PROGRAM: Apartment House 1776

25/26 SEASON | A MERICA @ 250 A PA R T M EN T H OUSE 1776 / M AY 21- 24, 20 26

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Photography of front cover artwork by Tyree Guyton, "Cover Up" Mixed media, Courtesy of Cranbrook Art Museum

PHOTO C OUR T ESY OF HELM U T ZIE W ER S

TABLE OF CONTENTS 02

Board of Directors

02

Board of Trustees

19

Program

31

Thank You to Our Donors

37

Detroit Opera Orchestra

38 Administration and Staff

Maria C. Duey Fern R. Espino Paul E. Ewing Mary Ann Fontana

BOARD OF TRUSTEES AS OF JANUARY 1, 2026

Ellen Hill Zeringue

Lourdes V. Andaya

Julie Hollinshead

Naomi André

John W. Ingle III

Lisa S. Applebaum

Barbara Kratchman

Harold Mitchell Arrington

Arthur C. Liebler

Bettye Arrington-Martin

Dexter Mason

Barbra Bloch

Ali Moiin

Gene P. Bowen

Donald Morelock

Richard Brodie

Allan Nachman

Charles D. Bullock

Ann Nicholson

Thomas Cohn

Sara Pozzi

Ethan D. Davidson

Carrie Pryor

Gretchen Davidson

Paul Ragheb

Kevin Dennis

Irvin D. Reid

Cristina DiChiera

Ethan D. Davidson

Evan D. Ross

Lisa M. DiChiera

VICE CHAIR

Nedda Shayota

Shauna Ryder Diggs

Mary Kramer

Terry Shea

Enrico DiGirolamo

VICE CHAIR

Matthew Simoncini

Kathleen DiGirolamo

Denise J. Lewis

Richard A. Sonenklar

Debbie Dingell

VICE CHAIR

BOARD OF DIRECTORS AS OF JANUARY 1, 2026 CHAIR

Lorna Thomas

Mary Jane Doerr

Don Manvel

Jesse Venegas

Linda Dresner

PRESIDENT/CEO

Barbara Walkowski

Maria C. Duey

Gary L. Wasserman

Kenneth Eisenberg

Michael Wellman

Fern R. Espino

Patty Isacson Sabee SECRETARY

Gene P. Bowen TREASURER

Paul E. Ewing

DIRECTORS EMERITI

Mary Sue Ewing

Shelly Cooper

Carl Fontana

Naomi André

Marianne Endicott

Mary Ann Fontana

Lisa S. Applebaum

Marjorie M. Fisher

Bharat C. Gandhi

Bettye Arrington-Martin

Herman Frankel

Lynn Gandhi

Richard A. Brodie

Dean Friedman

Mara Ghafari

Kevin Dennis

Jennifer Nasser

Yousif Ghafari

Lisa M. DiChiera

Charlotte Podowski

Toby Haberman

Shauna Ryder Diggs

C. Thomas Toppin

Gregory Haynes

Enrico DiGirolamo

Richard Webb

Julie Hollinshead

Bharat C. Gandhi IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIR

R. Jamison Williams

4

Margo Cohen Feinberg Robert Feinberg

FOUNDING MEMBERS

John Ingle III

Anthony Rugiero

Tara Ingle

Sabrina Rugiero

Patty Isacson Sabee

David Sabee

Stephanie Germack Kerzic

Bret Scott

Ellen Hill Zeringue

Nedda Shayota

Meredith Korneffel

Terry Shea

Mary Kramer

Thomas Short*

Barbara Kratchman

Matthew Simoncini

William Kupsky

Mona Simoncini

Ed Levy Jr.

Sheila Sloan

Denise J. Lewis

Richard A. Sonenklar

Arthur C. Liebler

Mary Ann Stella

Nancy Liebler

Lorna Thomas

Marian Loginsky

Jesse Venegas

Stephan Loginsky

Yesenia Venegas

Mary Alice Lomason

Amy Voigt

Don Manvel

Jeff Voigt

Jack Martin

Barbara Walkowski

Dexter Mason

Gary L. Wasserman

Robert & Clara “Tuttie” VanderKloot*

Benjamin Meeker

Michael Wellman

Sam & Barbara Williams*

Ronald Michalak

Karen Williams

Theodore & Virginia Yntema*

Ali Moiin

R. Jamison Williams

Donald Morelock

Jeremy Zeltzer

Antoinette Benjamin Morelock Allan Nachman Joy Nachman Linda Orlans Myrna Partrich Spencer Partrich Margaret Pehrson Sara Pozzi Waltraud Prechter Carrie Pryor Ted Pryor Amy Ragheb Paul Ragheb Irvin D. Reid Pamela Trotman Reid Evan Ross Kelsey Ross

TRUSTEES EMERITI

Lynn & Ruth Townsend* Avern & Joyce Cohn* John & Mardell* De Carlo David DiChiera* Karen VanderKloot DiChiera* Aaron & Bernice Gershenson* Donald & Josephine Graves* Roman & Katherine Gribbs* John & Gwendolyn Griffin* Harry & Jennie Jones* Wade & Dores McCree* Harry J. Nederlander* E. Harwood Rydholm* Neil & Phyllis* F. Snow Richard & Beatrice Strichartz*

KEY *Deceased

Augustin Arbulu Dodie David Larry David Dede Feldman Aviva Friedman Mary Happel Ellen Kahn Robert Klein Wally Klein Charles Powdowski Marjorie Sandy Roberta Starkweather Bernie Toppin Mary Lou Zieve

DE T R OI T OPER A | 5

Director’s Note John Cage wrote Apartment House 1776 for America’s bicentennial in 1976. The work brings together music from the Revolutionary era in a collage-like way, with singers performing overlapping songs connected to their spiritual or cultural traditions. At the same time, an orchestra—represented in this production by 33 members of the Detroit Opera Orchestra— selects and plays from a collection of Cage’s arrangements of period music, including popular songs, dance tunes, and military marches.

In our production, Apartment House 1776 is reimagined as an operatic installation in which four singers become “guides” on dream-like spiritual journeys, criss-crossing and converging through four connected galleries in the Cranbrook Art Museum.

During our development process, we interviewed the singers about 1776 through the lens of 2026. The phrases you see on the walls were their responses as they meditated on the question: What does 1776 mean to you?

Cage dreamed of a space where performer and audience alike would be accorded a revolutionary amount of freedom. Rather than layering my own meaning onto the piece, I have sought to illumine the deeper layers of memory, legacy, desire, and dream latent in each individual singer. Their journeys intertwine in an abstract landscape of historical America, a country George Washington referred to as “the last great experiment.”

—Alexander Sulen Gedeon

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P H O T O B Y A U S T I N T. R I C H E Y

FREEDOM OF ’76

SCAN TO SUPPOR T THE FUTURE OF OPERA

John Cage’s Apartment House of Sound What forms of listening become possible when hierarchy loosens, and the edges of the frame begin to speak?

By Austin T. Richey, PhD

Cage was not simply interested in randomness, and he was not an apostle of disorder.

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P H O T O B Y A U S T I N T. R I C H E Y

John Cage is one of those artists whose name often arrives before the music does.

For many listeners, he is already a myth: the composer of silence, chance, mushrooms, prepared pianos, noise, and happenings; the man who supposedly threw open the doors of classical music and let chaos pour in. That myth is not entirely wrong. Cage did more than perhaps any major 20thcentury composer to unsettle inherited ideas about music, authorship, beauty, intention, and control.

But it is also incomplete.

He was interested in what happens when control is redefined. His work does not abolish structure; it redistributes it. It asks whether music can be organized without being dominated, whether listening can become more open without becoming passive, and whether sound can reveal forms of life that are usually edited out of attention.

Detroit Opera’s presentation of Apartment House 1776 at Cranbrook Art Museum offers a vivid way into these questions. The work, created for the American bicentennial in 1976, is not a patriotic pageant or a neat historical tableau. It is a piece built from simultaneity: overlapping sounds, shifting proximities, separate musical strands encountered in motion. Audiences do not sit before a single stage and receive a fixed dramatic line. They move through space. They choose routes. They hear one voice clearly while another slips away. They turn a corner and the whole acoustic balance changes.

The title is one of Cage’s most revealing images. An apartment house is not a monument. It is not a palace, a cathedral, or a perfectly unified national symbol. It is a shared structure made of separate rooms, thin walls, adjoining lives, overheard sounds, and partial knowledge. Someone sings down the hall. A radio hums in another room. A conversation drifts through a doorway. Nothing is fully isolated, and nothing belongs entirely to one listener. For Cage, that becomes both a musical and social metaphor: America not as a single voice, but as

a building full of adjacent voices.

That image has particular force in relation to 1776. Much music about the United States has reached for anthem, declaration, or broad national sweep. Cage chose something stranger and more revealing. His America is not one perfectly tuned chorus. It is an architecture of coexistence, filled with memory, ritual, contradiction, silence, and echo. Rather than forcing historical materials into agreement, Apartment House 1776 lets them occupy the same acoustic world without pretending they mean the same thing.

