scene of the Helvetian community’s steady, collective resistance. The catalyst is William Tell, the ordinary citizen turned folk hero who inspires his countrymen to rise against the tyrannical Allemanian governor, Gessler. As patriotism collides with personal loyalties, including a forbidden romance between Arnold and Mathilde — who hail from opposing sides — a movement for Helvetian freedom gathers strength. When Tell refuses to bow to Gessler’s authority, he is forced to shoot an apple from atop his child’s head, a feat that makes him a legend. Escaping execution, Tell leads the Helvetians to victory. Even as they celebrate, everyone present is keenly aware of the losses of battle and that liberty must be won again and again.

Mathilde ANYA MATANOVIČ Arnold KONU KIMW Hedwige NINA YOSHIDA NELSEN Jemmy BRIANNA J. ROBINSONt Rudolph YEGHISHE MANUCHARYAN Gessler HUNTER ENOCHW Melchtal JAMES DEMLER Walter Furst SERGIO MARTINEZW Ruodi MORGAN MASTRANGELOWt Leuthold ILYA SILCHUKOUW

Content awareness: This production of William Tell contains onstage depictions of physical violence, as well as a brief moment of sexual violence.

By arrangement with Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes company, Sole Agent in the U.S., Canada and Mexico for Casa Ricordi/Universal Music Publishing Ricordi S.R.L., publisher and copyright owner.

Surtitles rented from Kristen Barrett.

The scenery for this production was constructed and painted by The Huntington.

Apple effect designed and created by Chris Swetcky and No Swet Productions LLC. Costumes for this production were constructed by Costume Works, Inc.

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ABOUT THIS PRODUCTION Opening BLO’s milestone 50th Season, William Tell is one of the largest productions ever mounted by the company, bringing together a cast of internationally acclaimed singers in 11 principal roles, a 54-piece orchestra, a 40-member chorus, four supernumeraries, and dozens of scenic, costume, lighting, technical, and backstage artists in a massive artistic undertaking rarely seen on Boston stages.

Vita Tzykun and David Adam Moore have co-directed and co-designed this new production, having spent more than a decade collaborating as a directing and designing duo after founding their NY-based interdisciplinary art collective GLMMR in 2015. Using cinematically paced storytelling, immersive projections, and scenic environments developed with digital design tools used primarily to create video game worlds and architecture, the production remains rooted in the opera’s traditional setting while creating a visual world that feels simultaneously historical, contemporary, and cautionary.

Born and raised in Odesa, Ukraine under the Soviet Union, Tzykun brings personal experience of authoritarian rule to the production. “I know what it means to live under authoritarianism,” she says. “Freedom is never free. Every generation has to decide what it is willing to sacrifice to preserve it. This opera has remained relevant for nearly 200 years because that choice never goes away.”

While retaining the opera’s original text and key storylines, the creative team has streamlined Rossini’s nearly four-hour score into a dramatic performance of approximately two and a half hours (plus intermission). This new performing edition removes many period dance sequences and musical repeats customary in nineteenth-century French grand opera while preserving every essential musical and dramatic moment.

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AUDIO DESCRIPTION

MATTHEW SHIFRIN | Audio Description Consultant and Blind/Low Vision Expert Matthew Shifrin (he/him) is an innovator. He is the founder and CEO of Bricks for the Blind, a nonprofit committed to making play accessible by creating text-based LEGO building instructions for Blind consumers. He is an accomplished musician with degrees from New England Conservatory, accordionist, composer, and countertenor. He wrote and hosted the award-winning podcast “Blind Guy Travels,” wrote award-winning bilingual musicals, and convinced a braille-making company to create Yiddish Braille. Shifrin hopes to inspire other innovators to help blind people discover and engage with the world around them.

GWEN COBURN | Audio Describer Gwen Coburn (she/her) is a comedian, playwright, and audio describer based in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. She’s thrilled to bring her love of storytelling to the audio description for William Tell, having recently described for ArtsEmerson, Greater Boston Stage Company, and the Edmonton Fringe Festival. As a comedian, she writes and performs with the Nova Show, an original variety show in residence at the Rockwell. Gwen also tours solo works and ensemble plays that combine music, drama, clowning and slapstick. Her most recent solo work, The Importance of Being Haunted, won Best Alternative Venue Comedy at Boston Fringe for phenomenal presentation, innovation, and audience response. She holds a graduate degree in vocal pedagogy from Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

LALI HAINES | Supertitle Narrator Lali Haines (she/her) is delighted to make her audio description debut for Boston Lyric Opera with this production of William Tell. A retired

OBGYN physician of South Asian heritage, and dedicated musical theatre actress for the past two decades, she was also a French major and delighted to bring her love of the language to bear during this production. She has trained in Audio Description as an extension of her belief that the arts should be accessible and inclusive for all. Favorite recent onstage roles: Morticia (Addams Family), Angie (The Prom), Mrs. Shingle (Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) Hedy La Rue (How to Succeed in Business). Audio describing credit: HONK! (Open Door Theater); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company).

ABOUT THINK OUTSIDE THE VOX Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) is pleased to partner with Think Outside the Vox (VOX) to offer culturally competent Audio Description (AD) made for and by the Blind and Low-Vision community. BLO offers AD for all performances of four productions this season: William Tell, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Marriage of Figaro, and Ayre. AD teams have been cast by Blind AD Consultant and opera singer Matthew Shifrin.

Audio Description is a strategically crafted and timed narration of the visual elements of a show.

AD is broadcast by a live describer via radio transmitter to patrons wearing a headphone receiver. During the show, patrons absorb live in-show AD, which may include choreography of people and props, set changes, lighting, and character clarification — this is precisely timed in between and with the music and dialogue performed onstage. The AD preshow includes contextual descriptions of characters, set design, props, costumes, and visual references. For shows presented in languages other than English, a Narrator will read the surtitles aloud as part of the in-show AD. BLO | FALL 2026

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THE POWER OF US, AND THE COST OF ONE

by Anne Bogart, BLO Artistic Associate

B

efore the music even begins, a quiet transformation is already underway.

Strangers cross a city on an autumn evening, gather in a theater, and take their seats in the dark beside people they do not know.

For the next two and a half hours, they agree to breathe together in one room — to laugh, perhaps in the same places, and perhaps fall silent together. Briefly, and without ever discussing it, they have made themselves into a We. That small act, the willingness to gather, to attend, to become momentarily plural, is not a preface to this opera. It is, without anyone intending it, the condition that makes the opera possible.

Rossini’s William Tell is often described as the story of a marksman who splits an apple balanced on his son’s head, kills a tyrant, and frees his country. That description is true, and it is also a decoy. The opera Rossini composed, and the opera that Vita Tzykun and David Adam Moore have staged with us here, is a choral one. Dozens of voices carry the piece, and its architecture is built from weddings, oaths, laments, and hymns. The heroic archer is only one figure inside a community, and it is the community, not the archer alone, that the music keeps returning to. William Tell is a story about the power of Us, the collective, and about the One who, when the moment demands it, must act alone.

Almost two hundred years after Rossini set these forces in collision, the underlying conflicts remain startlingly current: empire versus self-rule, centralization versus local autonomy, hierarchy versus equality, assimilation versus cultural memory, surveillance versus private life. The regime that occupies the country in our staging is invented — it belongs to no single nation or moment — but the pattern it enacts is one that every audience member will recognize, and every audience member will match it to a conflict of their own, perhaps 20

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drawn from the news, from history, or from memory. This is what a classic does, and what it is for. It is not a preserved object but living material, one that returns each new present to us in a form we can finally see — giving us words for what we were already living without quite being able to name.

What Rossini understood, and what our production takes as its structural premise, is that resistance does not begin with a hero. It begins with the ordinary refusals of a community that has decided not to disappear into the accepted hierarchy. A wedding held in defiance of a curfew. A ritual performed underground. A grandmother who still teaches the old song.

A red thread stitched inside the lining of a grey coat. These are not the prologue to political action; they are political action. They are the daily, unremarkable insistence that another way of being human is still possible.

Long before William Tell lifts a crossbow, the Helvetian chorus has already been at work.

They keep alive the We out of which any I will eventually have to step.

This is an older pattern that opera inherits from a much longer theatrical history. Western theater began, on Greek threshing floors, as a chorus — a community moving and singing together — from which a single figure occasionally detached, turned, and answered.

That figure, the hypokrites, was named literally “the one who answers.” Character, in the theatrical sense, was born the moment the collective needed a specific person to speak on its behalf, at a certain cost, in view of the assembled. Rossini’s opera, whether he knew it or not, restages that ancient event in nineteenth-century form. William Tell is not born a liberator. He is a father, a huntsman, a subject of an occupying power. It is the chorus around him — its grief, its songs, its wedding, its dead — that finally makes remaining a private citizen impossible. Their

joys and anguishes become the pressure under which a single person must step forward and respond. The community calls him out of itself, and he answers.

The apple scene is the image the world remembers, and rightly so. The tyrant forces William Tell to perform obedience: to aim at his own child, in public, on command. What Gessler cannot see is the second arrow Tell has concealed in the folds of his cloak, the one meant for the tyrant himself if the first arrow harms the boy. That concealed second arrow is one of the great images in the operatic repertoire of what it means to be free. A free person is not one whom the regime cannot arrest. A free person is one who, even while performing the gesture demanded of them, has kept something back that the regime cannot see, cannot name, and cannot possess.

Freedom, in William Tell, is not a possession.

It is a reserve. It is what the community has been quietly stockpiling — in its songs, in its forbidden colors, in its weddings — and what one of its members, at a decisive moment, is called upon to draw from and release on everyone’s behalf.

This is what our production wants to express.

The opera does not end with an individual triumph. It ends with a hymn — a whole people singing, as the mist lifts and the mountains

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Gioachino Rossini, 1828, by Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot

reappear: Tout change et grandit en ces lieux…

Liberté, redescends des cieux. Everything is changing and growing grander in this place.

