Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Erin Merceruio at erin.merceruio@bostonoperacollaborative.org

Boston Opera Collaborative presents Verdi's Falstaff July 15-17 and 22-24.

July 5, 2011- Boston, Massachusetts

Boston Opera Collaborative (BOC) presents the final show in their fifth anniversary season, Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi, July 15-17, 22-24 at Somerville Theatre in Davis Square, Somerville, MA. Friday/ Saturday performances begin at 8 pm, Sunday performances begin at 3 pm. Heidi Lauren Duke directs. Mischa Santora conducts. Post-performance talkback with directors Heidi Lauren Duke and Mischa Santora July 17. Pre-performance lecture, "Verdi and Comedy", with Dr. Helen Greenwald at 2pm on Sunday, July 24. Performed in Italian with English supertitles. Tickets are $25 for general admission and $15 for students and seniors(65+). Tickets are available at Somerville Theatre box office between 4-8 p.m. or visit www.bostonoperacollaborative.org.

In light of the glorious decadence and irrepressible excess of this ensemble show, stage director Heidi Lauren Duke and music director Mischa Santora have updated the piece to 1973 Italian-America; an ode to mafia dons, boogie nights, and the dusk of Aquarius! Scheming women, mis-matched lovers, and drunken debauchery will abound! Please join BOC at Somerville Theatre for a performance you will not soon forget. 

Boston Opera Collaborative is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to providing opportunities for emerging artists — including singers, directors, conductors, and theater technicians — to bridge the gap between higher education and a career in the arts. Members of Boston Opera Collaborative share in the management of the organization, developing their own skills as artists and administrators through productions and professional development.

Stage Director, Heidi Lauren Duke
www.heidilaurenduke.com
Director/Choreographer Heidi Lauren Duke has staged work in eight states and four countries, working with singers from all over the world. Proud to be making both her Boston and BOC debut, Ms. Duke recently premiered her new opera-theatre piece, Lorca en Nueva York, for a full house in Barcelona, Spain, and revived her critically-acclaimed production of Hansel & Gretel in Times Square, NYC, this past December. At Opera Shorts @ Carnegie Hall, she was chosen to stage premieres of music by Tania Leon and Patrick Soluri, and this year also saw her return to Michigan Opera Theatre as Assistant Director on Bernard Uzan's Rigoletto. This past season at Palm Beach Opera, Ms. Duke directed Luisa Fernanda and served as AD to famed Italian director Massimo Gasparon on Tosca, with whom she will serve in the same role for Lucia di Lammermoor in 2012. Heidi Lauren served four seasons as Artistic Associate at Les Azuriales Opera Festival, where she helped develop the Ozone Program for Young Artists, and directed the annual Concert des Solistes. In New York, her recent productions of The Rape of Lucretia and l'enfant et les sortileges for Project Opera of Manhattan were met with overwhelming success. Heidi Lauren has also collaborated on new opera and theatre projects with Mark Morris Dance Group, Target Margin Theatre, Sing for Hope, Packawallop Productions, the Hourglass Group, One World Symphony, American Opera Projects, and helped launch Maestro Lorin Maazel's first opera production on his estate in Castleton, Virginia, which also performed at the Kennedy Center. Ms. Duke trained as a director, singer, and actor at University of Cincinnati and Vanderbilt University, where she was awarded the Martin Williams Award and the Theodore Presser Award. Apprenticeships include the Merola Program at San Francisco Opera, Wolf Trap Opera Company, and Opera North. She is a proud member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab.

Music Director, Mischa Santora
Mischa Santora, has guest conducted many of the leading orchestras in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia. This July, he will make his debut with the Israel Chamber Orchestra. In North America Mr. Santora has appeared with the Philadelphia, Minnesota and Louisville Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Houston, National, New Jersey, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Des Moines, Hartford, Princeton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Eugene Symphonies. In Europe he has led the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Basel and Lucerne Symphony Orchestras, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Matáv Symphony, the Miskolc Symphony, the Hungarian National Symphony Orchestra's Chorus, and the Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt in Germany. In the Pacific Rim he was invited by the West Australian Opera Company to conduct a production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. As Music Director of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Mr. Santora has established an impressive track record of creative programming which includes operatic and choral productions as well as innovative collaborations. Highlights include his critically acclaimed production of Così fan tutte for the 2006 CCO Mozart Festival, collaboration with Madcap Puppets in de Falla's Master Peter's Puppet Show, and Mr. Santora's staging of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Mozart's Don Giovanni. In addition, he has worked with some of the finest young Orchestras around the world, including the New England Conservatory Philharmonia, the Australian Youth Orchestra and the Jeunesses Musicales Orchestra Switzerland. Under Mr. Santora's artistic supervision of the New York Youth Symphony's award winning First Music program, the Orchestra commissioned more than fifteen new works during his tenure. Mr. Santora has collaborated with many of the world's leading solo artists including Gil Shaham, James Galway, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and many others. As the recipient of the 1998 Aspen Conducting Prize, Mr. Santora was invited by David Zinman to serve as the Assistant Conductor of the Aspen Music Festival for three consecutive seasons (1999 –2002). He has participated in master classes with Daniel Barenboim, Kurt Masur, David Zinman, Neeme Järvi and Otto-Werner Mueller.