This is where the frequent charge of chaos begins to fall apart. Cage famously used chance operations throughout his career, often drawing on the I Ching to make compositional decisions. From the outside, this can sound like surrender: the composer steps back and lets accident replace craft. But Cage’s use of chance was something different: a disciplined method for loosening the grip of personal taste. The composer still designs the conditions. The work still unfolds within a frame. Surprise is built into the system, but the system matters.

Unpredictability is not the same as formlessness.

Apartment House 1776 is associated with Cage’s “musicircus” idea, in which multiple musical events happen simultaneously without being forced into exact coordination.

DE T R OI T OPER A | 9

The result may feel open, mobile, and unpredictable, but that openness has been composed. The order no longer looks like one line moving from beginning to end. It looks more like a city, a building, or an ecosystem: patterned, dense, porous, and alive.

Opera has always known something about multiplicity. Mozart’s great ensembles allow characters to sing conflicting truths at the same time, with the music holding them together without erasing their differences. Verdi brings private feeling into contact with public life through the chorus. Wagner builds orchestral worlds in which layers of meaning press against one another. Even opera’s most chaotic scenes are usually organized from above with extraordinary precision.

Confusion is represented, but the composer remains in command.

Cage changes the terms. Instead of standing above the field and sculpting total coherence, he permits coexistence without full synthesis.

There is still design, but it is a design of independence. Apartment House 1776 can feel both operatic and anti-operatic at once. It uses voices, space, ritualized listening, and theatrical encounter— things opera knows well. But it releases them from the centralized command structure that opera often depends on.

At Cranbrook Art Museum, the work can unfold as an environment rather than a conventional event. Museums teach a particular kind of attention.

You move, pause, compare, return.

You notice something from a distance, then encounter it differently up close. Meaning accumulates through movement and juxtaposition.

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C A G E E A R. C O U R T E S Y O F C R A N B R O O K A R T M U S E U M.

Cage’s music works beautifully in that mode.

Space is not merely the container for the sound; it becomes part of the composition.

Cranbrook has an important place in Cage’s Michigan story. Cage’s connections to this region began early. Born in Los Angeles in 1912, he moved with his family to Detroit in 1919. His father, John Milton Cage, was an inventor whose work ranged from submarine devices to automotive engineering. His mother, Lucretia “Crete” Cage, was active in many women’s civic organizations. The young Cage’s Detroit years placed him near two powerful forms of modern life: machinery and civic conversation.

His father’s work in engineering and acoustical technology, including the hydrophone and sonobuoy, made sound part of the family’s atmosphere in a practical and experimental sense.

His mother’s world of women’s clubs gave him another model of social organization: gatherings, forums, public speech, shared rooms, collective listening. It would be too simple to say that these experiences directly explain his later art. But they form a suggestive background for a composer who would spend his life asking how sound, society, and attention might be rearranged.

Cage returned to Michigan repeatedly as an established artist. In the 1960s and 1970s, he performed and taught in Ann Arbor, Detroit, Interlochen, and Cranbrook.

DE T R OI T OPER A | 11

He appeared with Merce Cunningham, performed with David Tudor, and participated in events that brought his work into contact with students, dancers, visual artists, and experimental audiences. At Interlochen in 1972, he redirected a composition workshop toward silence, listening, and even mushroom foraging. At Cranbrook in 1974, he worked with visual artists, foraged in the gardens, opened the exhibition Music-Mushrooms-Manuscripts, and presented a concert titled John Cage Listens to John Cage.

That title is funny, but it is also serious. Cage’s art is often about the act of listening as much as the production of sound. His most famous work, 4’33”, premiered in 1952, instructs the performer not to play during its three movements.

The piece does not present silence as emptiness. It reveals that silence, in any actual room, is full of life: coughs, air systems, shifting bodies, traffic, nervous laughter, the weather outside. The point is not that “anything is music” in a lazy sense. The point is that listening can change the status of what is already there.

This idea continued to develop across Cage’s career. In works like Child of Tree, premiered in Detroit during a Merce Cunningham Dance Company engagement at Music Hall in 1975, Cage turned toward plant materials as instruments: cactus spines plucked or brushed, pods rattled, organic matter made audible.

The piece is sparse, subtle, and 12

philosophical. It asks the performer to clarify time through fragile sounds rather than dominate it through conventional musical force.

Even here, Cage’s attention to nature is not sentimental. It is procedural, curious, and exacting.

Seen from this wider perspective, Apartment House 1776 is not an isolated provocation. It gathers many of Cage’s central concerns: chance, coexistence, silence, space, non-hierarchical listening, and the refusal of a single authoritative perspective.

No listener can grasp the whole work at once.

That is not a failure of communication.

It is the communication.

You hear from where you are. Someone else hears differently.

The work exists among those partial experiences.

That may be one reason Cage still unsettles classical music. Much of the classical tradition prizes strongly authored objects: symphonies, sonatas, operas, works that develop, argue, return, and resolve. Cage does not reject those achievements: He shows that they are not the only model for serious art. Meaning can emerge from attention rather than domination. Structure can appear as openness. Form can be built from relationships rather than commands.

This matters especially as the United States approaches its 250th anniversary. Cage’s bicentennial work feels less like a commemorative object than a provocation. What does it mean to hear a nation not as a single story, but as overlapping rooms? What happens when voices do not collapse into agreement?

What forms of listening become possible when hierarchy loosens and the edges of the frame begin to speak?

For Detroit Opera, these questions also expand what opera itself can be. Opera is not only plot, character, spectacle, and frontal grandeur. It can also be immersion, encounter, distance, memory, and the drama of sounds sharing space. In Apartment House 1776, voice remains central, but it moves through a field of relations.

It becomes something to find, lose, overhear, approach, and remember.

The opposite of chaos, in Cage, is not order in the ordinary sense. It is not control from above, and it is not a patriotic unison. It is coexistence with form. That is a harder kind of order to perceive. An apartment house of sound is not tidy. It is porous, layered, unfinished, and shared. That is exactly what gives it life. Rather than asking everyone to sing the same tune, Cage asks whether we can hear one another across rooms. In that question, Apartment House 1776 remains startlingly current: a disciplined, generous, and deeply American experiment in listening.

Austin T. Richey is a musician and multimedia artist based in Detroit. His research and practice explore Afrofuturist improvisation, Detroit’s sonic heritage, and DIY synth-making as a tool for deep listening and self-expression.

Richey has published original research in African Music, Sonic Signatures: Music, Migration and the City at Night, and has contributed research to the award-winning Public Broadcasting Service digital series Sound Field. His visual work has been published in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Ebony, The Wall Street Journal, among others. His research is supported by the Frederick Douglass Institute, the Society for American Music, Humanities New York, the Knight Foundation, and the Presser Foundation.

Richey is the Storyteller for Detroit Opera, a member of the Liberal Arts faculty at College for Creative Studies, and an instructor at Western Michigan University’s Gilmore School of Music.

DE T R OI T OPER A | 1 3

[a bell rings four times]

ONE SEVEN SEVEN SIX. TWO ZERO TWO SIX. YOU WALK THROUGH THE ROADS OF A COLONIAL SETTLEMENT. ACROSS THE STREET, FROM THE WINDOW OF THE APARTMENT HOUSE, SOMEONE IS SINGING WHILE THEY WORK. SOON, THE RENT WILL BE DUE. FROM ANOTHER WINDOW: ANOTHER APARTMENT HOUSE, ANOTHER SINGER, ANOTHER SONG. ON YOUR PATH: THE TWO VOICES CONVERGE IN A SPACE THAT IS NEITHER HERE—NOR THERE—NOR THERE—BUT SOME PLACE IN BETWEEN— ON YOUR WAY TO THE PERFORMANCE TODAY YOU READIED YOURSELF FOR THE SOUNDS YOU WERE GOING TO HEAR. AN OPERA, BUT NOT. A COMPOSER YOU’VE HEARD OF, AND KNOW. A COMPOSER YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF, AND DON’T KNOW. YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO THE OPERA. YOU CAME EARLY AND READIED YOURSELF. IN YOUR CAR: THE MUSIC OF YOUR STREAMING SERVICE, THE HUM OF THE TIRES SPINNING OVER THE ROAD, THE RUSH OF THE WIND PASSING OUTSIDE, LIKE AN ACCIDENTAL CHORUS OF VOICES. YOU KNEW THAT YOU WOULD HEAR SOMETHING NEW. YOU KNEW THAT YOU WOULD SEE SOMETHING NEW— YOU LISTEN, TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WILL HEAR. YOU LISTEN, TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WILL SEE. YOU LISTEN, AND DRAW COMFORT AND ASSURANCE THAT YOU WILL LISTEN IN THE RIGHT WAY. YOU REST EASY, KNOWING THAT YOU KNOW HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE JOURNEY AHEAD, ONE SEVEN SEVEN SIX. YOU ARE ASSURED THAT YOU HAVE THE TOOLS TO EXPERIENCE THE JOURNEY THE RIGHT WAY. YOU WILL ENCOUNTER THE FAMILIAR. YOU WILL ENCOUNTER THE 14

