Opera Orlando to Launch 2017-18 Season with Puccini's LA BOHEME

Since its debut in 1896, Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème has been one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. Its combination of infectious melody, dynamic orchestration, and real-life comedy and tragedy make for compelling entertainment for all. La Bohème is an ideal opera for those new to the art form while never failing to engage opera fans-regardless of how many times they have seen it.

Opera Orlando has chosen Bohème to open their 2017-2018 main-stage season-Love Lost and Found-on November 15, 17, and 18 at 7:30 p.m. and November 19 at 2 p.m. in the Alexis and Jim Pugh Theater at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 445 S. Magnolia Ave., Orlando, Florida. Season and individual tickets are currently on sale through the Dr. Phillips Center box office. The opera will be sung in Italian with English supertitles.

In this performance of La Bohème, Paris is the setting of the opera, but, instead of 1830, the colorful ensemble of struggling artists will be transported to the Roaring Twenties. "Our Bohème is a reflection on past memories of youthful aspiration and painful life lessons," explained Grant Preisser, Opera Orlando's newly named production manager, who will serve as scenic designer for the opera. "As such, the world inhabited by the characters is an abstract attic of discarded and forgotten pieces of memories from events that happened in the late 1920s."

Preisser's vision requires that the attic include an oversized picture frame from which the various vignettes of the piece emerge and fade, giving the sense of the passing of time. "We'll underline the central emotion of each scene to connect with how memory works. Our goal is to give an enhanced fluidity to the piece and to build to its tearful conclusion."

Bohème's story centers around the chance meeting and romance between a struggling author, Rodolfo, and a frail seamstress, Mimi. Soprano Cecilia Violetta Lopez will make her Opera Orlando debut as Mimi. Lopez has been featured at the Metropolitan Opera and recently was named one of opera's "25 rising stars" by Opera News. Orlando audiences heard her last year as part of the One Voice Orlando: Celebration in Song benefit concert, coordinated by Opera Orlando in response to the June 12, 2016 tragedy.

Called "an outstanding tenor" by Opera News and "startlingly gifted" by San Francisco Classical Voice, Ben Gulley as Rodolfo is matched with Lopez for this production. He, too, will be making his company debut. Soprano Bridgette Gan has been a stalwart of Opera Orlando in its two-plus years of existence. She was last seen as Norina in November 2016's Don Pasquale. She will perform the role of Musetta, the flirtatious lover of Marcello. Baritone Gabriel Preisser, Opera Orlando's executive and artistic director, will bring this struggling painter to life. Preisser most recently performed the title role in the company's March 2017 presentation of Don Giovanni.

Rounding out the quartet of bohemian men are bass-baritone Nathan Stark as Colline and baritone brian james Myer as Schaunard. Stark and Myer will be familiar to some. The two perform with Gabriel Preisser as the Three Baritones, and this vocal ensemble was featured in the 2016 edition of Opera Orlando's Opera on Park. As tradition dictates, the comedic roles of landlord Benoît and the wealthy Alcindoro are performed by one performer. In this production of Bohème, regional favorite and University of Central Florida opera director and baritone Thomas Potter will be featured.

A strong and characterful chorus is an essential ingredient for any successful production of La Bohème. Preparing Opera Orlando's professional chorus will be Deniz Uz, a professional pianist who also will be the accompanist at the many scheduled opera rehearsals. Opera Orlando's assistant education director, Sarah Purser, will prepare members of the Opera Orlando Youth Company to perform as Bohème's children's chorus.

Opera Orlando's artistic partner, the Orlando Philharmonic, once again will be in the orchestra "pit" of the Pugh Theater. Singers will be led by Uruguayan Andrés Cladera, who is the associate conductor for Opera Colorado and who recently had his debut with the Cincinnati Opera and Nashville Opera. With this production of La Bohème, Cladera will be making his Florida debut.

"I'm delighted with the roster of artists that Gabriel Preisser has assembled for this production," stated Robert Neu, stage director for La Bohème. Neu received critical praise for his Opera Orlando debut this past March for which he updated Mozart's Don Giovanni to a modern-day college campus.

"Paris in the Roaring Twenties is the perfect setting for Bohème," Neu said. "This interval between the world wars was an era of great exuberance, style, and creativity. We can't go back to that time, but we can bring it to you in a production that will be as full of life and as provocative as was this astonishing period."

Kim Welborn, who worked with Opera Orlando for last year's Don Pasquale and who is a specialist in historic clothing, will serve as costumer designer. Ron Wolek, recently named the company's director of hair and makeup, is bringing his award-winning creativity to the production, and Jon Whiteley, the preeminent lighting designer in Central Florida, will act in this capacity for La Bohème.

"I never ever get tired of Bohème, and I have yet to see a performance where I wasn't in tears at the end," said Neu. "This compact story is told with such beauty, grace, and precision, and there isn't one note or moment too many. It is a perfect piece."

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