Liberty descends again from heaven. What the chorus sings is not a victory lap. It is a reckoning with the price paid to arrive at this moment — Melchtal executed, a father forced to endanger his son, a country wagered on a single arrow — and the shared knowledge that liberty is never simply won, only repeatedly claimed. The useful question in the opera is not “Was William Tell brave?” It is this: what are we willing to keep doing together — sing, marry, remember, gather, wear the forbidden color — so that when a moment asks one of us to step forward, there is still a We for that person to answer to?

When the mist finally lifts at the end of the opera and the mountains reappear, no single voice carries the last word. The chorus does.

Liberté, redescends des cieux. It is not a victory; it is a summons — liberty asked to come down again, because everyone on the stage knows it will have to be claimed again. That is the opera’s real ending, and it is also its invitation. The We on the stage sings to the We in the seats. What we do with that song after we leave this room — what we keep singing, keep gathering for, keep refusing to give up — is where the opera continues.

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IGOR LEVIT

PIANO

SUN

NOV 08

3PM

SYMPHONY HALL Pianist Igor Levit makes his Symphony Hall recital debut with an all-Beethoven program.

Tickets at vivoperformingarts.org

This month, the BSO combines the drama and passion of beloved classics like Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker with the excitement of groundbreaking new music by Carlos Simon and Tod Machover.

2026-27 SEASON Find your music at bso.org

MEET THE ARTISTS DAVID ANGUS | Conductor Now in his seventeenth year as Boston Lyric Opera’s music director, Anglo-Danish conductor David Angus most recently led the BLO Orchestra in new productions of Song of the Earth and Macbeth. Highlights of his BLO career include Der Fliegende Holländer, Werther, Bieto’s production of Carmen in Boston’s Opera House, The Handmaid’s Tale at Harvard’s Lavietes Pavilion, The Lighthouse at the JFK Presidential Library, critically acclaimed online productions of desert in and The Fall of the House of Usher, BLO’s backwards La bohème, and Anne Bogart’s striking production of Bluebeard’s Castle | Four Songs. Previously, Angus was music director of The Glimmerglass Festival and Chief Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Flanders. He has led orchestras and choirs throughout Europe, particularly in Italy and Scandinavia. He has conducted most of the major orchestras and choirs in Great Britain, including the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, most of the BBC orchestras and choirs, the London Mozart Players, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has also conducted the Toscanini Orchestra in Parma, the Porto Symphony Orchestra in Portugal, Wexford Festival Opera, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Huddersfield Choral Society, as well as his former orchestra in Belgium.

Angus was a boy chorister at King’s College, Cambridge, under Sir David Willcocks and read music at Surrey University. He was a conducting Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he won several prizes for opera conducting.

VICTORIA (VITA) TZYKUN | Stage Director; Scenic, Costume, and Projection Designer Vita Tzykun [tsee-’koon] is a creative director, designer, and transdisciplinary artist with a prolific international career, also known widely for her work as an educator and creative leader. Named to the XLIST 2025 as one of the world’s 100 most creative visionaries in experiential art, she has had work presented

by Norwegian Opera, The Bolshoi Theatre, Lyric 24

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Opera of Chicago, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, and Atlanta Opera, among others. Her prior engagement with Boston Lyric Opera was costume design for Rigoletto. A proponent of new works, she has designed over a dozen world premieres to date. Film and TV credits include art direction for Lady Gaga and production design for award-winning films, music videos, and national TV ads. Her designs were featured in a solo exhibition at the National Opera Center in NYC, and her paintings are held in private collections worldwide. She was nominated for Designer of the Year by the International Opera Awards, which also nominated her immersive production of RENT—which she co-directed and designed sets and projections for—for Best Musical. With David Adam Moore, Tzykun cofounded GLMMR, an NYC-based interdisciplinary art collective that fuses fine art, audiovisual technology, and live performance.

DAVID ADAM MOORE | Stage Director; Scenic, Costume, and Projection Designer Named one of the world’s 100 Most Creative Visionaries in Experiential Art (XList), David Adam Moore leads a dynamic international career as director, performer, immersive media designer, and GRAMMY®nominated recording artist. His innovative work in immersive media, stage direction/ design, and performance art have been presented by global institutions including the Guggenheim, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Hungarian State Opera, San Diego Opera, NO Gallery NYC, and National Sawdust. In partnership with director/designer Vita Tzykun, Moore co-leads the NYC-based transdisciplinary collective GLMMR. His projection designs have been featured in Lighting and Sound America Magazine, while his award-winning photography appears in the Frankfurter Allgemeine and Boosey & Hawkes Music publications. As a leading baritone, Moore performs regularly with prestigious houses including The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Carnegie Hall, and the Salzburger Festspiele. His expansive repertoire exceeds

MEET THE ARTISTS 60 principal roles, featuring celebrated performances of Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Dead Man Walking, Billy Budd, A Streetcar Named Desire, Angels in America, Winterreise, and Carmina Burana. A McNair Scholar and Recording Academy Research Grant recipient, he serves on the faculty of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Theater Institute and as Granada Artist-in-Residence and Visiting Professor at the University of California, Davis.

ERIC SOUTHERN | Lighting Designer Eric Southern is an Obie Awardwinning designer working in theatre, opera, music, and dance.

Boston Lyric Opera credits include Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. Recent projects include A Streetcar Named Desire, Don Pasquale, Tosca, Die Fledermaus, A Light in the Piazza, Julius Caesar and Galileo Galilei, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; Susannah, Opera Omaha; Amadeus, Steppenwolf Theatre Company; and Swing State, Goodman Theatre and Audible Theater. His designs have been seen internationally in London, Paris, Avignon, Tokyo, Seoul, Athens, Australia, Hanover, Zurich, and Romania. He is a longtime collaborator with the theater group 600 HIGHWAYMEN, where he has collaborated on many projects that have extensively toured throughout the US and internationally. He has designed many projects with companies including Lincoln Center, The Goodman, BAM, MTC, The New Group, Rattlestick Theater, Primary Stages, La Mama, Atlantic Theater Company, Center Theatre Group, and The Guthrie, among others. In opera and music, he has designed for Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, The Harris Theater, Prototype Festival, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He received both his BFA and MFA at NYU and is an Associate Professor in the MFA Stage Design Program at Northwestern University. ericsouthern.com BRITTANY RAPPISE | Hair & Makeup Designer Brittany Rappise’s work as a freelance wig and makeup designer spans many mediums including

opera, theatre, and film. Born and raised in New Jersey, she is a graduate of UNC School of the Arts with an MFA in wig and makeup design.

Her work can regularly be seen onstage with Des Moines Metro Opera, Nashville Opera, Opera Delaware, Curtis Institute, Knoxville Opera, Pensacola Opera, and more. Rappise owns and operates The Makeup Wigstress LLC, which offers wig rentals, custom wig builds, and full show design and coordination, including wig, makeup, and costumes. She has built wigs and taught workshops for major entertainment companies including Disney Parks, Disney Cruise Line, Busch Gardens, and Six Flags. Rappise also teaches classes for theatre companies and universities, including University of Alabama, University of West Florida, Long Island University, and Brevard Music Center. Most recent design credits include The Egyptian Helen at Bard Summerscape; Tosca, Of Mice and Men, and King Roger at Des Moines Metro Opera; and Turandot at Florida Grand Opera. Rappise is very much looking forward to her first design for Boston Lyric Opera and to a busy 2026/2027 season, starting with Don Giovanni at Opera Delaware. brittanyrappise.com | @makeupwigstressl ANGIE JEPSON | Intimacy Director/Fight Choreographer Angie Jepson is an intimacy director, fight choreographer, and professor based in the Boston area. She is thrilled to return to BLO after serving as the fight choreographer and intimacy director for Daughter of the Regiment, Song of the Earth, Macbeth, Mitridate, and Carousel, as well as the intimacy director on The Anonymous Lover, La Cenerentola, and Bluebeard’s Castle | Four Songs. Her fight and intimacy work has been seen onstage at theaters including the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Huntington Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Gloucester Stage, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Greater Boston Stage Company, Central Square Theater, and at several universities in the Boston area. She is currently on the faculty at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she teaches in the theatre BLO | FALL 2026

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MEET THE ARTISTS and opera departments. She is a certified intimacy director with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, and a certified teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors.

She holds an MFA in acting from Brandeis University.

GEORGE GAGNIDZE | William Tell George Gagnidze is one of the leading dramatic baritones of his generation and has appeared at many of the world’s foremost opera houses.

He made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Rigoletto in the 2008/09 season and has since returned for nearly 150 performances in roles including Nabucco, Macbeth, Amonasro (Aida), Scarpia (Tosca), Michele (Il tabarro), Tonio (Pagliacci), Alfio (Cavalleria rusticana), and Shaklovity (Khovanshchina). This season, he appeared as Gianciotto at Teatro Regio Torino and as Shaklovity at Staatsoper Berlin, with further engagements including the Dutchman at Teatre Principal de Palma, Giorgio Germont at Semperoper Dresden, and Macbeth at Teatro Carlo Felice. In the 2024/25 season, he was seen at The Metropolitan Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, the Hungarian State Opera, and the Oper im Steinbruch in major title roles. His international career has brought him to leading houses such as La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, San Francisco Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Gran Teatre del Liceu, LA Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro San Carlo, the Arena di Verona, the BBC Proms, and Washington National Opera, in collaboration with many of the most distinguished conductors and directors of our time.