UNFAMILIAR. BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY YOU’LL BE ABLE TO WRAP YOUR HEAD AROUND WHERE YOU’VE BEEN. YOU’LL BE ABLE TO APPREHEND WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT. YOU’LL BE ABLE TO CAPTURE IT INTO WORDS— THE FIRST PLAN FOR YOUR EXPERIENCE WAS CONCEIVED FIVE ZERO YEARS AGO IN ONE NINE SEVEN SIX. THE PLANNER WAS THINKING ABOUT THE TIME TWO ZERO ZERO YEARS BEFORE. THOUGH THE PLANNER WAS A COMPOSER, FOR THIS PLAN, HE WROTE NO MUSIC. THE PLANNER PLANNED FOR FOUR SINGERS TO CHOOSE THEIR SONGS BASED ON THEIR SPIRITUAL AND ETHNIC IDENTITIES. THE PLANNER PLANNED FOR THE SINGERS TO SING THE SONGS THEY WANTED WHEN THEY WANTED TO SING THEM, AS IF THEY WERE ALONE, AND NOT WITH EACH OTHER, SINGING AT A CONCERT. THE RADIO, THE WIND, THE SOUND OF THE TIRES ON THE ROAD, THE CAR HORN HONKING BEHIND YOU: SEPARATE BUT EQUAL, EQUALLY SEPARATE AND SIMULTANEOUS— THE ORCHESTRA PLAYERS WOULD ALSO CHOOSE WHAT MUSIC THEY WOULD PLAY ON THEIR INSTRUMENTS. THE PLANNER PLANNED FOR THE ORCHESTRA PLAYERS TO CHOOSE MUSIC THAT WHITE MEN WROTE AROUND THE TIME OF ONE SEVEN SEVEN SIX, AND PLAY IT AS IF THEY WERE ALONE, AND NOT WITH EACH OTHER, PLAYING AT A CONCERT— THE PLANNER PLANNED FOR A FIELD OF SOUND IN WHICH THE MUSIC THE MUSICIANS PLAYED AND THE SONGS THE SINGERS SANG WOULD EXIST SEPARATELY BUT SIMULTANEOUSLY, TOGETHER AND EQUAL—

DE T R OI T OPER A | 1 5

THE PLANNER PLANNED FOR THE AMERICAN INDIAN VOICE TO BE HEARD, BUT THE PLANNER DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THE VIOLENCE AGAINST THE INDIGENOUS VOICE AND THE VIOLENCE AGAINST THE INDIGENOUS BODIES BURIED BENEATH THE VOICE. THE PLANNER PLANNED FOR THE NEGRO VOICE TO BE HEARD BUT DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THE VIOLENCE AGAINST THE BLACK VOICE AND THE VIOLENCE AGAINST THE BLACK BODIES BURIED BENEATH THE VOICE. THE VOICES WERE TREATED EQUALLY, WHICH MEANS THEY DID NOT HAVE SPECIAL TREATMENT WITH REGARD TO THE OTHER VOICES IN THE FIELD: THE EXPLOSION OF FIREWORKS, THE SNAP OF THE ROPE, THE CRACK OF GUNFIRE, THE SCREAM, AND THE SCREAMS BURIED BENEATH THE SCREAM, THE SOUND OF THE SILENCE, AND THE SILENCING, TOGETHER AND EQUAL, SEPARATE AND SIMULTANEOUS— SILENT, TOGETHER, SEPARATE, SIMULTANEOUS: YOU WONDER WHERE THIS IS GOING. YOU WONDER WHERE YOU ARE GOING. YOU WONDER WHAT THIS WILL ALL MEAN. TWO ZERO TWO SIX. A SPEAKER IS SPEAKING AND THE SILENCE BENEATH THE SPEAKER IS SPEAKING. THE SPEAKER CANNOT TELL YOU WHAT THIS MEANS. THE SPEAKER WILL HAVE SPOKEN, AND YOU WILL BE ALONE. THE PLANNER AND THE SPEAKER KNEW YOU WOULD EVENTUALLY BE ALONE, MAKING SENSE OF ALL OF THIS— ALONE, TOGETHER, SEPARATE, SIMULTANEOUS: YOU WILL SOON FIND YOURSELF ON ONE OF FOUR PATHS. ON THE PATH YOU WILL ENCOUNTER A GUIDE. THE PATHS, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, BEGIN SEPARATELY. YOUR GUIDE WILL LEAD 16

YOU ON THE PATH, BUT BEFORE LONG THE PATHS WILL BEGIN TO CROSS. WILL YOU STAY WITH YOUR GUIDE, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR? OR WILL YOU ALTER COURSE AND CHANGE TRAJECTORY ONTO A NEW PATH, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE? WHERE WILL YOUR INTUITION LEAD YOU?— AS THE CLOCK TICK-TICK-TICKS DOWN THREE TWO MINUTES, ALL PATHS WILL CONVERGE: TWO, ZERO, TWO, SIX, ONE, SEVEN, SEVEN, SIX— WHAT WILL YOU SEE? WHAT WILL YOU NOT SEE? WHAT WILL YOU HEAR? WHAT WILL YOU NOT HEAR? WHERE WILL YOU LOOK? WHERE WILL YOU NOT LOOK?— WHAT WILL ONE SEVEN SEVEN SIX MEAN TO YOU? WE WANT TO KNOW. AFTER THE JOURNEY, STAY WITH US, TELL US, AND EACH OTHER. SHARE WHAT YOU HEARD, WHAT YOU SAW. TELL WHAT THEY SAID, WHAT THEY DID, WHAT YOU THOUGHT, HOW YOU FELT— IN ONE ZERO MINUTES, THE TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK-TICKTICK WILL BEGIN— IN OBSERVANCE OF THE REVOLUTION, IN RECOGNITION OF THE URGE TO BE LIBERATED FROM TYRANNY, AS PAST MERGES WITH PRESENT MERGES WITH FUTURE, WE WELCOME YOU IN JOY AND GRATITUDE TO BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY— [a bell rings four times]

TEXT BY ALEXANDER SULEN GEDEON & KEE-YOON NAHM DE T R OI T OPER A | 17

These performances of Apartment House 1776 are presented with support from:

This activity is supported in part by an award from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council.

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PROGR AM

C ONC EP T JO H N C AG E DIR EC TOR ALE X A N D ER S ULEN G ED EO N

WORLD PREMIERE: B O S TON S Y M PHON Y OR C HE S T R A, PER FOR M ED SIM ULTA NEOUSLY W I T H C AG E'S R ENGA, SEP T E M BER 29, 1 976

PRODUCTION PREMIERE: DE T R OI T OPER A, C R A NBR O OK A R T M USEU M, M AY 21, 2026

S C ENO G R A PHER LEN A SA N DS DR A M AT UR G K EE-YOO N N A H M

POST-S H O W FACILI TAT O RS S T EPHEN A. BER R E Y BE T H A N Y HUG HE S K EE-YO ON N A H M

No photography or video is allowed during the performance. Please silence all phones.

RUN TIME: 90 MINUTE EXPERIENCE PR E-SH O W TALK A N D PAT H SELEC T IO N: 30 M IN PERFO R M A N C E: 32 M IN P OST-SH O W DI S C USSIO N: 30 M IN

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DETROIT OPERA ORCHESTRA Detroit Federation of Musicians, Local #5, of the American Federation of Musicians SEC T IO N 1

S EC T IO N 7

SEC T IO N 1 3

Violin 1

Violin (Acting Asst.

Concertmaster)

Percussion (Principal)

Velda Kelly Anna Bittar-Weller Violin 2

Yuri Popowycz

Henrik Karapetyan

Ivana Biliskov

Violin

Scott Stefanko

Cello

Cello (Principal) Viola

SEC T IO N 2

Eric Stoss

Andrea Yun Chloe Thominet Viola

S EC T IO N 8

Timpani (Principal)

Andrew Wu

SEC T IO N 3

Jenny Wan

Daniel Stachyra

Violin (Concertmaster)

Violin Violin

S EC T IO N 9

SEC T IO N 4

Eli Stefanacci

Violin

Mark Doerr

Molly Hughes

Oboe (Principal)

Bryan Johnston

Oboe

Violin

Benjamin Maxwell Cello

Jacqueline Hanson Viola

SEC T IO N 5

Collin Stavinoha Flute (Principal)

Andrea Velasquez Piccolo

SEC T IO N 6

Derek Weller Bass (Principal)

Clark Suttle Bass

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SEC T IO N 10

Colin Bianchi Horn (Principal)

Natalie Sweasy Horn

S EC T IO N 11

David Ammer

Trumpet (Principal)

Elijah Leonard Trumpet

S EC T IO N 1 2

Jordan Dove

Trombone (Principal)

Dustin Nguyen Trombone

John Dorsey SEC T IO N 14

Beth Henson

Harp (Acting Principal) SEC T IO N 1 5

J. William King Bass Clarinet

SEC T IO N 16

John Madison Viola (Principal) SEC T IO N 17

Emelyn Bashour

Violin (Principal Second)

DIR EC TOR

Alexander Sulen Gedeon is a multidisciplinary artist and critically acclaimed director of opera and concert-theater based in New York City. Embracing a multitude of forms and genres, his work has been called “provocative, visually stunning” and “a perfect, experimental approach to opera” (The San Diego Union-Tribune). His production of Everything Rises at BAM’s Next Wave festival was a New York Times Critic’s Pick.

