Saturday, July 20
| 6:30PM
Festival Napa Valley Stage at Charles Krug
2800 Main Street | St. Helena
Experience thrilling onstage alchemy with soprano Brenda Rae and tenor Michele Angelini in Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio. The celebrated stars — Rae received the Metropolitan Opera's 2021 Beverly Sills Artist Award and Angelini was nominated Best Young Male Singer of the Year at the 2016 International Opera Awards — are joined by bass David Soar, Volti Chorale and five members of BODYTRAFFIC. Carlo Montanaro leads Festival Orchestra Napa in this comedic tale of forbidden love. Jean-Romain Vesperini directs.
Food will be available for purchase at Festival Napa Valley's Culinary Garden at Charles Krug from Foodshed and Nobunaga Blue Ribbon. Wine, non-alcoholic beverages, and caviar from Calvisius Caviar Co. will be available for purchase from Charles Krug.
General admission tickets are available for $35 per guest.
Performers
American soprano Brenda Rae melds high-flying vocal pyrotechnics with keen emotional commitment, creating memorable detailed characters and irresistibly engaging performances. Praised by Opera Magazine as “virtuosic and sensual, capable of both power and nuance,” Brenda continues to triumph on the world’s leading stages in an eclectic portfolio of principal roles.
Heralded by the Dallas Morning News as an artist who "displays a voice of silken loveliness as well as graceful agility," Michele Angelini made his European operatic debut at the world famous Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy as Conte di Libenskof in Il viaggio a Reims and thrills audiences on leading international stages in the operatic repertoire.
David Soar, bass, was born in Nottinghamshire and studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the National Opera Studio. In demand on the concert platform, David’s recent engagements have included those with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and Royal Flemish Philharmonic.
Praised for her “virtuoso and fiery performance, famous pyrotechnics and all,” (Rutland Herald) debut of Queen of the Night, soprano Krista Renée Pape is already sparking national interest among opera and concert producers.
Ryan Lustgarten is a tenor from the Seattle area currently based in Manhattan, New York. He is a versatile performer of classic and contemporary opera alike (with a particular love for newer works), musical theatre, choral music, and concert repertoire.
Victor Talmadge is pleased to return to the Festival where he last appeared reading Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. He has appeared throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and was awarded the 2024 Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Performance for his portrayal of Marius in Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca. Victor has worked extensively in New York and regional theaters and was on Broadway in the world premiere of David Mamet's November.
Founder of OperaWebinar and former Music Director of Teatr Wielki in Warsaw, Italian conductor Carlo Montanaro was discovered by Zubin Mehta. Since 2001, he has conducted in major venues including Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Fondazione Arena in Verona, and Deutsche Oper in Berlin.
Festival Orchestra Napa is an all-star ensemble that brings together principal players from major international orchestras and faculty from renowned colleges and conservatories, together with participants from the Frost School of Festival Napa Valley's Blackburn Music Academy. Centered around a core of Frost School of Music faculty, the orchestra also includes hand-picked musicians from ensembles such as the San Francisco Symphony, MET Opera Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, and Atlanta Symphony, among others.
Festival Napa Valley Volti Chorale is a 36-member chorus made up primarily of singers from Volti, one of the leading professional vocal ensembles in the United States. Under the direction of Robert Geary since its founding in 1979, Volti has a primary purpose of performing contemporary American music, and has commissioned and premiered over 100 new works.
BODYTRAFFIC is a nonprofit organization and internationally-renowned dance company from Los Angeles. Using the creative spirit of its Los Angeles home as a backdrop, BODYTRAFFIC curates performances and education programs that encourage audiences to explore what it means to be human through movement. Its goal is simple: get the world moving.
Jean-Romain Vesperini is a widely acclaimed artistic director and producer of operatic performances on stages from La Scala to Paris, from The Bolshoi to Monte Carlo. A trained baritone, he is deeply connected to music, with a unique awareness of what a score brings to dramaturgy.
Venue