ANYA MATANOVIČ | Mathilde Soprano Anya Matanovič returns to Boston Lyric Opera following her most recent appearance as Carrie Pipperidge in the company’s 2025 production of Carousel. She began her association with BLO in 2014 with a role debut as Violetta in La traviata, later returning as Anne Trulove in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. Matanovič has maintained a close relationship with the Metropolitan Opera, 26

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where she has been on the roster since 2022, covering Violetta, Musetta, and Also Jess in Tesori’s Grounded. She makes her Metropolitan Opera stage debut in the 2026/27 season as Musetta in La bohème. Recent roles have included Violetta, La traviata, Utah Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, Opera Maribor, and Knoxville Opera; Wendy Torrance, The Shining, Nashville Opera; Sardula, The Last Savage and Lysistrata, Lysistrata, Odyssey Opera and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Micaëla, Carmen, Glimmerglass Festival and Opera Santa Barbara; Isotta, Die Schweigsame Frau, Bard SummerScape; and Susanna, Le nozze di Figaro, Seattle Opera.

She made her professional debut as Mimì in Baz Luhrmann’s La bohème in Los Angeles and has since appeared with Santa Fe Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Colorado, Kansas City Lyric Opera, New Israeli Opera, Arizona Opera, the Cleveland Orchestra, and others.

KONU KIM | Arnold Konu Kim is an internationally recognized lyric tenor. Recent engagements include his return to San Francisco Opera as Jade Emperor, The Monkey King and Bao Yu, Dream of the Red Chamber; Rodolfo, La bohème, Polish National Opera, Malmö Opera, and the Seoul Metropolitan Opera; and his role debut as Leicester, Maria Stuarda, Staatsoper Hamburg and as Fenton, Falstaff, Polish National Opera. Future projects include Alfredo, La traviata, Deutsche Oper am Rhein and his debut at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. Other recent performances include Count Almaviva, Il barbiere di Siviglia; a concert version of Beatrice di Tenda at Deutsche Oper am Rhein; Almuzir, Zoraida di Granata, Fondazione Teatro Donizetti; the Wexford Opera Festival; and appearances as Duca, Rigoletto, Prague National Theatre. Recent highlights include his lauded appearances as Tonio, La fille du régiment and Count Almaviva, Il barbiere di Siviglia at The Royal Ballet and Opera and the Royal Swedish Opera; Tonio, La fille du régiment, Deutsche Oper am Rhein; Ferrando, Così fan tutte and Ernesto, Don Pasquale, Glyndebourne Festival; and his debut as Arnold Melchtal, William Tell, Irish

MEET THE ARTISTS National Opera. He is a First Prize winner of Operalia and Concours music international de Montréal.

NINA YOSHIDA NELSEN | Hedwige | BLO Artistic Director GRAMMY® Award-nominated mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen captivates audiences throughout North America and Europe with her world-class voice and magnetic stage presence. Over the past two seasons, Ms. Nelsen has maintained an active performance schedule alongside her work as Artistic Director of Boston Lyric Opera, demonstrating a commitment to remaining grounded in the art form she now helps to lead. On the operatic stage, she has performed the role of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly with Utah Opera, Anchorage Opera, and Calgary Opera, as well as the role of Khanh in Huang Ruo’s Bound with Anchorage Opera. She has also appeared in concert, most recently as a soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Boise Philharmonic. In 2026, she received her first GRAMMY® nomination for her performance of Chen’s mother on the recording of Huang Ruo’s An American Soldier. In previous seasons, Ms. Nelsen joined Indianapolis Opera for the title role in Carmen and performed the role of Melissa in Alcina with Seattle Opera, Suzuki with Opera Carolina, Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro with Utah Opera, and Mother Chen in An American Soldier at the Perelman Performing Arts Center, a role that she has previously performed with Bard SummerScape.

BRIANNA J. ROBINSON | Jemmy In the 2025/26 season, soprano Brianna J. Robinson returned to Detroit Opera as a Resident Artist, performing as Moira in Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale. She also performed with the Lima Symphony Orchestra in Carmina Burana. In 2026/27, she returns to Boston Lyric Opera as Jemmy in William Tell. Ms. Robinson is a former Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist with BLO, where she performed roles such as Julie in Giddens and Abels’ 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar, Léontine in Joseph Bologne’s The Anonymous Lover, Mimì (cover) in La

bóheme, and Lucy in Fellow Travelers. As a Resident Artist with the Detroit Opera in 2024/25, Ms. Robinson had role debuts as Annina in La traviata and as Antron’s Mother/ Kevin’s Mother/Ensemble in Central Park Five. She also covered Violetta in La traviata, Almirena in Rinaldo, and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte. She debuted at Carnegie Hall with The Cecilia Chorus of NY in 2023, performing Vaughan Williams’ Dona nobis pacem. Last season, she was awarded First Prize in the George Shirley Vocal Competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and First Place in the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition. Ms. Robinson is a proud graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Eastman School of Music.

YEGHISHE MANUCHARYAN | Rudolph Internationally acclaimed Armenian tenor Yeghishe Manucharyan has performed widely throughout the United States and Europe.

A specialist in bel canto, Mr. Manucharyan is in high demand for the technically challenging roles of Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini.

In recent years, Mr. Manucharyan expanded his repertoire into the more dramatic operas of Verdi and Puccini, as well as Russian and French composers. Mr. Manucharyan made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Eustazio in Rossini’s Armida. He sang the roles of Ottavio in Don Giovanni and Nadir in The Pearl Fishers at New York City Opera, and earned critical acclaim for his Carnegie Hall appearances with the Opera Orchestra of New York as Percy in Anna Bolena, Gérald in Lakmé and Ivan Lykov in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride. In 2023, he sang the role of Luigi in Puccini’s Il tabarro at the Musica Viva Festival in Hong Kong.

HUNTER ENOCH | Gessler Hunter Enoch is making his Boston Lyric Opera debut this season as Gessler in William Tell. This year will also feature Mr. Enoch as the baritone soloist in Brahms’ Requiem with Virginia Chorale, Silvio in I Pagliacci with Virginia Opera, and as the bass soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Last season, BLO | FALL 2026

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MEET THE ARTISTS Mr. Enoch joined Opera on the James to sing Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, the Princeton Symphony as the bass soloist in Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, the Pacific Symphony as Ping in Turandot, and St. Pete Opera as Marcello in La bohème. In recent seasons, Mr. Enoch debuted with San Diego Opera singing Germont in La traviata. He sang Donner in Das Rheingold and covered Wotan in performances of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Fabio Luisi. He made his Carnegie Hall debut as the bass soloist for Mozart’s Requiem and Solemn Vespers and joined D.C. Choral Arts at the Kennedy Center for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Mr. Enoch made his debut with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Scarpia in Tosca and returned the following summer to sing Pope Urban VIII in Galileo Galilei.

JAMES DEMLER | Melchtal Bass-baritone James Demler is known for his versatility in operatic, oratorio, concert, and popular music. With Boston Lyric Opera, he has sung in La Cenerentola, Champion, Kátya Kabanová, Werther, and Macbeth.

Odyssey Opera credits include Sir John in Love, Dimitrij, The Importance of Being Earnest, L’assedio di Calais, Le Médecin malgré lui, and the U.S. premiere of Rosner’s The Chronicle of Nine. He has been a featured soloist with the Boston Pops and Carnegie Hall, and in 2023 joined the roster of The Metropolitan Opera, where he covered Der Notar in Der Rosenkavalier and Benoit/Alcindoro in La bohème. Mr. Demler first gained international attention at Houston Grand Opera, where he appeared as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, De Brétigny in Manon, and Peter in Hansel and Gretel. In 2024 he created the role of Grandfather in Prestini’s Silent Light at National Sawdust, and in 2025 debuted with LA Opera as Morris in Kouyoumdjian’s Adoration. Other recent roles include Monterone, Rigoletto, Pacific Opera Victoria; Benoit/Alcindoro, La bohème, Opera Company of Middlebury; and Bartolo, Le nozze di Figaro, Amarillo Opera. He has served on the voice faculty of Boston University since 2005 and can be heard as a radio host on WCRB. 28

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SERGIO MARTINEZ | Walter Furst Colombian bass Sergio Martinez has been praised nationally and internationally for his charismatic stage presence. As a member of Washington National Opera’s distinguished Cafritz Young Artist Program, Mr. Martinez received extensive acclaim as a featured performer in both their American Opera Initiative and mainstage productions, most notably for his portrayals of Frère Laurent in Roméo et Juliette and Baloo in Kamala Sankaram and Kelley Rourke’s The Jungle Book. He is delighted to be making his Boston Lyric Opera debut as Walter Furst in William Tell. Last season, Mr. Martinez made house debuts at Virginia Opera as the King of Egypt in Aida and at Opera Southwest in Dolores. He also returned to The Glimmerglass Festival to sing the roles of Sagrestano in Tosca and Papa Cordero in their premiere of The House on Mango Street. This season, Mr. Martinez makes his Metropolitan Opera debut covering Lodovico in Otello and Angelotti in Tosca. He also debuts with Austin Opera as Palémon in Thaïs, with Annapolis Opera as Sparafucile in Rigoletto, and with Berkshire Opera as Alidoro in La cenerentola.

MORGAN MASTRANGELO | Ruodi Morgan Mastrangelo recently completed two years as a Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist at Boston Lyric Opera, covering leading and supporting roles while earning their Master of Music from New England Conservatory. This season, they make their principal debut with BLO as Ruodi in William Tell. Recent credits include their debut in Europe as Astolfe in Lully’s Roland at Opéra Royal Versailles, Hades in Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice at Opera Grand Rapids, and Tonio (cover) in Boston Lyric Opera’s new production of Daughter of the Regiment. They spent their summer as a first-year Apprentice Singer with Santa Fe Opera. Upcoming credits include Handel’s Messiah at Duke University Chapel and the role of Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola with Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras. Mas-

MEET THE ARTISTS trangelo earned a B.M. from Northwestern University in 2020, and sang in the young artist programs of Opera Saratoga and Teatro Nuovo before enrolling at the New England Conservatory to study voice with Bradley Williams, earning their M.M. in 2025. They are the 2nd place winner of the 2025 Concours du chant Baroque de Froville, Handel Aria Competition, and American National Oratorio Competition. Mastrangelo is the founder and director of the period-instrument ensemble Split the Lark.