Directing highlights include two Rolling Stone video premieres for Grammy-winning vocalist Judith Hill (Dame de la Lumière and Black Widow); co-directing both Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis (New World Symphony) and This Ghost of Slavery (National Museum of African American History and Culture), written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith, with Yuval Sharon; Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage (REDCAT); La tragédie de Carmen (San Diego Opera); and Sanctuaries, a new opera about gentrification at Portland’s Memorial Coliseum, of which Oregon ArtsWatch wrote: “If one of art’s essential fronts is to make us feel and to understand others on a deep, indescribable level, then Sanctuaries succeeds.”

As a bandleader and theater artist, Alexander has presented work at Joe’s Pub (New York), REDCAT, and The Ford (Los Angeles). He previously led the musical group Trick & the Heartstrings—with a live show that London’s New Musical Express called “a supertight howl of righteous rhythm and blues with jaw-dropping pop twists”—working alongside legendary U.K. producer Paul Epworth and receiving airplay on BBC Radio. He will release new music and unveil an untitled concert-theater work in 2026.

Alexander has guest directed at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and New York University, and guest lectured at the University of Southern California and Harvard. He graduated summa cum laude from New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

DE T R OI T OPER A | 21

A R T I S T P R O F IL E S

ALEXANDER SULEN GEDEON

SELENA KEARNEY Selena Kearney is a Coast Salish artist working across performance and photography. Raised on the Chehalis Reservation, she grounds her practice in cultural continuity and the transmission of song, centering the ways sound and image are carried within systems of relation, and how Indigenous presence moves between what is shown and what is held back. In the collaborative performance Speak to the House, Speak to the Object, developed with Camille Casemier, voice, projected images, and spoken text engage Coast Salish objects stored in museum collections. Here, song carries memory and responsibility while examining how Indigenous material ancestors sit dormant in institutional spaces.

Song enters her work through her grounding in Coast Salish practices.

She is a member of the elder-led canoe family, Spirit of the Raven, from the Suquamish Tribe, and has maintained this relationship since 2014. Selena was honored to serve as the skipper prior to relocating to Chicago. Within canoe journey, songs are learned and carried as part of a collective tradition. They guide movement and mark time, given in relation to others. Song, as a living system of coordination and offering, informs how she understands performance. As a collective technology of timing and relation, voice travels across multiple bodies, with ritual and attention moving through space.

Alongside performance, Selena works with photography and archival materials. In the series Object/Ritual she considers how Indigenous representation is manufactured and staged. The monograph Every Object Has a Ritual (Minor Matters, 2023) accompanied a solo exhibition at the Suquamish Museum. Selena holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Instagram: @latchselena Website: selenakearney.com

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French soprano Mia Mandineau is quickly becoming recognized for her beautiful voice, sensitive artistry, and compelling stage presence.

During the 2024–25 season, Mia performed a concert of Mozart arias with the Catskill Symphony Orchestra, Fiordiligi in Hillman Opera’s production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Micaëla in the Washington National Opera Orchestra and City Choir of Washington’s concert production of Bizet’s Carmen, Flora Bervoix in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert production of Verdi’s La traviata, Irene Adler in the world premiere of Glen Cortese’s 221B: A Sherlock Holmes Opera, and Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music at the Rockefeller Arts Center (New York).

Mia was a District Winner and Regional Finalist in the 2024 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. That same season, she joined the Wolf Trap Opera Company as a Studio Artist and performed a principal role in the world premiere of Nicholas Bentz and Robert Feng’s opera Having Guests for Dinner. Mia’s passion for arts education led her to found the successful YouTube channel L’Opéra et ses Zouz, where she has partnered with the Opéra national de Paris, Festival d’Aix-enProvence, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Detroit Opera, OperaVision, and French national radio and television.

Mia was awarded a fellowship to SUNY Fredonia’s School of Music and obtained her master’s degree in vocal performance in 2025 under the tutelage of Don Marrazzo, with whom she also completed her bachelor’s degree at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and her artist certificate at the Musical Horizons Conservatory in Athens.

In January, Mia received the Dr. David DiChiera encouragement award at the Michigan District Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition.

This year she will participate in the Althafen Foundation’s Talent Studio for early- to mid-career artists, where she will study with soprano Mané Galoyan. Instagram: @mia.mandineau.soprano YouTube: @LOpéraetsesZouz

DE T R OI T OPER A | 23

A R T I S T P R O F IL E S

MIA MANDINEAU

BRIANNA J. ROBINSON Soprano Brianna J. Robinson, whom The Boston Globe proclaimed as “a radiant voice and presence,” is a native of Ravenna, Ohio. During her first year as a Resident Artist with the Detroit Opera in the 2024–25 season, her featured role debuts included Annina in La traviata and Antron’s Mother/Kevin’s Mother/Ensemble in Anthony Davis’s The Central Park Five. Brianna is in her second year as a Resident Artist at Detroit Opera, where she performed the role of Moira in Poul Ruders’s The Handmaid’s Tale in March. In April 2027, she will make her role and house debut as Countess Almaviva in Tacoma Opera’s Le nozze di Figaro. Brianna is a former Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist with Boston Lyric Opera, where she had two successful jump-ins—as Julie in Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels’s Pulitzer Prize–winning opera, Omar, and as Léontine in Chevalier de Saint-Georges’s The Anonymous Lover.

In December 2023, she made her debut at Carnegie Hall with The Cecilia Chorus of New York in Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Dona nobis pacem.

In May 2024, she was awarded First Prize in the George Shirley Vocal Competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Brianna has performed in the Handel and Haydn Society’s immersive concert experience Crossing the Deep, and with such ensembles as the Akron and the Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestras. Brianna was a finalist in Opera Ebony’s Benjamin Matthews Vocal Competition and was awarded first prize at the Getting to Carnegie competition in 2020. She made her international debut in Ruse, Bulgaria, in 2021, creating the role of Ophelia in the world premiere of Joseph Summer’s Hamlet.

Brianna is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Eastman School of Music. Instagram: @brianna.jashai

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Travis Leon Williams is an American tenor hailing from Lansing, Michigan. His love for classical voice blossomed when his parents introduced him to Universal Pictures’ 1943 film version of The Phantom of the Opera at age seven. He made his Detroit Opera mainstage debut in March as Luke in Poul Ruders’s opera The Handmaid’s Tale. His professional credits also include Spoletta in Tosca and soloist in Opera Legends in Black at Opera Las Vegas, Holiday Pops soloist with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, soloist in Opera Grand Rapids’ season-kickoff gala, Roland Hayes in Black Swan Radio Hour at Vegas City Opera, and Mr. Jefferson (and other roles) in Rent at The Dio. Travis was the Division I winner of the 2019 Opera Grand Rapids Collegiate Competition (VanderLaan Prize). In 2019 he attended the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS), where he won second prize in the Meistersinger Competition. He received a 2022 Encouragement Award in the Oregon District of the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition. Travis served as a voice coach at DeWitt High School and is a member of the Verna D. Holley Project. He is an adjudicator for the Sutton Foster Awards and a teaching artist with the Disney Musicals in Schools program at the Wharton Center.

He earned his Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from Western Michigan University in 2020 and Master of Music degree in vocal performance from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2022.

Instagram: @bravotravissimo

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A R T I S T P R O F IL E S

TRAVIS LEON WILLIAMS

LENA SANDS SCENOGR A PHER

Lena Sands is an award-winning practitioner and teacher of costume design recognized for her innovative theatrical work. Lena’s past collaborations with director Alexander Sulen Gedeon include the New York Times Critic’s Pick Everything Rises (Royce Hall, BAM), Sucktion

by Anne LeBaron, and an operetta based on Dostoevsky’s The Double (Boston Court, Pasadena). Designs for new operas also include Four Larks’ Frankenstein (The Wallis, Beverly Hills) and visual album Homeric Hymns (Getty Villa); and Minute to Midnight by Dante De Silva, and Sally Ride by Dana Kaufman (Synchromy, Los Angeles). Other notable costume designs include Center Theatre Group’s American Idiot revival (Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles), SITI Company’s The Bacchae (BAM, Guthrie, Getty Villa), Pat Benatar’s Invincible—The Musical (The Wallis), and the new musical Menstruation: A Period Piece (Los Angeles LGBT Center). She designs for Los Angeles’s Critical Mass Performance Group including Mariology (Boston Court; Mixed Blood, Minneapolis), Ameryka (Kirk Douglas, Culver City), Untitled Communion (REDCAT, Los Angeles), and After Iphigenia (Getty Villa). Lena’s work has been featured in Vogue magazine, as worn by Jinkx Monsoon. Her work was also displayed in the exhibition Innovative Costume of the 21st Century: The Next Generation.

