Justyna Giermola and Michael Padgett to Play the Enrico Caruso Room, 8/7

Soprano Justyna Giermola and tenor Michael Padgett will share center stage at the Enrico Caruso Room on Tuesday, August 7 at 8 PM as part of the venue's Tuesday Night Opera Series. They will be supported on keyboard by David Schaefer.

Dinner is available from 7 PM. There is a $20 cover charge and no food or drink minimum. The Enrico Caruso Room (www.enricocarusoroomnyc.com) is located in Grotta Azzurra Ristorante at 177 Mulberry Street in Little Italy. Reservations are suggested by calling Grotta Azzurra at 212-925-8775.

Soprano Justyna Giermola was described as "sparkling" and "pristine" when she was the featured soloist with the Glens Falls Symphony in Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. She made her European debut in the Polish National Opera House (Teatre Wielki) in Warsaw, Poland where she was featured in a critically acclaimed concert promoting the works of the national composer Stanislaw Moniuszko.

As a young artist with the New Jersey State Opera West Essex Guild Justyna performed the roles of Donna Elvira in an opera logue of Don Giovanni and the title role in Tosca. She reprised the role of Tosca in a production sponsored by Playhouse 22, New Jersey. Justyna is also a soloist with the Bravo Alliance and recently performed at the Bickford Theatre where she sang the role of Mimi in excerpts from La Boheme. She has also sung excerpts from the roles of Santuzzain Cavalleria Rusticanaand Neddain Pagliacci with the company.

Justyna is a featured soloist in the "Palac Radziejowice" yearly summer concert series in Warsaw, Poland held every August. With the Polish Theatre Institute of NYC she sang the title role in Czerwony Kapturek(Little Red Riding Hood) in Rzeszow, Poland and was featured as the Ingénue in a cabaret that the group performed at the Kosciuszko Foundation in NYC. She added the roles of Aldonza when she sang in the Princeton Festival's production of Man of La Mancha, as well as the role of Mercedes in Carmen with The Downtown Symphony in New York City. She has appeared with the Garden State Opera Company as La Badessa in Suor Angelica and in International Institute of Vocal Arts in Italy where she performed the role of La Suora Infermiera in Suor Angelica.

Justyna drew critical acclaim when she was featured in the roles of Rosinain IL Barbiere di Siviglia and the Mother (La Voix) in Les Contes d'Hoffman in an Operatic Scenes program at the Aspen Music Festival and School with the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra. Other roles include Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Dorabellain Così fan tutte, Hansel in Hansel & Gretel and Motherin Amahl and the Night Visitors by Menotti.

Equally at home on the concert stage, she has performed as a soloist in Mozart's Requiemand Missa Brevis, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass and Handel's Messiah. An active recitalist, some of her favorite performances have included Schumann's Frauenliebe und leben, Rossini's La regataveneziana and Mahler's Kindertotenlieder.

Justyna is the First Place winner of the 2007 Marcella Sembrich Competition Chicago, IL. She was also a finalist in the 2010 Opera at Florham Violetta Dupont Vocal Competition and a semi-finalist in the 7th International Stanislaw Moniuszko Vocal Competition. She recently made the transition from mezzo-soprano to soprano.

Tenor Michael Padgett, a product of a military family, spent his early years living in a myriad of different places with his traveling family, including Hawaii, Korea, Alabama and South Carolina. It wasn't until his college years in Florida that he finally was able to start living a "normal life." It was while he was living in Hawaii at age 16 that he -- at the urging of his mother -- stood on the seemingly gigantic stage of the Aloha Theatre on Hickam Air Force Base, and belted out a verse -- a capella -- with his eyes shut tight, from the only musical he knew – Phantom of the Opera. He was offered the lead and, as he recalls, " I was hooked.

Blessed with good looks and brilliant tenor voice, the tall actor/singer moved to New York City ten years ago armed with a BA degree in Theater from Florida State University and began studying acting and perfecting his vocal abilities. He earned his Actors Equity card through various acting jobs, which included understudying the talented Robert Cuccioli in Phantom of the Opera at the Westchester Broadway Theater. Since then he has accumulated numerous credits as a singer and actor in regional and New York and regional theatre.

His New York theatre credits include A Letter to Harvey Milk at the NYMF, Oliver! At The Gallery Players, Rapunzel, with D'Jamin Bartlett, at the NYC Fringe Festival and White Widow at Times Square Arts Center. His regional theatre credits include roles in Music of the Night (North Shoe Music Theater), Jekyll and Hyde (Forestburgh Playhouse), Phantom of the Opera, with Robert Cuccioli, (Westchester Broadway Theater), All I Ask of You (Surflight Theater), Ernest in Love (Barnstormers Theater), Show Boat, with Philip Boykin, (The Media Theater, The Fantasticks (Infinity Theatre Co., The Bay Theatre), Camelot (TriArts Sharon Playhouse), World Premiere of Road to Washington (Mountain Playhouse), The Gondoliers (Village Light Opera Group) and The Heiress (Brooklyn Heights Players).

 

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