ILYA SILCHUKOU | Leuthold Belarusian baritone Ilya Silchukou is an internationally soughtafter performer for his compelling Kavalier baritone voice and dramatic interpretations. Silchukou made his debut at La Scala as Jager in Rusalka in June 2023.

This season, he sings Samuel, The Pirates of Penzance; First Shepherd, Daphne; and Moralès, Carmen at Seattle Opera. His recent performances include Dandini, La Cenerentola and Prince Yeletzky, The Queen of Spades in Sofia; Dandini, La Cenerentola and Michele, Il tabarro in Montpellier; Belcore, L’elisir d’amore in Toulouse; the title role in Eugene Onegin in Warsaw; Robert, Iolanta in Linz; Valentine, Faust in Tel Aviv; Giorgio Germont, La traviata in Bregenz, Tallinn, and Brno; Duke, The Miserly Knight in Brussels; Athanaël, Thaïs in Tallinn; Fiorello, Il barbiere di Siviglia in Rome; Miller, Luisa Miller and Albert, Werther in Trieste; Shaklovity, Khovanshchina in Frankfurt; and Silvio, Pagliacci in Minsk. In 2011, he took part in the Young Singers Project at the Salzburg Festival. Silchukou is the prizewinner of more than 15 international singing competitions, including the H.G. Belvedere Competition in Vienna, CLIP in Portofino, and Elena Obraztsova Grand Opera Show at Russia Culture TV.

BRADLEY VERNATTER | Stanford Calderwood General Director & CEO Bradley Vernatter is Boston Lyric Opera’s Stanford Calderwood General Director & Chief Executive Officer, the company’s top leadership role. Now in his 14th year with BLO — having led the company since 2021 — he successfully guided BLO out of the pandemic and into a comprehensive, meaningful relationship with its multiple communities, and established its first true creative headquarters with the Opera + Community Studios in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood.

Vernatter’s leadership to develop a wideranging strategic plan for the organization has brought BLO into its 50th anniversary, with a year-round artistic and programming footprint that further incorporates the company into Greater Boston through mainstage performances, city-wide community events, education programs, and collaborations with leading civic, academic and performing arts organizations. Throughout his career, Vernatter has produced a range of operas, multi-disciplinary performances, and media productions. He is a 2020 alum of the Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” rising leaders survey. He was part of the YW Boston LeadBoston cohort in 2022 and served on the board of advisors at Artists For Humanity. He also contributes to social entrepreneurship projects addressing access to basic services. Previously, Vernatter was BLO's Acting General and Artistic Director, after serving as its Chief Operating Officer.

He held artistic and management positions with Wexford Festival Opera as well as companies and institutions in Chicago, Omaha, Virginia, and New York City. He has degrees in music, communications, and business from Otterbein University, Brown University, and IE Business School.

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Family Owned and Operated Since 1957

PROUD TO PLAY A PART IN EVERY PERFORMANCE You’re invited to visit our showrooms to see, hear, play, and compare an extraordinary selection of the world’s most soughtafter pianos, side-by-side.

NEWTON, MA NASHUA, NH SPRINGFIELD, MA FRANKLIN, TN

BLO ARTISTS: COURTESY OF COSTUME WORKS, INC.

Costume Works, Inc.

Costume Works, Inc. is one of Boston Lyric Opera’s longest-standing partners: we have been collaborating for 30 years! We interviewed Liz Perlman, the owner of the business, in honor of this incredible team of artists and the world-class work that they do locally, nationally, and internationally.

How would you describe the mission of Costume Works, Inc.?

This isn’t formalized anywhere, but I’d say our mission is to create high-quality costumes and soft goods that make the wearers feel good and make the creative teams feel that their concepts and designs have been fully realized.

Scan to visit Costume Works, Inc.

What are you proudest of about in your work for the arts community?

I’m proudest that our solid relationships with so many wonderful clients have enabled us to keep making costumes for over three decades.

When Costume Works was formed, what was the need that the company sought to fill in the Boston arts community? What inspired the creation of this company?

I worked as a production manager for a costume designer who had a business set up very similarly to Costume Works — except that he did all the designing as well as the producing. He decided to close his business when I had a 4-year-old and a newborn, and at that point, I wrote letters to his 4 biggest clients — including BLO — and asked if they would become my clients, were I start a business that provided the same services, minus the designing. They all said yes. A practically ready-made path to start something was right there.

What are some of the different ways in which Costume Works creates costumes? What challenges can different approaches present?

Creating costumes runs the spectrum from purchasing something ready-to-wear and putting it onstage, to custom-making an entire design. Most often, when we start with purchased clothing, we also fit and alter it, but then we paint, dye, embellish, or combine multiple pieces into one. Or we rig clothing pieces so they stay together onstage but come apart quickly for fast costume changes.

One challenge in costuming regardless of whether things are entirely built or entirely purchased is making them look the way the designer wants them to, while making sure they work and are comfortable for the performer. Actors and singers need to be able to concentrate on their performance — not on whether their pants will stay up, or their hat will stay on, or the heel of their shoe will get caught on the set.

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“BLO has had the good fortune of working with Costume Works from the very beginning, and 30 years later, this partnership remains an important part of how we bring our productions to life. Liz Perlman and her team combine world-class craftsmanship with a deep understanding of character and what it takes to tell a story. They’ve helped transport our audiences across centuries, continents, and imagined worlds, and I look forward to what we’ll create together next.”

– Bradley Vernatter Some costumes require more “engineering” than others, i.e. pieces that are oversized, extend way out or up on the wearer, transform the person’s shape entirely (say, for example, into an animal), or are for people who require an extraordinary range of motion. (A contortionist performing with the Big Apple Circus once said to me: “I can’t wear that hat — I sit on my own head!”)

What are some of the most ambitious projects Costume Works has done?

That answer falls into different categories: a project can be ambitious in terms of the sheer number of costumes (like William Tell), ambitious in terms of the difficulty of making the clothes accommodate the activity of the performer (Big Apple Circus folks, hands down), ambitious in terms of the difficulty of the patterning or execution of the costume (we have several Disney World projects that fall into this category, but I’m not allowed to share designs or photos without written permission).

How many years has Costume Works collaborated with Boston Lyric Opera? What are some of the highlights of our collaboration?

BLO was one of the 4 clients who said they would be delighted to use our services in 1996! It’s been a pleasure to work with so many talented singers, and to get to know so many chorus members and Emerging Artists — they’re the folks we get to see most often.

What is one of your favorite memories or productions with BLO? I thought Omar was one of the most moving and memorable operas of all those we’ve coordinated.

I loved the concept of all those costume fabrics being printed with the writings of the protagonist.

Others that come to mind are the Egypt-themed year in 2000 with both Akhnaten and Aida (looking for just the right red linen that the designer described as “to-mah-to soup with a little cream”), the wackiness of John Conklin’s The Rake’s Progress (a whole male chorus in plaid boxers, sock garters, and pink T-shirts!), and so many of the site-specific shows like The Lighthouse at the JFK Library and The Love Potion at Temple Ohabei Shalom in Brookline — so many little jewels of shows in their innovative settings.

This piece is part of a season-long celebration of BLO’s community, anchored by our Artists, Audiences, Champions, and Neighbors. The individuals and groups recognized in these features represent just some of the thousands who have shaped, supported, and sustained us for the past 50 years.

Left: The Costume Works team. L to R/ Liz Perlman, Lynn Jeffery, Therese Beck, Heidi Hermiller, Gail Buckley, Nancy McCarthy. | Below: Michelle Trainor’s costume in BLO’s The Nefarious, Immoral, but Highly Profitable Enterprise of Mr. Burke & Mr. Hare (2017) | Chorus costumes in BLO’s Omar (2023)

BLO STAFF

OLIVIA MOON PHOTOGRAPHY.

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ARTISTIC & PRODUCTION PERSONNEL BLO ORCHESTRA Violin Annie Rabbat Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser Orchestra Leader Sarah Atwood Principal Second Violin Stacey Alden Heather Braun-Bakken Heidi Braun-Hill Sasha Callahan Rose Drucker Daniel Faris Lisa Goddard Rohan Gregory Megumi Lewis Yeolim Nam Yumi Okada Asuka Usui Christine Vitale Lena Wong Hikaru Yonezaki Mitsuru Yonezaki Viola Leonardo Vásquez Chacón Principal David Feltner Noriko Futagami Amelia Hollander Ames Donna Jerome Don Krishnaswami Daniel Urbanowicz Cello Brent Selby Principal Melanie Dyball Jacqueline Ludwig Selby Rafael Popper-Keizer Aron Zelkowicz Bass Robert Lynam Principal Barry Boettger Kevin Green

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Flute Linda Toote Principal Ann Bobo Oboe Nancy Dimock Principal Grace Shryock Clarinet Jan Halloran Principal Nicholas Brown Bassoon Ronald Haroutunian Principal Stephanie Busby Horn Kevin Owen Principal Whitacre Hill Dirk Hillyer Iris Rosenstein Trumpet Richard Kelley Acting Principal Andrew Sorg Trombone Drew Robertson Principal Cameron Owen Will Roberts Timpani Robert Schulz Acting Principal Percussion Richard Flanagan Principal William Manley Nancy Smith Harp Amanda Romano Foreman Acting Principal Alix Raspe

The artists and stage managers employed on these productions are members of the American Guild of Musical Artists. All musicians are members of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada. Many of the scenic, costume, and lighting designers are members of United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). Stagehands are represented by Local #11 of IATSE. Wardrobe crew are represented by Local #775 of IATSE. BLO is a member of OPERA America, the national service organization for opera in the US and Canada.