She holds a BFA from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Website: lenasands.com

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DR A M AT URG / POST-SHO W FACILI TATOR

Kee-Yoon Nahm is an interdisciplinary dramaturg, translator, and theater scholar.

In the United States, his work has been presented at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Significant Productions, Theatreworks Colorado Springs, Coalescence Theatre Project, Illinois State University, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, Texas State University, and Yale Cabaret, among others. His work has also been presented in South Korea at the Seoul Performing Arts Festival, National Theater Company of Korea, National Gugak Center, National Dance Company of Korea, and Vaeda Theatre. From 2019 to 2024, he oversaw the Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative at Illinois State University, a program for the development of new plays by BIPOC playwrights. He is currently Visiting Associate Professor of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, where he also received his MFA and DFA degrees.

STEPHEN A. BERREY POST-SHO W FACILI TATOR

Stephen A. Berrey is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Associate Professor of American Culture and History at the University of Michigan.

He is the Chair of the James W. Loewen Foundation, and the Director of the Sundown Towns Project and website, a public engagement initiative begun by James W. Loewen to document places that have intentionally excluded some racial groups. He is the author of The Jim Crow Routine: Everyday Performances of Race, Civil Rights, and Segregation in Mississippi (2015).

He is the co-author of Black Song: A Manifesto for Music and Justice, a collaboration with music scholars and performers, coming out in fall 2026. He is continuing to research the history of sundown towns, and conducting research on the history of Jim Crow in small-town America.

DE T R OI T OPER A | 27

P R O D U C T IO N P R O F IL E S

KEE-YOON NAHM

BETHANY HUGHES

POST-SHO W FACILI TATOR

Bethany Hughes (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of American Culture, and Director of the Native American Studies Program. She is a performance scholar and cultural historian, and her work focuses on the representation of Native Americans in theatrical performance and contemporary Indigenous theater. Her book Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeneity, published by New York University Press, articulates the aesthetic, racial, and political implications of the “Indian” in live theater.

It won the Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the Labriola National American Indian Data Center’s Book Award, and co-won the George Freedley Memorial Award from the Theatre Library Association. Bethany teaches classes on Native American studies; Indigenous performance, race, and musical theater; American performance; and critical university studies. Her writing can be found in Theatre Journal, American Periodicals, Theatre Survey, Mobilities, and Theatre Topics, and on HowlRound Theatre Commons.

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(C A A P R I N T M A K I N G '7 5), P H O T O B Y D O U G H U S T O N.

T H E C A G E B A G A N D I T S C O N T E N T S. C A G E B A G A R T W O R K S B Y D O U G H U S T O N (C A A P R I N T M A K I N G '7 5), A N D C H A R L E S B A U G H M A N

DE T R OI T OPER A | 29

C A G E B A G A R T W O R K S B Y D O U G H U S T O N (C A A P R I N T M A K I N G '7 5), A N D C H A R L E S B A U G H M A N (C A A P R I N T M A K I N G '7 5),

30

I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y O F S T E P H E N M IL A N O W S K I (C A A P H O T O '7 8). P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F C R A N B R O O K A R T M U S E U M

Thank you to Lyla Catellier, Brian McLean, the Prep Crew, and the Visitors Services team at Cranbrook Art Museum.

Thank you to our donors Contributors to Detroit Opera

Detroit Opera gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our corporate, foundation, government, and individual donors whose contributions were received between July 1, 2024, and December 19, 2025. Your generosity is essential to sustaining Detroit Opera as a vibrant cultural resource for our community.

Foundations, Corporate & Government Support

$500,000-$999,999 William Davidson Foundation John. S. and James L. Knight Foundation State of Michigan

$250,000-$499,999 Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan Ford Foundation

$100,000-$249,999 Ford Philanthropy General Motors Gilbert Family Foundation Mellon Foundation Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation

$50,000-$99,999 J. Addison Bartush and Marion M. Bartush Family Foundation Max M. & Marjorie Fisher Foundation Milner Hotels Foundation

$25,000-$49,999 The Fred and Barbara Erb Family Foundation Hudson-Webber Foundation Kresge Foundation National Endowment for the Arts The Ruth F. Rattner and Ann F. & Norman D. Katz Charitable Foundation Kurt Weill Foundation For Music Matilda R. Wilson Fund

$10,000-$24,999 DTE Energy Foundation MGM Grand Detroit Oliver Dewey Marcks Foundation OPERA America Penske Corporation Ralph L. and Winifred E. Polk Foundation Ida and Conrad H. Smith Endowment for MOT The Mary Thompson Foundation Burton A. Zipser and Sandra D. Zipser Foundation

$5,000-$9,999 C&N Foundation Co-Ette Club, Inc. Aaron Copland Fund For Music Gerson Family Foundation, Inc. James and Lynelle Holden Fund The Karen & Drew Peslar Foundation Louis and Nellie Sieg Fund Donald R. and Esther Simon Foundation Somerset Collection Charitable Foundation Strum Allesee Family Foundation The Samuel L. Westerman Foundation

$1,000-$4,999 ABM Janitorial Services John A. & Marlene L. Boll Foundation Joyce Cohn Young Artist Fund Detroit Children’s Choir The Gilmour-Jirgens Fund Marjorie & Maxwell Jospey Foundation Josephine Kleiner Foundation Warsh-Mott Funds DE T R OI T OPER A | 31

Individual Support

The National Circle

Introduced in 2024, the National Circle unites Detroit Opera’s foremost supporters at a pivotal moment in our history. With annual contributions of $25,000 or more, these visionary donors affirm their belief in the transformative power of live performance to inspire meaningful change—both in our city and across the nation.

$100,000+ Ethan & Gretchen Davidson Linda Dresner & Ed Levy Jr. David & Christine Provost Matthew & Mona Simoncini Richard Sonenklar & Gregory Haynes Barbara A. Walkowski

$50,000-$99,999 Richard Alonzo Enrico & Kathleen DiGirolamo Patricia Isacson Sabee & David Sabee Mary Kramer Denise J. Lewis

Lorna Thomas, MD Jesse & Yesenia Venegas R. Jamison & Karen Williams

$25,000-$49,999 Lisa A. Applebaum Richard and Joanne Brodie Alex Erdeljan Carl & Mary Ann Fontana Barbara Lucking Freedman* Jane Iacobelli Barbara & Michael* Kratchman The Hon. Jack & Dr. Bettye Arrington Martin Susanne McMillan

Ali Moiin & William Kupsky Allan & Joy Nachman Philanthropic Fund Ann & James B. Nicholson Ebbie & Ayana Parsons Mrs. Ruth F. Rattner* Barbara Van Dusen

KEY

* Deceased

The DiChiera Society DiChiera Society members honor the legacy and vision of our founder, David DiChiera, while advancing Detroit Opera’s future as one of the nation’s most significant and innovative opera and dance organizations. Their commitment supports our ongoing focus on community engagement, accessibility, and bold artistic exploration under the leadership of Barbara Walkowski Artistic Director Yuval Sharon.

$10,000-$24,999 Gene P. Bowen Mr. Thomas Cohn Kevin Dennis & Jeremy Zeltzer Dr. Raina Ernstoff & Mr. Sanford Hansell Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation Bharat & Lynn Gandhi Toby Haberman Jody & Tara Ingle Nancy & Bud Liebler Ms. Mary C. Mazure Donald & Antoinette Morelock Mr. Cyril Moscow* William & Wendy Powers Dr. & Mrs. Samir M. Ragheb Dr. Irvin D. Reid & Dr. Pamela Trotman Reid Evan & Kelsey Ross Salome E. Walton Prof. Michael Wellman

$5,000-$9,999 Nina Abrams Ms. Christine Ammer Dr. Lourdes V. Andaya Dr. Harold M. Arrington

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Gregory & Mary Barkley Wayne Brown & Brenda Kee Albert & Janette Cassar Sue Cutler & Jeff Fessler Ms. Violet Dalla Vecchia Reverend Bill Danaher Walter & Lillian Dean Lisa DiChiera Maria & David Duey Nell Duke & David Ammer Marianne Elrick & Kenneth Myers Fern Espino & Tom Short Mr. Michael Fisher Joseph Fontana & Nada Jurisich-Fontana Ralph & Erica Gerson Andrew Glancy James & Nancy Grosfeld Beverly Hall Burns Barbara Heller Ellen Hill Zeringue Julie & Peter Hollinshead William Hulsker & Aris Urbanes Addison & Deborah Igleheart Andy Levin & Mary Freeman Don Manvel

Mrs. L. William Moll Robert & Susan Morris Mr. George & Mrs. Jo Elyn Nyman Joshua & Rachel Opperer Ms. Linda Orlans Sara A. Pozzi, Ph.D. Waltraud Prechter Carrie & Ted Pryor Janice Ross Anthony & Sabrina Rugiero Leon & Debbie Saperstein Mrs. Rosalind B. Sell Terry Shea & Seigo Nakao Simmons & Clark Jewelers, Michael & Stacey Simmons Christopher Stavrou Ned & Joan Winkelman

$3,000-$4,999 Thomas & Gretchen Anderson Sandra & Doug Bitonti Stewart Paul & Lee Blizman Bob & Rosemary Brasie Dr. & Mrs. Ronald T. Burkman Carolyn Demps & Guy Simons Marla Donovan

Marjory Winkelman Epstein James & Margo Farber Sally & Michael Feder Ms. Laurie R. Frankel Dr. Glendon M. Gardner & Leslie Landau Mr. Lawrence Glowczewski Mr. & Mrs. Robert & Christine Hage Ms. Carole Hardy Richard & Involut Jessup Roberto Kalb & Mane Galoyan Ann Katz Max Lepler & Rex Dotson Mary B. Letts

John & Arlene Lewis Stephan & Marian Loginsky Mr. Loreto A. Manzo Ms. Mary McGough Patrick & Patricia McKeever Benjamin Meeker & Meredith Korneffel, MD Brian & Lisa Meer Ms. Evelyn Micheletti Eugene & Lois Miller Phillip Minch Van Momon & Pamela L. Berry Brian Murphy & Toni Sanchez-Murphy Geoffrey Nathan

George & Nancy Nicholson Brock & Katherine L. Plumb Lois & Mark Shaevsky Susan Sills-Levey & Michael Levey Susan A Smith Frank & Susan Sonye Sharon Tevis Finch Buzz Thomas & Daniel VanderLey Joseph & Rosalie Vicari Stanley Waldon Dr. John Weber & Dr. Dana Zakalik Bret & Susanna Williams Dr. Lucia Zamorano

Friends of Detroit Opera

Every gift helps ensure that opera and dance continue to flourish in our community, bringing to life the indescribable magic that begins when the curtain rises. Friends of Detroit Opera—among our most loyal and essential supporters—sustain this work through annual contributions of $500 or more & enjoy exclusive benefits in recognition of their generosity.

$1,000-$2,999 Ms. Geraldine Atkinson Mr. Jason Batke Martin & Marcia Baum Ms. Kanta Bhambhani Mr. Stanislaw Bialoglowski Constance Bodurow Ms. Nicole A. Boelstler Mrs. Marlene L. Boll Marsha Bruhn Ilse Calcagno Mrs. Judith Christie Harriet Clark John & Doreen Cole Tonino & Sarah Corsetti Cristina DiChiera & Neal Walsh Ms. Mary J. Doerr Mr. David Egner Ms. Judith Ellis Burke & Carol Fossee Carol Gagliardi & David Flesher Marcelo Ganasevici Arline Geronimus Mr. Nathaniel Good Rober & Ann Greenstone Kimberly Hastie Fay & Allen Herman Adriana Herrera Christina Hopkins Joel Howell Mary Ellen Hoy & Jim Keller Paul Jednak & Tim Kasunic Marc Keshishian & Susanna Szelestey Mr. & Mrs. Gerd H Keuffel Sam Logan Khaleghi Justin & Joanne Klimko Gregory Knas

Jennifer Lindsay Kott Ms. Vera C. Magee Federico Mariona & Clara Sumeghy-Mariona Ms. Janet Groening Marsh Mr. Ronald Michalak Mary F. Miller Ms. Maryanne Mott Iuliana & Ovidiu Niculescu Ms. Pamela Patton-Cone Margaret Pehrson Mark & Kyle Peterson Ankur Rungta & Mayssoun Bydon Professor Alvin* & Mrs. Harriet Saperstein Mary Schlaff & Sanford Koltonow Kingsley & Lurline Sears Anthony & Theresa Selvaggio Timothy & Kelli Shaheen Ms. Brenda Shufelt Joe Skoney & Luisa Di Lorenzo Ms. Theresa Spear & Mr. Jeff Douma Gabriel & Martha Stahl Ms. Mary Anne Stella Andrew J. Sturgess Manuel Tancer & Claire Stroker Mr. Jon Teeuwissen Dr. Jewlee Weah Tweh Jeff & Amy Voigt Gary L. Wasserman & Charles A. Kashner Eileen Weiser & Richard Caldarazzo Erica White Katina Zaninovich

$750-$999 David A. Agius Eric Alonas

D.L. Anthony, Ph.D. Frank & Jenny Brzenk Mr. Michael Clyne Murray & Alice Ehrinpreis Dr. Anne Missavage & Mr. Robert Borcherding Maury Okun & Tina Topalian Mr. Carl R. Smith Dr. Andrew James Stocking Dennis & Jennifer Varian

Kimberly Johnson Carol Johnston Geraldine & Jacqueline Keller Ms. Lee Khachaturian Ms. Cynthia Kratchman William & Jean Kroger Mary Jane & Jeff Kupsky Albert Kurt Dr. & Mrs. Kenneth Levin Mr. John Lovegren & Mr. Daniel Isenschmid $500-$749 Antonia Abbey & James Lee John & Kimi Lowe Wallace Ayotte Mrs. Marsha Lynn Ms. Allison Bach & Jane Panikkar Mr. Michael Cool Bertram & Elaine Pitt Ms. Mary Anne Barczak Elaine & Bertram Pitt Marceline Bright Garry Post & Robert Hill Ms. Susan Burns Shawn Rieschl Johnson & Stephen Calkins & Christian Kirby Joan Wadsworth Adam D. Rubin, M.D, Oliver & Susan Cameron Lakeshore Professional Paula Lisa Cole Voice Center Gerald Davis Mr. Richard Lee Ruby Mr. John R. DiLodovico Mr. Rodney Michael Rusk Manisha Dostert Charles & Pamela Schiffer Daniel H Ferrier Demetrius Shields Barbara Fisher & Anthony Smith & William Gould Leland Calloway Yvonne Friday & Stephen Black Catherine Strumbos John Gierak & Dona Tracey Mr. Bruce Tackett Joseph & Lois Gilmore Frank Tenkel Gil Glassberg & Dr. Gretchen Thams Sandra Seligman Pete Tully Ms. Anita DeMarco Goor Maria Urquidi Philip & Martha Gray Henry Grix & Howard Israel Salvatore Ventura Ms. Rosemary Gugino Ms. Janet Beth Weir Beth Hoger & Lisa Swem Meredith Weston-Band & Jeffery Band Ms. George-Ann Howell Lawrence John & Lilian Lai Elliot & Dr. Susan Zeltzer

DE T R OI T OPER A | 3 3

Gifts in Tribute

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to those who have made generous gifts to Detroit Opera in honor or in memory of loved ones. The names of those being honored or remembered are listed in bold below.

IN HONOR OF

IN MEMORY OF

Ethan D. Davidson Reverend Bill Danaher

Wickam Allen Beth Buzzelli Carlson

Carl Fontana Mrs. Nina Dodge Abrams Paul & Orvilla Ashely Thomas E Barron Michael J Bartoy Beverly Anne Bloomberg Andre Boulanger Wilson Curle Mary Jo & Donald Dawson David Feeny Pamela Fontana Cynthia Gitt Peter Gude Patricia Isacson Sabee & David Sabee Theresa Johnson Mary Kramer Allen A Lewis James Peggs & Margaret Talburtt Sarah Siwek Teresa Taranta Sara Valenti Rick Warner Robert Wittenberg

Betty Brooks Ethan & Gretchen Davidson Cathy Mosseau

Patricia Isacson Sabee William Austin Juliano Bitonti Stewart Katrina Fasulo Angela Nelson-Heesch Brenda Kee Dr. Ali Moiin & Dr. William Kupsky Dr. Ali Moiin & Dr. William Kupsky Mary Jane & Jeff Kupsky William & Elizabeth S. Kupsky Household Jon Teeuwissen Manisha Dostert Lorna Thomas, MD Paul & Lee Blizman Barbara Walkowski Neal S. Goren