ARTISTIC & PRODUCTION PERSONNEL BLO CHORUS Brett Hodgdont Chorus Director Sopranos

Altos

Claire Burresonl Alisa Cassola Sohyun Cho Melynda Davis Carley DeFranco Jessica Jacobs Marie McCarville Abigail Smith

Margretta Beaty Christina English Juliette Kaoudjil Jaime Korkos Mary Krayl Ricky Lee Owens, Jr.l Arielle Rogers-Wilkey Elena Snow

Tenors

Basses

Kartik Ayysola Ethan Bremner Kevin Courtemanche Michael Gonzalez Robert Kleinertz Frank Levar Daniel Lugol Christopher Maher Thomas Oesterling Christopher Remkus Patrick Starke Thomas Valenti

Michael Aoun Junhan Choit Kamil Ekinci Dylan Evans Jovanni Ferrer Taylor Horner Jacob O’Sheal Devon Russot Marcus Schenck Joshua Shilo Zizhao Wangl Ron Williams

ASSOCIATE DESIGNERS Jasmine Lewis Associate Costume Designer Taylor Edelle Stuart Associate Projections Designer Julian Kelley Associate Projections Designer PRODUCTION STAFF Michael Janney Stage Manager Deb Acquavella Stage Manager Alexandra Dietrich Assistant Stage Directorl Adrian Speth Assistant Stage Manager Elizabeth Ramirez Assistant Stage Manager Jolie Frazer-Madge Assistant Stage Manager Emily Pascucci Production Assistant TJ Willis Technical Associate Dylan Reid Properties Supervisor Josh Barilla Assistant Scenic Designer Deb Sullivan Assistant Lighting Designer Liz Perlman Costume Director Gail Buckley Costume Supervisor Natalia St Jean Surtitle Operator Matthew Shifrin Audio Description Consultant & Blind/Low Vision Expert Gwen Coburn Audio Describer Lali Haines Surtitle Narrator Shae Muchler Stage Management Intern PRODUCTION CREW

SUPERNUMERARIES Yunus Akbas Nicholas Bolton Elizabeth Hartford Armani Rodin COVERS Ilya Silchukou William Tell Angela Yamt Mathilde Kameron Lopreore Arnold Vera Savaget Hedwige Dana Lynne Varga Jemmy Daniel Lugol Rudolph Devon Russot Gessler Zizhao Wangl Melchtal / Walter Furst Suowei Wul Ruedi Jacob O’Sheal Leuthold

l t

Michael Geoghegan Head Production Carpenter TJ Willis First Assistant Production Carpenter Hanna McGugan Head Production Electrician Sumner Ellsworth Lighting Programmer Dexter Feliciano First Assistant Production Electrician Anne Dresbach Second Assistant Production Electrician Emily Picot Head Production Properties David Picot First Assistant Production Properties Bryan Ritchie Audio/Video Supervisor Jack Gruman Projection Programmer Chris Norman Head of Production Video Joshua DeChristopher Head of Production Audio Dianna Reardon Wardrobe Supervisor Erin Vadala First Assistant Wardrobe Melinda Abreu Hair & Makeup Supervisor Dawn Sloane First Assistant Hair & Makeup MUSIC STAFF Clancy Ellis l Cover Run Conductor William Manley Orchestra Contractor & Music Librarian Lily Smith Diction Coach

Boston Lyric Opera Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist Boston Lyric Opera Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist Alum

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BLO NEIGHBORS:

Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC) Original article entitled “A Short History of Fort Point” by Don Eyles. Abridged version by Natalia St Jean. Abridged and reprinted with permission of Don Eyles.

Please visit fortpointarts.org/about/history to read the full and original version of this piece.

The first artist known to have crossed the Fort Point Channel in search of a studio was sculptor Christopher Sproat, in March 1976 (the same year that Boston Lyric Opera was founded!)

Sproat and other artists had been displaced by a fire at the Plante Shoe Factory building in Jamaica Plain. Sproat brought back tales of the abundant, affordable space that was available in the sturdy timber and masonry buildings of Fort Point, still owned by the same Boston Wharf Company that had literally created the land — now a subsidiary of the British, Peninsular and Orient Steam Navigation Company.

Sproat and Domingo Barreres leased the fifth floor of 34 Farnsworth Street. Other artists alertly followed and found Bob Kenney at Boston Wharf willing to write leases they could afford. A building not owned by Boston Wharf, the Mondo Condo building at 326 A Street (so dubbed by an anonymous graffitist) became the first legal residential building in Fort Point.

By the end of 1980 the neighborhood had held its first Open Studios (in May) and formed the Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC) to represent its interests and serve as a clearing house for studio space. Since then, Fort Point has hosted the largest concentration of visual artists in New England and in 2010 will open its studios to the public for the thirty-first consecutive year.

Supported by grants, FPAC hired Jero Nesson as a full-time paid director in April, 1982. His ambition to find live-work space that artists could not only lease, but securely own, came to fruition in August, 1983 with the purchase of 249 A Street by a group of artists. The building was built out with about 35 studios 36

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and set up as a limited-equity cooperative for visual artists, the first in New England. The artist-owned building at 300 Summer Street followed in 1995. The Mobius Artists Group, founded by Marilyn Arsem, moved into 354 Congress Street in 1983.

During the 1980s and 1990s Fort Point artists tolerated published descriptions of the neighborhood as abandoned, in return for the sense of ownership that came from being the only people there after business hours. The huge Central Artery / Third Harbor Tunnel Project pierced the neighborhood in the mid-1990’s. In full view, in huge excavations flanking A Street, the highway that connects the Massachusetts Turnpike and the Ted Williams Tunnel took form. The departure of the Big Dig from the neighborhood around 2000 was the trigger for many changes.

The ground shifted under the neighborhood between 2000 and 2005 when the neighborhood’s predominant landowner, the venerable Boston Wharf Company, benign landlord to hundreds of artists for thirty years, sold its properties. First the Gillette Company acquired 10 acres between A Street and the Fort Point Channel — now a parking lot. Beacon Capital Partners bought buildings on A Street and Midway Street, evicted the artists, built a new building on Midway (renamed Channel Center Street) and renovated another as condominiums, and sold the remaining buildings, today renovated but mostly vacant, at a loss.

In 2005 Boston Wharf sold its last parcels to Archon/Goldman Properties (buildings on Summer, Melcher and A) and Berkeley Investments (Congress and Farnsworth). More

APCORTIZASJR | ISTOCK

“It’s pretty remarkable, and wonderfully serendipitous, that the first known artist moved to Fort Point and established their studio and home in 1976, the same year Boston Lyric Opera was founded. Fifty years later, what stands out most is the community of artists and residents who have shaped this neighborhood and given it its character. We’re grateful to the people who built Fort Point into the creative community it is today, and proud that BLO can contribute to and invest in its future.”

– Bradley Vernatter artists were evicted. Alone among the buyers of Boston Wharf properties Beacon Capital respected its debt to the artists’ community — in its role as a neighborhood builder — by facilitating the development of Fort Point’s third artist-controlled building by the Fort Point Development Collaborative (FPDC).

Midway Studios opened in 2005 at 15 Channel Center Street, offering 89 studios for rental to artists of all stripes. In 2014 Midway Studios was reorganized and refinanced to ensure its long-term survival.

The original artists’ organization FPAC has been joined by several others. The Fort Point Cultural Coalition (FPCC), following up on successful projects by individual artists, has sponsored some of the provocative public

art that has boosted artist visibility and influence. The Seaport Alliance for Neighborhood Design (SAND) has monitored development, built relationships, stimulated our vision of the future, and gotten out the news. The Fort Point Neighborhood Alliance (FPNA) brings together artists and other residents.

Five decades after its inception, Fort Point is home to hundreds of artists and numerous arts organizations, including BLO’s newly opened Opera + Community Studios.

This piece is part of a season-long celebration of BLO’s community, anchored by our Artists, Audiences, Champions, and Neighbors. The individuals and groups recognized in these features represent just some of the thousands who have shaped, supported, and sustained us for the past 50 years.

Above: Fort Point District in Boston, Massachusetts.

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BOSTON WATERFRONT ARTS

Fort Point Arts Community

fortpointarts.org

FPAC is a non-profit arts organization founded in 1980 that presents exhibitions, speaker series, and performances, featuring artists from Boston and beyond.

70A Sleeper Street Boston, MA 02210

FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

617-423-4299 info@fortpointarts.org

SCAN TO VISIT

EXPERIENCE

Contemporary art, music, talks, and community programming VISIT OUR GALLERIES

FPAC Art Space @ The Envoy Hotel, 70A Sleeper Street, Boston The Gallery at Atlantic Wharf 290 Congress Street, Boston UPCOMING EVENT

FORT POINT OPEN STUDIOS 2026 October 16–18 · Fri 4–7 PM · Sat–Sun 12–6 PM

Visit artists’ studios in 4 Fort Point buildings, explore 5 neighborhood galleries , enjoy live music, and take part in free music and art workshops for all ages.

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Culture & Celebration Cheers to the Boston Lyric Opera for 50 years of artistic enrichment.

The table is set for decades to come.