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Nicoangelo Corsetti Tornino & Serafina Corsetti Armando Delicatio Patricia Bentley Judith Gordon & Lawrence Banka Jacqueline Shuster Carol DeVore Mr. Mark S. DeVore Shirley DiGirolamo Enrico & Kathleen DiGirolamo Sandy Duncan R. Jamison & Karen Williams Grant Eldridge Tracy Barr Drs. Julie B. Finn & Bradley Rowens Heather Gehring Shawn Rieschl Johnson & Christian Kirby Joseph Katulic Stuart Grigg Alphonse S. Lucarelli R. Jamison & Karen Williams George & Ann Marisl Thomas Dickson & Carol Dick Ruth Rattner Jody & Gary Astrein David & Nancy Barbour Household Ms. Lori Cohn Elle Elder Marianne Elrick & Kenneth Myers Beth & Earle Erman Ann Fishman Amy Folbe Richard & Eleanore Gabrys Marilyn Goldberg Renee Handelsman David & Rose Handleman Barbara Heller Patricia Isacson Sabee & David Sabee

Ann Katz Richard Katz Mrs. Barbara Kratchman Michael* & Barbara Kratchman Victor Lebovici Dr. Jay Levinson Nancy & Bud Liebler Howard Luckoff Alex & Lisa MacDonald Angela Nelson-Heesch Ali Moiin & William Kupsky Bluma Schechter Mrs. Bluma Schechter Ms. Lisa Schwartz Grace Serra Martha Siefman Mr. Mark Sussman Mr. William Volz Gary L. Wasserman & Charles A. Kashner R. Jamison & Karen Williams Sharon Zimmerman Suzann Kaye Ripple Ms. Catherine Pappas Miss Alison Piech Gladys Santiago Ruth Roby Glancy The Glancy Foundation Angeline Rooks Maria McMullen Karol Ross Susan Stepek William Sandy Julie & Peter Hollinshead Tamara Whitty Phyllis Osler Every effort has been made to accurately reflect donor, honoree, and memorial names for gifts received between July 1, 2024 and December 19, 2025. Should you find an error or omission please contact Angela Nelson-Heesch at anelsonheesch@detroitopera.org or 313.237.3438.

Avanti Society Members Setting the Stage for Tomorrow

Found throughout Italian opera, the word avanti means “ahead” or “forward.” The Avanti Society— Detroit Opera’s planned giving recognition program—honors a special group of donors whose generosity is guided by vision and foresight. By including Detroit Opera in their estate plans, members ensure that the transformative power of opera and dance will continue to inspire audiences in our community and across the nation for generations to come. With deep gratitude, we thank our Avanti Society members for shaping the future of Detroit Opera.

Douglas* & Sarah Allison Richard & Mona* Alonzo Janet Ames Dr. Lourdes V. Andaya§ Mr. & Mrs. Agustin Arbulu§ Chester* & Emilia Arnold§ George & Joanne Arrick Dr. Leora Bar-Levav Lee & Floy Barthel Brett & Veronica Batterson§ Richard & Gwen Bowlby Mrs. Doreen Bull Roy E.* & Ilse Calcagno§ Dr. & Mrs. Thomas & Dorothy* Carson Dr. & Mrs. Victor J.* & Katherine Cervenak Father Paul F. Chateau Mary Christner Mr. Gary L. Ciampa Prof. Kenneth Collinson Douglas & Minka Cornelsen Dr. Robert A. Cornette§# Mr. Thomas J. Delaney Walter & Adel Dissett Ms. Mary J. Doerr§ Mrs. Helen Ophelia Dove-Jones Marianne T. Endicott§# David & Jennifer Fischer Herbert & Betty Fisher§ Mrs. Barbara Frankel* & Mr. Ronald Michalak§# Mr. & Mrs. Herman Frankel§# Byron & Marilyn Georgeson§ William Gipperich Albert & Barbara Glover Robert Green Mr. Ernest Gutierrez Stephen & Aline Hagopian Mr. Lawrence Hall§ Jerome & Margot Halperin§ Heather Hamilton Charlene Handleman Preston* & Mary Happel Mr. Kenneth E. Hart§ Eugene* & Donna Hartwig§ Dr. & Mrs. Gerhardt A. & Rebecca P. Hein Fay & Allen Herman Derek & Karen* Hodgson Andrew & Carol Howell Dr. Cindy Hung§ Eleanor & Alan Israel Ms. Kristin R. Jaramillo§ Don Jensen & Leo Dovelle§ John Jickling Patrick J.* & Stephanie Germack Kerzic

Josephine Kessler Edward & Barbara Klarman Robert & Wally Klein# Erwin H. & Suzanne Klopfer§# Myron & Joyce LaBan Max Lepler & Rex Dotson Linda Dresner & Ed Levy, Jr. Mr. Hannan Lis Florence LoPatin Stephen Lord Ms. Denise Lutz Laura & Mitchell Malicki Ms. Jane C. McKee§ Bruce Miller Orlando & Dorothy Miller§ Ms. Monica Moffat Drs. Stephen & Barbara Munk Harold Munson & Libby Berger Tiffany Nance Mr. Jonathan F. Orser Ms. Julie Owens Mr. Dale J. Pangonis§ Charles A. & Mary Parkhill Allison Prost Mr. Richard M. Raisin§# Ms. Deborah Remer Dr. Joshua Rest James & Marguerite S. Rigby§ Mr. Bryan L. Rives Ms. Patricia H. Rodzik§ David & Beverly Rorabacher Dulcie Rosenfeld Professor Alvin* & Mrs. Harriet Saperstein Ms. Susan Schooner§ Mark & Sally Schwartz Arlene Shaler§ Ms. Ellen Sharp Ms. Edna J Pak Shin Harold & June Siebert Mrs. Loretta Skewes Ms. Anne Sullivan Smith Richard* & Roberta Starkweather§# Ms. Mary Anne Stella Stanford C. Stoddard Ronald F. Switzer§ & Jim McClure Lillie Tabor Peter & Ellen Thurber Alice* & Paul Tomboulian Jonathan* & Salome E. Walton Susan Weidinger Mr. Andrew Wise Larry* & Mary Lou Zangerle

We express profound thanks to these Avanti Society members whose planned gifts to Detroit Opera have been realized.

Robert G. Abgarian Robert & Margaret Allesee# Mona Alonzo Serena Ailes Stevens Mr. & Mrs. J. Addison Bartush§# Mr. & Mrs. Mandell Berman Margaret & Douglas Borden Charles M. Broh Milena T. Brown Charlotte Bush Failing The Gladys L. Caldroney Mary C. Caggegi Allen B. Christman Miss Halla F. Claffey Ms. Virginia M. Clementi Hon. Avern Cohn & Ms. Lois Pincus Cohn Robert C. & RoseAnn B. Comstock Mrs. Mary Rita Cuddohy James Danaher Marjorie E. DeVlieg Nance Dewar James P. Diamond Dr. David DiChiera Mrs. Karen V. DiChiera Nina S. Drolias Charles & Mary Jane Duncan§ Mr. Wayne C. Everly Dr. Evelyn J. Fisher Mrs. Anne E. Ford Ms. Pamela R. Francis§ Mrs. Rema Frankel Barbara Lucking Freedman Edward P. Frohlich The Priscilla A.B. Goodell Freda K. Goodman Priscilla R. Greenberg, Ph.D. §# Maliha Hamady Ms. Nancy B. Henk Mary Adelaide Hester Ms. Patricia Hobar Gordon V. Hoialmen Carl J. Huss Aaron E. Jabbour Mr. John Jesser H. Barbara Johnston Maxwell & Marjorie Jospey Ida King Mrs. Josephine Kleiner Misses Phyllis & Selma Korn§#

Mr. & Mrs. Arthur Krolikowski§ Leslie Lazzerin Mr. Philip Leon Dores & Wade McCree Vivien McDonald Lucie B. Meininger Helen M. Miller Ella M. Montroy Ronald K. Morrison Ruth Mott Clarice Odgers Percox Elizabeth M. Pecsenye Thomas G. Porter Magdalena Predeteanu Mrs. Ruth F. Rattner Mitchell Romanowski Ms. Joanne B. Rooney Concetta Ross Mr. & Mrs. Giles L. & Beverly Ross Ms. Merle H. Scheibner Drs. Heinz & Alice Platt Schwarz§ Ms. Laura Sias Mrs. Marge Slezak Ida & Conrad H. Smith Ms. Phyllis Funk Snow§ Edward L. Stahl Dr. Mildred Ponder Stennis Mary Ellen Tappan Margaret D. Thurber Mr. & Mrs. George & Inge Vincent§# Herman W. Weinreich J. Ernest Wilde Mrs. Ruth Wilkins Helen B. Wittenberg Mr. & Mrs. Walter & Elizabeth Work§ Joseph J. Zafarana George & Pearl Zeltzer§

KEY § Founding Members # Touch the Future donors * Deceased Membership in the Avanti Society is open to all who wish to declare their intention for a planned gift to Detroit Opera. Call Demetrius Shields to learn more, 313.309.8255.