Now Booking Private Events Opera + Community Studios @thecateredaffair | thecateredaffair.com

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Boston Lyric Opera extends its gratitude to the following vendors, partners, individuals, community organizations, and school partners for their extraordinary courtesy in making our 2026/27 Season possible: 29 Pine Acentech, Inc. | Carl Rosenberg, Jonah Sacks, Khaleela Zaman Allison Voth American Repertory Theater Artists for Humanity ArtsBoston Arts Connect International ArtsEmerson Ball Square Films | Kathy Wittman Beth Harris | Fortepiano Tuner Boston Centers for Youth & Families Boston Children’s Museum Boston Conservatory at Berklee Boston Harbor Now Boston Properties Boston Public Library Boston Public Schools Visual & Performing Arts Office Boston Singers’ Resource Boston Symphony Orchestra Boston University | College of Fine Arts C3 Commercial Construction Consulting, Inc. | Doug Anderson Capron Lighting & Sound Co. | Jeff Antonellis, Ryan Frost Catalyst New Music The Catered Affair Charlestown Navy Yard City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP | Andrew Eisenberg Costume Works, Inc. | Liz Perlman Christie Lites Cultural Equity Incubator Devon Lumber Dynamix, Inc. Emerson Colonial Theatre – ATG Entertainment Falcetti Pianos | John Slavick First Parish Brookline Flansburgh Architects Fly Over the City The French Library The Friends of Titus Sparrow Park Furnished Quarters GBH Gilbane Building Company HallKeen Management | Jennifer Zarrella, Randy Pelletier Hibernian Hall | Harris Lefteri HILB Group HUB International The Huntington HYM Investment Group IATSE Local #11 JACET | Colleen Glynn Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción

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Janet Buecker JCA Arts Marketing Jim Jenson JKJ Retirement Services | Ben Hall, Jack McDonald King Richard’s Faire Longy School of Music MASARY Studios Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Megan Gilron | Staging Research Metropolis Garage Midway Artist Studios | Raber Umphenour Mike Marchetti Mike Mejia Andrew Motta Museum of Science Myles Standish Business Condominiums National Parks of Boston NEPS Primary Freight New England Conservatory of Music Nile Scott Studios | Nile Hawver No Swet Productions, LLC On the Mark Archery PEAK Rentals Powers Music School PRG Broadway, LLC Production Advantage ProPrint Red Apple Farm Tony Rickard Robert Silman Associates Structural Engineers | Ben Rosenberg, Steven Au Yeung The Rose Kennedy Greenway Rosebrand, Inc. Ryder Transportation Sew What, Inc. | Andrea Fraser Seyfarth Shaw, LLP | Brian Michaelis Sika Consulting | Kemarah Sika Smartpress SoWa Boston Starburst Printing & Graphics, Inc. Tarlow, Breed, Hart & Rodgers, P.C. | Michael Radin TDF | Theatre Development Fund Tessitura The Trustees of Reservations United Parish Brookline United Staging & Rigging | Eric Frishman Vantage Technology Consulting Group | Geoffrey Tritsch Vivo Performing Arts WBUR Winston Flowers YW Boston

BOSTON LYRIC OPERA STAFF NILE HAWVER/NILE SCOTT STUDIOS

LEADERSHIP

PHILANTHROPY

Bradley Vernatter Stanford Calderwood General Director & Chief Executive Officer Nina Yoshida Nelsen Artistic Director David Angus Music Director Anne Bogart Artistic Associate

Megan Bernard Interim Senior Director of Philanthropy Amy Gingle Campaign Director Laura Jekel Director of Annual Giving & Philanthropy Charlotte Porter Principal Philanthropy Advisor Joanna Safarik Senior Philanthropy Advisor Shelly Cornell Senior Philanthropy Advisor Eileen Puzo Gala Manager Randy Biagas-Hill Philanthropy Coordinator Katherine Leary Prospect Researcher

ARTISTIC & COMMUNITY Ben Richter Senior Director of Producing Operations Lisa Hanson Director of Producing Operations Nancy McDonald Director of Business Operations Morgan Beckford Director of Community & Learning Scot Burckhardt Director of Production Brett Hodgdon Head of Music & Chorus Director Ian Rouillard Assistant Director of Production Kimberly Sabio Manager of Artistic Operations V Brancazio Community & Learning Manager Alexis Feldman Community & Learning Coordinator Natalie Main Artistic Coordinator Michael Janney Producing Associate Kacie Brown Resident Teaching Artist Sepehr Davallou Resident Teaching Artist Laura Nevitt Resident Teaching Artist Hannah Shanefield Resident Teaching Artist Ji Yung Lee Coach/Pianist Brendon Shapiro Coach/Pianist Douglas Sumi Coach/Pianist ADMINISTRATION Lizabeth Malanga Senior Director of Administration Libby B. Snyder Office Administrator Eboni Bell Executive Administrator Anahi Paulino Rumaldo Executive Office Associate Erika Dooley Director of People & Culture FINANCE Jarrell Perkins Chief Financial Officer Michelle Rawding Finance Manager

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS Julia Propp Managing Director Alfredo Muñoz Director of Marketing & Sales Ryan Cannister Marketing & Communications Manager RhondaLeigh Dauphinais Interim CRM Project Manager Kathryn DeNitto Director of Institutional Relations Amy Advocat Manager of Institutional Communications & Philanthropy Charley Gibson Audience Services Manager Lauren Florek Senior Patron Services Coordinator Natalia St Jean Editorial Coordinator Wren Rodziewicz Database Coordinator Natalie Barnaby Patron Services Associate Nicole DeGrandpre Marketing Associate JMK PR Public Relations Leapfrog Arts Graphic Design Wetherbee Creative Graphic Design Mouth Media Website JCA Consulting CRM Applications Russell Philanthropies Consultant Phillip C. Song, MD Consulting Laryngologist Division Chief of Laryngology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Dr. Charmain Jackman Mental Health & Wellbeing Consultant | InnoPsych Art & Soul Consulting Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Think Outside the Vox Accessibility Partner EMERITUS ARTISTS John Conklin Artistic Advisor and Designer Emeritusu

As of September 11, 2026 u

Deceased

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OPERA + COMMUNITY STUDIOS We’re almost there — help BLO reach the finish line!

We’re proud to share that over $10 million has already been raised toward Boston Lyric Opera’s $11 million goal to establish our Opera + Community Studios — BLO’s new civic arts space in Fort Point where artists & communities will create, connect, and collaborate.

Opera + Community Studios is more than a building — it’s a civic investment in Boston’s cultural future.

Help BLO raise the final $900,000 to bring this shared arts space to life by 2026.

Scan the QR code to make a donation

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BLO STAFF

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Brenda Rae & Kenneth Kellogg in rehearsal for BLO’s 2026 Daughter of the Regiment at the Opera + Community Studios.

DONORS We are honored to recognize our donors who generously support Boston Lyric Opera through gifts to our annual fund and The Opera Gala. We are deeply grateful for the following contributions made to BLO between contributions made to BLO between July 1, 2025 and August 13, 2026. Our fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30, and we list donors at the level of their total giving made during a fiscal year — either this fiscal year or last — whichever is highest.

MEMBERS ($100 - $2,999) | We are grateful for the commitment of our members, the largest community of supporters at BLO. Members enjoy opportunities to explore opera and engage with others who share their passion through invitations to special events and other exciting benefits.

ORFEO SOCIETY ($3,000 +) | The Orfeo Society supports BLO in all our endeavors, from stage to film to community programs. These aficionados come together regularly to hear artists perform and to learn about our groundbreaking productions from the creative teams, all while providing invaluable direct support to BLO. GOLDOVSKY SOCIETY | Membership is given in recognition of those who have made a provision in a will, living trust, deferred gift plan, or retirement plan that will benefit BLO. ENDOWMENT | We recognize donors to our endowment, who believe in BLO’s fiscal sustainability.

For more information or to make a gift, please contact our Philanthropy Team at donorservices@blo.org or 617.702.8975.

If you note that your donation is not reflected correctly in this playbill, please contact Randy Biagas-Hill, Philanthropy Coordinator, at rbiagashill@blo.org or 617.702.8975.

CRESCENDO ($100,000+) Anonymous (1) Jane & Steven* Akin Barr Foundation Linda Cabot Black Willa* & Taylor Bodman Rick Burnes* Katie & Paul Buttenwieser Gerard & Sherryl Cohen Alicia M. Cooney* & Stephen Quigley Wayne Davis* & Ann Merrifield Alan & Lisa Dynner Andrew L. Eisenberg* & John Vetrano Marilee Wheeler Trust Charitable Fund Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism The Paul* & Sandra Montrone Family Winfield* & Linda Perry David W. Scudder & Betsy Ridge Wendy Shattuck & Sam Plimpton Mr.* & Mrs. Ray Stata

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VIVACE ($50,000 - $99,999) Miguel* & Suki de Bragança Barbara & Amos Hostetter Susan W. Jacobs* Joseph & Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation Janika* & George LeMaitre Abigail B. Mason* Massachusetts Cultural Council Miss Wallace Minot Leonard Foundation Mrs. E. Lee Perry Susan & Bill Poduska Helen Pounds Christine & Michael* Puzo Stephen* & Geraldine Ricci

PRESTO ($25,000 - $49,999) Anonymous (1) Peter Ascoli Mr. Mark H. Dalzell John H. Deknatel & Carol M. Taylor Jack D. Gorman* Maria Krokidas* & Bruce Bullen John M. Loder* Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture David & Janet McCue Anne M. Morgan Lise Olney & Tim Fulham* OPERA America Mr.u & Mrs. A. Neil Pappalardo Ms. Maria Park* Janet & Irv Plotkin* Erinn* & Jason Rhodes Allison Ryder* & David Jones Ted Snowdon & Duffy Violante

ALLEGRO ($10,000 - $24,999) Anonymous (2) BPS Arts Expansion Fund at EdVestors Ms. Ellen Cabot* Ms. RoAnn Costin Susan Denison Robert Eastman* Estate of Emily C. Hoodu Frank Graves* & Christine Dugan Kathy & Ron Groves The Hamilton Company Charitable Foundation Sylvia Han* & Bruce Rubenstein Mr. Keith Higgins Kristine A. Moyer Higgins & Robert F. Higgins Lisa Hillenbrand Mr.u & Mrs. Edward C. Johnson Amelia* & Joshua Katzen Milling Kinard Butler & Lois Lampson Drs. Lynne* & Sidney Levitsky Lincoln & Therese Filene Foundation Dr. Joseph & Mrs. Anita*Loscalzo Nagesh Mahanthappa & Valentine Talland Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency Jason & Deborah McManus MEDITECH Jo Frances Meyer* & Carl Herbert Elaine Murphy* in memory of Buck Haberkorn Paul & Edith Babson Foundation William & Lia Poorvu Melinda & James Rabb Peter & Suzanne Read Mr.* & Mrs. Vincent & Robin Rougeau Barbara* & Andrew Senchak Rumena & Alexander* Senchak Andrew Sherman & Russ López* Larry* & Beverly St. Clair Andrew Szentgyorgyi, Nicholas Szentgyorgyi & Nancy Brickhouse Bradley Vernatter Dr. Robert Walsh* & Lydia Kenton Walsh* Weiler Family Fund Peter J. Wender* Jerry Wheelock & Elizabeth Wood Wilson Family Charitable Fund Michael Wyzga & Judy Ozbun George* & Moira Yip Ms. Tania Zouikin*

ADAGIO ($5,000 - $9,999) Anonymous (3) Nancy Altschuler Mr. Peter Ambler & Ms. Lindsay Miller Bill & Vicki Barke Drs. Susan E. Bennett* & Gerald B. Pier Roger Berman Bessie Pappas Charitable Foundation, Inc. The Chay Family Ms. Mei Po Cheung Mr. Lawrence M. DeVito* Ms. JoAnne Dickinson* Laura Dike* & Vaughn Miller Dr. Jordan S. Ruboy Charitable Fundu Zach Durant-Emmons & Willis* Emmons Martin Elvis & Giuseppina Fabbiano Fremont Giving Fund Melissa Gilliam & William Grobman Dr. Kurt D. Gress & Mr. Samuel Y. Parkinson Nick & Marjorie Greville Mr. Joseph Hammer David Hoffman* Amy Hunter* & Steven Maguire Ms. Louise Johnson* Liana Enterprises Kate Meany* Gregory E. Moore & Wynne W. Szeto* Mario & Nancy Nicosia Jane Pisciottoli Papa* Mr. Carl Rosenberg Stephen & Peg Senturia R. S. Steinberg Ms. Tricia Swift* Mr.* & Mrs. Frank Tempesta Dr. Nelson Thaemert & Mr. Brian Gokey* Ms. Amy Tsurumi* Yin-Yin Wang* GRAZIOSO ($3,000 - $4,999) Anonymous (3) John Barstow & Genie Ware Tip & Nino Catalano Priscilla Deck & Sean Kelly Ms. Kathleen Emrich & Mr. Robert Sherwood Elaine Epstein & Jim Krachey Anne Giudice Dr. Maydee G. Lande in memory of her father Alice Levine & Paul Weissman John & Debra Sculley Mr. John Stevens & Ms. Virginia McIntyre

ADVOCATE ($1,000 - $2,999) Anonymous (5) Mr. Bernard Aserkoff Michael Barza & Judith Robinson Christine Bassett & Carey Alexander Richard & Mahala Beams Stacey Brenner Sherie & Walter Bush Ms. Nina Cohen Marjorie B. & Martin Cohn William & Ellen Cross Marianne DePamphilis & Ronald Caccavaro Valerie Dixon Mr. Mark Donohoe Ms. Priscilla Douglas Johannes Eijmberts & Wiebe Tinga Mark Elefante & Amy Selinger Christopher & Hilary Gabrieli Temple Gill & Christopher Yens Susan Goldberg & Geoffrey Etnire HarborOne Foundation The Hargrove Pierce Foundation Dr. Robert J. Henry, M.D. Mimi Hewlett Art & Eloise Hodges Susan Graham Johnston Mr. Adrian Jones Eva R. Karger Stan & Sandy Keller Mary Jane Kornacki & Jacob Silversin Ms. Lucy LaFleche Pam Lassiter Marilyn Levitt & Andrew Friedland The Lindzen Family Maestro Keith Lockhart & Ms. Emiley Zalesky Lockhart Tod Machover & June Kinoshita Steven Maler & Anthony Liquori Ms. M. Lynne Markus Rob & Danny McBride Andrew & Jillian* McGrath The Michaud Family Ms. Kati Mitchell Mark & Caroline Murphy Jeff Nelsen & Nina Yoshida Nelsen Esther Nelson & Bernd Ulken Shari & Christopher Noe Jean & Bryan Olson Mr. Anthony Pangaro & Ms. Creelea Henderson Heidi & Lewis Pearlson Michael Raizman William Reinfeld Art & Elaine Robins

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Lee Sandwen Ellie Schmidt Lisa Serafin Sheehan & Brian Sheehan Annie Short Richard Starbuck & Deane Hall Campbell Steward Ms. Paula Tyack Mary Verhage Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation Roderick & Margaret Wagner Thomas Watson Albert & Judith Zabin SUSTAINER ($500 - $999) Anonymous (1) Diane M. Austin & Aaron J. Nurick Daren Bascome Nina & Donald Berk Garen Bohlin & Diana Sorensen Pauline Ho Bynum in memory of Susan Eastman Gene & Lloyd Dahmen Arthur & Gloria Fox Ms. Christine G. Hannon Thomas & Sonja Ellingson Hout Martin Kalilow Ricardo & Marla Lewitus Mr. Merrill Mack Eric Mankin Hannah Martin Ms. Virginia Meany Giampaolo Nicosia Robertu & Carolyn Osteen Mr. Gene Pokorny Mr. Michael Schaefer Mr. Robert Shapiro Ann B. Teixeira Judith Verhave Linda & Harvey Weiner Ed & Keryn Wojosecki Harvey Young & Heather Schoenfeld CONTRIBUTOR ($250 - $499) Anonymous (3) Nancy Berkowitz Sarah B. Blume in honor of Linda Cabot Black Mr. John W. Brewer C. Anthony Broh & Jennifer L. Hochschild Ms. Janet Buecker Mr. & Mrs. Philip Cantillon Ms. Jane Carr & Mr. Andrew Hertig Ms. Kathryn Disney Lisa Dobberteen Anne & Gary Dunning

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Svetlana Evdokimova Mr. Lloyd Fillion Kate Gilbert & Chris Colbert Sandra Gilpatrick Carol Kemp Mr. Anthony & Mrs. Susan Kiernan Robert W. Kruszyna Ken Maillar & Annie Grear Margaret McDormand in memory of Anna Elizabeth McDormand Helen R. Pillsbury R. Lynn Rardin & Lynne A. O’Connell Mr. Jack Reynolds in memory of Stevie Giacalone Susan Rodgerson* Lauren Schultes Ellie Starr John & Mary Tarvin Jerome Weinstein SUPPORTER ($100 - $249) Anonymous (19) J Adams & P Comeau Alan Benenfeld Stuart & Dorothy Bless Mrs. Katharine Boden Michael Bojanowski Jerry Boyd & Lisa Chin Carol V. Brown Denise Casper Erin Coffey & Peter Lamb Collupy System Solutions Mr. Robert Coren & Mr. John W. Gintell Shelly Cornell Elizabeth Coxe Linda Davis P.A.C. Delory William DePeter Erin Doherty & David McFerrin Sheila & Charles Donahue Ms. Catharine-Mary Donovan Lance Drane & Elizabeth Wylde The Edwards Family Cindy & Moshe Elmekias Ms. Christina Englund Amy Feind Reeves Jesseca Ferguson Mr. Ralph Gioncardi in memory of Susan D. Eastman Dr. Rachel F. Haft & Dr. Jeffrey S. Brown Jacqueline G. Haslett, EdD Laura Hess June Homer Laura Jekel Peter Jordan Courtney Keller & Kyle Murray Yuen Kwan Dennis Lamser

Heather A. Laplante Anker Lerrer Rob Loomis & Leslie Becker William J. Lundregan III Mr. Roderick MacDonald Barbara P. Madden Malden Catholic High School Mr. & Mrs. Robert Marshall James & Caroline McCloy Ms. Patricia McGovern Ralph & Sylvia Memolo Ms. Carol R.H. Miller Daniel & Mayo Morgan Stephen Morris Leigh Madeline Nelson Newell & Betty Hale Fund of Greater Worcester John Ochsendorf Aislinn O’Keefe O Keefe Diane Ota Sharon & John Parisi Mr. Mark Pasternack & Ms. Judy Meyers Marie E. Pereto-Hedin Ted Pietras Christine Pilcavage Susan Porter & Robert Kauffman Vinay Prabhakar Peter & Susan Randall The Reardon Family Mr. David Reid Rob Riordan & Judy Halpern Joel Rubenstein Janice Corkin Rudolf & John Emery Mr. & Mrs. Pasquale Rullo in memory of Carmine Rullo Schrupka Fund Mr. Theodore Sharpe John & Marilyn Shirey Mr. Harold Stahler Ms. Karen Sweet Valerie Swett Carole Talley Vadim & Lana Tikhomirov Amy & Matthew Torrey Leslie Warshaw Frederick L. Weiss Susan Wheltle Polly Pitt Whiteside in honor of Richard Trant Wiedorn-Britton Family Jingning Wu The Wu Barstow Family Cynthia Yee Charles Zarba

*Board Member

Deceased

u

THE BORIS GOLDOVSKY SOCIETY FOR PLANNED GIVING Anonymous (1) Ms. Diana Abrashkin Michael Barza & Judith Robinson Linda Cabot Black Rick Burnes Mr. David Cole-Rous & Ms. Norma Greenberg Alicia M. Cooney & Stephen Quigley Gene Dahmen Tim Daughters Tamara P. & Charles H. Davis II Wayne Davis Janice Mancini Del Sesto Mr. Lawrence M. DeVito Anne Lyons Dolan in memory of Susan Eastman Dr. Jordan S. Ruboy Charitable Fundu Mr. Dan Durou Alan & Lisa Dynner