DE T R OI T OPER A | 3 5

Detroit Opera Honor Roll Detroit Opera gratefully acknowledges these distinguished donors for their lifetime giving. Their extraordinary generosity has shaped the history of our company—from its founding in 1971 by Dr. David DiChiera as Michigan Opera Theatre, to the opening of the Detroit Opera House in 1996, and to our bold transformation into Detroit Opera in 2022 under the leadership of Barbara Walkowski Artistic Director Yuval Sharon.

Their visionary support sustains the vitality of Detroit Opera today, making possible world-class opera and dance performances as well as acclaimed community programs that inspire and engage audiences throughout our region. $10,000,000+

$1,000,000+

The William Davidson Foundation

Richard & Mona* Alonzo

Ford Motor Company Fund

AT&T

The State of Michigan

Bank of America

$5,000,000+

Mandell L. & Madeleine H. Berman Foundation

Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan

Mr.* & Mrs. John A. Boll Sr.

General Motors John S. & James L. Knight Foundation The Kresge Foundation Fiat Chrysler Automobiles

$2,000,000+ Mr. & Mrs. Douglas* & Sarah Allison Mr. Lee & Mrs. Floy Barthel Marvin, Betty & Joanne Danto Dance Endowment & Marvin & Betty Danto Family Foundation Mr. & Mrs. Herman & Sharon Frankel Lear Corporation Linda Dresner & Ed Levy Jr. Masco Corporation McGregor Fund The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The Skillman Foundation R. Jamison & Karen Williams

Compuware Corporation Robert & RoseAnn Comstock Joanne Danto & Arnold Weingarden Ethan & Gretchen Davidson DTE Energy Foundation The Fred A. & Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation Mrs. Margo Cohen Feinberg & Mr. Robert Feinberg Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation Mrs. Barbara Frankel* & Mr. Ronald Michalak Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Frankel* Hudson-Webber Foundation JPMorgan Chase Paul Lavins National Endowment for the Arts Matthew & Mona Simoncini Richard Sonenklar & Gregory Haynes Dr. & Mrs. Sam B. Williams* Matilda R. Wilson Fund

KEY

* Deceased 36

Every effort has been made to accurately reflect donor names and gift levels. Should you find an error or omission, please contact Angela Nelson-Heesch at anelsonheesch@detroitopera.org or 313.237.3438

Orchestra

Detroit Federation of Musicians, Local #5, of the American Federation of Musicians

SEC T IO N 1

FLU T E

HORN

Velda Kelly

Collin Stavinoha

Colin Bianchi

Andrea Velasquez

Natalie Sweasy

PIC C OLO

T RU M PE T

Andrea Velasquez

David Ammer

Anna Bittar-Weller Ivana Biliskov (Principal) Scott Stefanko V IOL A

Principal

Principal

Principal

Elijah Leonard

John Madison

OBOE

Jacqueline Hanson

Principal

T RO M BO N E

Mark Doerr

Jordan Dove

Principal

Scott Stefanko

Eli Stefanacci

Chloé Thominet EN GLI S H H O R N C ELLO

Mark Doerr

Ivana Biliskov Principal

Benjamin Maxwell Andrea Yun Open Position

CL A R IN E T

Principal

Dustin Nguyen T I M PA NI

Eric Stoss Principal

Roi Karni Principal

J. William King

PER C USSIO N

John Dorsey Principal

BA SS

Derek Weller

BA SS CL A R IN E T

J. William King

Principal

Clark Suttle HARP

Juan Riveros

BA SS OO N

Daniel Fendrick Principal

Open Position

Principal

DE T R OI T OPER A | 37

Administration & Staff LEADERSHIP

DEVELOPMENT

Patty Isacson Sabee, President & CEO

Juliano Bitonti Stewart, Director of Development

Yuval Sharon, Barbara Walkowski Artistic Director Roberto Kalb, Music Director Daniel T. Brinker, General Manager, Detroit Opera House & Parking Center Shawn Rieschl Johnson, Chief Programming & Production Officer Jon Teeuwissen, Artistic Advisor for Dance

Chelsea S. Kotula, Director of Institutional Giving Katrina Fasulo, Director, Individual Giving & Donor Engagement Angela Nelson-Heesch, Director, Data Analytics & Operations

Samantha Teter, Chief Marketing Officer

Valentino Peacock, Manager of Data & Operations

Ataul Usman, Senior Director of Human Resources

Demetrius Shields, Manager of Individual Giving

ADMINISTRATION

Stephani Davis, Development Coordinator

William Austin, Executive Assistant

ARTISTIC DEPARTMENT Nathalie Doucet, Head of Music & Director of Detroit Opera Resident Artist Program Elizabeth Anderson, Artistic Administrator

DANCE Kim Smith, Dance Administrator

EDUCATION Branden Hood, Director of Education Alaina Brown, Program Coordinator: Education & Community Programs Eliza Beutler, Program Administrator

FACILITIES Vanessa Boyd, Facilities Manager

DETROIT OPERA YOUTH CHORUS

Juan Benavides, Building Engineer

Twannette Nash, Chorus Administrator

Kevie Crumb, Facilities & Event Technician

Jane Arvidson Panikkar, Preparatory Chorus Conductor

FINANCE

Rebecca O-G Eaddy, Principal Chorus Conductor

Kimberley Burgess, Accountant Rita Winters, Accountant

Maria Cimarelli, Preparatory Chorus Accompanist

HUMAN RESOURCES

Joseph Jackson, Principal Chorus Accompanist

Denver Harvey, Human Resources Coordinator

MARKETING/COMMUNICATIONS Leah Hill, Director of Marketing Madelyn Estes, Website Administrator Position is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Anna Herscher, Lead Graphic Designer Jennifer Melick, Communications & Media Relations Manager Austin Richey, Digital Media Manager & Storyteller Arthur White, Director of Community & Audience Engagement

38

MUSIC DEPARTMENT

SAFETY AND SECURITY

Katherine Kozak, Chorus Director & Music Administrator

Rock Monroe, Director of Safety & Security

Molly Hughes, Orchestra Personnel Manager Jean Posekany, Orchestra Librarian

PRODUCTION

Lieutenant Lorraine Monroe Sergeant Demetrius Newbold Officer Gary Cabean Officer A.M. Hightower

Elizabeth Anderson, Production Coordinator

Officer Michelle Johnson

Kathleen Bennett, Production Finance Administrator

Officer Terrence Hunter

Jeff Beyersdorf, Technical Director Eden Cope, Assistant Technical Director Monika Essen, Property Master Suzanne Hanna, Costume Director Kaila Madison, Technical Assistant

Officer Khalil Nalis

TICKETING & BOX OFFICE Amy Brown, Director of Ticketing and Booking Stephanie Stoiko, Box Office Manager

Brodrick Whittley, Assistant Technical Director

Evan Carr, System Administrator

COSTUMES Suzanne Hanna, Costume Director

Chris Simpson, Box Office Associate

Michaela Tanksley, Wardrobe Supervisor

Ellen Smith, Group Sales Associate

Patricia Sova Jr., First Hand

VENUE OPERATIONS

Mary Ellen Shuffett, Fitting Assistant

Christopher Lewis, Box Office Associate Aaron Tyson, Box Office Associate

Eileen Thorna, Tailor

Alexis Means, Director of Operations & Patron Experiences

Maureen Abele, Paul Moran, Lupe Vazquez, Stitchers

Holly Clement, Senior Manager of Events & Rentals

WIGS & MAKEUP Erika Broderdorf, Wig & Makeup Crew Coordinator

Jennifer George-Consiglio, Manager of Venue Operations

STAGE CREW John Kinsora, Head Carpenter

Kathie Booth, Volunteer Coordinator

Jerome Bowie, Head Electrician Pat McGee, Head Propertyman Chris Baker, Head of Sound Pat Tobin, Head Flyman Dee Dorsey, Surtitle Operator Mary Ellen Shuffett, Head of Wardrobe IATSE Local #38 Stage Crew IATSE Local #786 Wardrobe

Michael Hauser, Curator of History & Architecture

USHERS Max Aghili, Christine Berryman, Ellen Bishop, Kathie Booth, Lori Burkhardt, Randall Davis, Erin Doakes, Suzanne Erbes, Pamela Fergusson, Sue Hargrave, Myrna Mazure, Ennis Mcgee, Steven McReynolds, Heddie O’Connor, Bill Ried, Kim Ried, Edna Rubin, Ida Vance, Sheryl Weinan-Yee

DE T R OI T OPER A | 39

Sip & Stroll at the DOH Have you ever strolled by the Detroit Opera House and wanted to know what it looks like inside? Join us for a 90-minute “Sip & Stroll” experience at the Detroit Opera House. Tours offer participants the chance to see our beautiful, historic 1922 theater, designed by renowned architect C. Howard Crane, and include the mainstage and backstage areas, plus a visit to the rooftop for spectacular views of downtown Detroit from our SkyDeck (weather permitting). Sip & Stroll tours include a glass of premium red or white wine, bottled water, and snacks. Must be 21 years old with a valid ID.

Visit DetroitOpera.org for available dates and to purchase tickets.