ENDOWMENT Anonymous (3) Ms. Ann Beha & Mr. Robert A. Radloff Linda Cabot Black Timothy Blodgett Dr. & Mrs. Eric & Elaine Bucher Katie & Paul Buttenwieser Mr. & Mrs. John Cabot

Margaret Eagle & Eli Rapaport Robert Eastman Martin Elvis Ms. Anne Ewers Kathryn G. Freed in memory of Dean & Patti Freed Catherine & Frederick Grein Allison Groves Gillian Stuart Hamer Mr. Joseph Hammer Mr. & Mrs. John Henn Mimi Hewlett Ms. Myrna F. Howe Amy Hunter & Steven Maguire Susan W. Jacobs Ellen & Robert Kaplan Eva R. Karger Courtney Keller Ms. Mary Kiley Robert W. Kruszyna Mr. David Latham Joe & Pam LoDato Russell López & Andrew Sherman Mr. Stephen Lord

Ms. M. Lynne Markus Christopher Marrionu Abigail B. Mason Domenico Mastrototaro Richard S. Milstein, Esq.u Mary & Sherif Nada Jane Pisciottoli Papa Marie E. Pereto-Hedin Janet & Irv Plotkin Sandy & Herb Pollacku Christine & Michael Puzo Peter & Suzanne Read Stephen & Iris Taymore Schnitzer David W. Scudder Wendy Shattuck & Sam Plimpton Mrs. Lois Silverman Mr. Michael Tronic Peter J. Wender Mrs. Marillyn Zacharis Ms. Tania Zouikin

The Calderwood Charitable Foundation Alicia M. Cooney & Stephen Quigley Wayne Davis & Ann Merrifield Miguel & Suki de Bragança Alan & Lisa Dynner Jody Gill Abigail B. Mason Janet & Irv Plotkin

Helen Pounds Sheila W. & Samuel M. Robbins David W. Scudder & Betsy Ridge Wendy Shattuck & Sam Plimpton Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation Ms. Tania Zouikin

As of August 13, 2026

As of August 13, 2026

SIGN UP FOR BLO’S EMAIL LIST Stay on top of our news, upcoming shows, & more!

Raehann Bryce-Davis in BLO’s 2026 Song of the Earth.

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NILE HAWVER/NILE SCOTT STUDIOS

BLO.org

BLO FACILITY DONORS $1,000,000+ Anonymous (1) Anonymous Foundation (1) Alicia M. Cooney & Stephen Quigley Wayne Davis & Ann Merrifield Barbara & Amos Hostetter The Paul & Sandra Montrone Family Mr. & Mrs. Ray Stata $500,000 - $999,999.99 Miss Wallace Minot Leonard Foundation $100,000 - $499,999.99 Willa & Taylor Bodman Miguel & Suki de Bragança Mr. Lawrence M. DeVito Massachusetts Cultural Council Movement Arts Creation Studio Lise Olney & Tim Fulham David W. Scudder & Betsy Ridge Dr. Robert Walsh & Lydia Kenton Walsh $50,000 - $99,999.99 Anonymous (1) Rick Burnes Andrew L. Eisenberg & John Vetrano Mimi Hewlett John M. Loder

Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture Anne M. Morgan Winfield & Linda Perry Stephen & Geraldine Ricci Allison Ryder & David Jones $25,000 - $49,999.99 Cabot Family Charitable Trust Family of John M. Conklin Sylvia Han & Bruce Rubenstein Maria Krokidas & Bruce Bullen Abigail B. Mason Christine & Michael Puzo Rumena & Alexander Senchak Andrew Sherman & Russ López Bradley Vernatter Peter J. Wender $10,000 - $24,999.99 Robert Eastman Flansburgh Architects Jack D. Gorman Susan W. Jacobs Kate Meany Mr. Carl Rosenberg Mr. & Mrs. Vincent & Robin Rougeau George & Moira Yip Ms. Tania Zouikin $1 - $9,999.99 Anonymous (1) Drs. Susan E. Bennett & Gerald B. Pier

Stacy Brenner Ms. Ellen Cabot Anne Lyons Dolan in memory of Susan Eastman Alan & Lisa Dynner Gift made in honor of Boston Lyric Opera Staff Gift made in honor of Midway Artist Studios Residents Mr. Keith Higgins Lisa Hillenbrand Jennifer Ritvo Hughes & Marcus Hughes Ms. Louise Johnson Amelia & Joshua Katzen Courtney Keller & Kyle Murray Drs. Lynne & Sidney Levitsky Gregory E. Moore & Wynne W. Szeto Jeff Nelsen & Nina Yoshida Nelsen Ms. Rebecca Nemser Mr. Anthony Pangaro & Ms. Creelea Henderson Jane Pisciottoli Papa Janet & Irv Plotkin Nicholas G. Russell Larry & Beverly St. Clair Ms. Tricia Swift Mr. & Mrs. Frank Tempesta Yin-Yin Wang Janice Blair Yoshida Donations as of August 14, 2026

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS Boston Lyric Opera’s 2026/27 season is supported in part by the Barr Foundation; the ‘Quin Impact Fund; the Lincoln and Therese Filene Foundation; the Mattina R. Proctor Foundation; the Miss Wallace Minot Leonard Foundation; the Elroy and Terry Krumholz Foundation; the Poduska Family Foundation; BPS Arts Expansion at EdVestors; the Paul & Edith Babson Foundation; Hamilton Company Charitable Foundation; the Amphion Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; and Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. Corporate sponsors include MEDITECH; Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete; Bistro du Midi; Falcetti Pianos; Hemenway & Barnes; The InterContinental Hotel; Mighty Squirrel; On the Mark Archery; PEAK Rentals; Red Apple Farm; Smith & Wollensky; Somerville Music Spaces; Winston Flowers; 29 Pine; Metropolis + Channel Center Garage; Polaris Capital Management; Gilbane Building Company; and Flansburgh Architects. Boston Lyric Opera also acknowledges the incredible support of its Board of Directors, Board of Advisors, and other donors and patrons.

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BLO | FALL 2026

INSPIRING, ENTERTAINING, & CONNECTING COMMUNITIES FOR 50 YEARS.

LIZA VOLL PHOTOGRAPHY

SUPPORT BLO Play a starring role of your own. Make your gift today to support beloved classics, daring premieres, and a new generation of artists and audiences.

SCAN TO DONATE NOW To learn more about joining our community of supporters, please call or visit us at: 617.702.8975 BLO.org/give

• Donations directly impact the core facets of BLO: community & education programs, new works, and increasing opera accessibility.

• BLO puts on creative, outside-the-box productions that attract thousands of operagoers and reach hundreds of students through our education initiatives each year.

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FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA: @BostonLyricOpera

Chelsea Basler as Lola in BLO’s 2021 Cavalleria rusticana.

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Congratulations to The Boston Lyric Opera on 50 years of top tier performances.

Bravo!

WHERE YOUR STAY MEANS MORE RELAX

EXPLORE

STAY

DISCOVER YOUR NEXT STAY

EMERGING ARTISTS

2026

2027

Claire Burreson

Alexandra Dietrich Director

Conductor

Daniel Lugo

Jacob O’Shea

Ricky Lee Owens, Jr.

Soprano

Tenor

Baritone

Clancy Ellis

Countertenor

Juliette Kaoudji

Mezzo-Soprano

Mary Kray

Mezzo-Soprano

Yanghao Liu

Zizhao Wang

Suowei Wu

Dani Zhang

Bass-Baritone

Tenor

Baritone

Soprano

MEET THE NEW COHORT

2026/27 Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artists Initiative Throughout the season, BLO’s Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artists perform, train, and collaborate alongside some of today’s leading opera professionals. You’ll encounter them on our stages, at community events, and throughout the city as they develop their artistry and help shape the future of opera in Boston.

Meet the Artists:

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BLO | FALL 2026

EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE 106 BOYLSTON STREET | EMERSONCOLONIALTHEATRE.COM All performances begin on time. To respect the enjoyment of others, BLO observes a no-late seating policy. While we understand that traffic conditions, public transportation, weather, and other factors can have unexpected effects on your arrival, we wish to minimize disruptions for our seated patrons and for our artists on stage. Additionally, if you must leave during the performance, reentry may be prohibited.

As a courtesy to the artists and for the comfort of those around you, please turn off mobile phones, watch alarms, and other devices with audible signals prior to the start of the performance. The use of cameras or recording devices in the theater is strictly prohibited. For BLO productions & subscriptions, visit BLO.org or call BLO Audience Services at 617.542.6772, MON-FRI | 10-5.

Dress Circle Exits EXIT

EXIT

Exit Plans For your own safety, please take a moment to view the exits for each floor.

Orchestra Exits

EXIT EXIT

EXIT EXIT

EXIT EXIT

Balcony Exits

Stage

EXIT EXIT

EXIT

EXIT

EXIT EXIT EXIT

EXIT EXIT

EXIT

Wheelchair access is available at the main entrance to the building on Boylston Street. Please request wheelchair seating from a sales representative at time of purchase. Designated ADA seating locations are located on the Orchestra level of the theatre. An ADA accessible restroom is also located on the Orchestra level. There is no elevator access in the building. Please contact us at 888.616.0272 or email infocolonial@atgentertainment.com for assistance.

Mask wearing is no longer required for most performances & events, but strongly encouraged at all times while in the theater. For Emerson’s policies, go to artsemerson.org/visit/public-health.

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2026/27

SEASON

SEP 25 – OCT 4

Emerson Colonial Theatre

OCT 16

Opera + Community Studios

NOV 5 – 8

Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre

JAN 29 & 31

Symphony Hall

MAR 12 – 21

Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre

APR 16

New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall

BOSTON’S COMMUNITY OPERA

MAY 8

Symphony Hall

JUN 2

New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall

JUN 17 – 20

Opera + Community Studios

BLO.ORG