Opera Bites
La Rondine: Remix
Puccini's
Puccini’s Opera — Reimagined
May 13 - 21, 2017
The Central Square Theater in Cambridge
People Rave
"Intimate and compelling"
"Stage Director Patricia Weinmann had the characters moving about beautifully."
"a gripping cast of performers"
The Theatre Times
La Rondine Distilled to Its Core
Puccini's poignantly romantic opera explores the ephemeral quality of love and the illusion and reality of desire. Set in the elegant and lively 1950's of Paris, this 90-minute production allows for nuanced portrayals of the characters, performed in a space where you are never more than a few rows from the performers.
Performed in Italian with English supertitles and accompanied by:
Brendon Shapiro, piano, &
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Opera Talk Italy presents a
Pre-show Opera Talk
at Tavern in the Square
12 pm, Sunday May 21
Enjoy a delicious brunch while learning more about the opera and its composer.
Only 20 seats available
The Experience
La Rondine: Remix
Music by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Giuseppe Adami
Concept by Patricia-Maria Weinmann
Arranged by Mathieu D'Ordine
Cast
MAGDA: Jessica Jacobs
LISETTE: Jennifer Caraluzzi
BIANCA: Rhaea D'Aliesio
YVETTE: Carley DeFranco
SUZY: Susannah Thornton
PRUNIER: Joshua Rotz
RUGGERO: Fran Rogers
RAMBALDO: Samuel Bowen
Accompanied by:
Brendon Shapiro, piano
& the Glenside Quartet
Creative Team
Music Director
Brendon Shapiro
Stage Director
Patricia-Maria Weinmann
Scenic Designer
Andrea Nice
Costume Designer
Amelia Fitch
Lighting Designer
Brandi Pick
Cast & Creative Team
Visit "our people" for full biographies
Cast
Creative Team
About Our Guest Artists
Brandi Pick
Brandi Pick is a Boston based lighting designer. She is a current MFA Lighting Design student at Boston University and received her BFA in Theatre Design and Production at East Carolina University. She is the founder and artistic director of Furnace Fringe Festival, located in Boston. Recent Credits include Tiger at The Gates (Boston University), Of Blood and Dirt (Boston University), Hydrogen Jukebox (Boston University), Fatihless (Boston Playwrights Theatre), Have You Been There? (Williamstown Theatre Festival), and Machinal (Messick Theatre Arts Center).

Samuel Bowen
Baritone, Samuel Bowen recognized for his dramatic interpretations and intelligent musicianship, has performed with such companies as Odyssey Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Opera Collaborative, Lowell House Opera, and Connecticut Lyric Opera. Exciting roles include Don Giovanni, Dandini, Editor Webb, and Herr Von Faninal. Samuel holds degrees from North Carolina School of the Arts and New England Conservatory.

Ingrid Oslund
Ingrid Oslund, is a playwright, director, choreographer and teaching artist in the Boston area. She served as Assistant Director for Boston Opera's Collaborative's Faust et Marguerite.
Her work has also been featured by a number of Boston Area companies such as Newburyport Actors Studio (Postpartum Nativity), Emstage (Richard the III), Suffolk University (Mountain Air, Hum's Girls, 4:48 Psychosis), Hampshire Shakespeare Company (A Midsummer Night's Dream) and Boston Community Collaborative (The Olympus Complex, East High Tales, A Night of Classical Anarchy).
Ms. Oslund strives to create theater that is innovative, immersive and cerebral. She holds a BA in Theater with a focus in Directing and Playwriting from Suffolk University and an MA in Applied Theater from Emerson College. Her upcoming productions include Women Writer's Suicide Club and Alice in Wonderland at Boston Community Collaborative.

Amelia Fitch: Costume Designer
Amelia Fitch is a Boston based costumer. When she is not acting as wardrobe manager for the Reagle Music Theatre she is designing costumes for theatre and film. Her most recent credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream at Endicott College and Time Stands Still at New Century Theatre. Amelia worked with the Boston Opera Collaborative on Letters of Werther and she is very excited to be designing for them once again!

Joshuah Rotz: Prunier
Tenor Joshuah Rotz is a native of New Hampshire. He received his bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of New Hampshire with a focus in voice and piano. He attended Boston University in the fall of 2014 to received his graduate degree in vocal performance where he studied under professor Sharon Daniels.
Josh has performed roles in several productions with the Boston University Opera Institute including Han’s Sachs Trainer in David T. Little’s contemporary opera Vinkensport, Jimmy in John Musto’s Later the Same Evening, and Flute in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Also with the Boston University Opera Institute he has been seen in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Massenet’s Cendrillon, and several other projects and productions. Josh also enjoys performing as a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus.
This past summer he performed as a vocal apprentice with the Nahant Music Festival where he sang as part of the vocal trio in Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, as well as Bach Cantatas with members of the Emmanuel Music orchestra. He is thrilled to be making his debut with Boston Opera Collaborative as Prunier in the “remix” version of Puccini’s La Rondine!

Brendon Shapiro: Music Director
Brendon Shapiro is a versatile pianist, vocal coach and conductor with a specialty in opera and a passion for contemporary music. He has worked for numerous companies including Boston Lyric Opera, Opera NEO, Boston Opera Collaborative, MetroWest Opera, Opera Fayetteville, North End Music and Performing Arts Center, Opera on Tap and Juventas New Music Ensemble.
Brendon is currently serving as a staff pianist at Boston University, the organist for First Parish in Arlington, MA and the assistant music director for the Boston Saengerfest Men's Chorus. He has also been on faculty as a vocal coach at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. As a freelance pianist, Brendon is frequently sought out for recitals, competitions, concerts, auditions, recording sessions and coachings.
Brendon has enjoyed working outside of the classical music scene as well. He served as musical director for the first four seasons of the newly renovated Woodstock Playhouse in Woodstock, NY. In a performance praised by the Boston Globe, he appeared in a production of Master Class with the New Repertory Theatre portraying Manny, the onstage pianist. In addition, he has performed as a featured soloist with Video Games Live with whom he also recorded a solo piano album, Through Time and Space, which became a #1 bestseller on Amazon.com.
Brendon holds a Master of Music degree in Collaborative Piano Performance from Boston University and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Ithaca College School of Music where he won the Mary Hayes North Piano Competition Award.

Andy Nice: Scenic Designer
Andy Nice holds an M.F.A in Scenic Design from Boston University's School of Theatre, Boston, MA. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Notable designs: Cortland Repertory Theatre's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE WEST END HORROR, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (Astoria Performing Arts Center), the Boston University Opera Institute's DON GIOVANNI built by the Huntington Theatre Company, the Algonquin Arts Theatre's summer production of GODSPELL, Boston Center for American Performance's THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN IN THE MOON MARIGOLDS and THE IMAGINARY INVALID at the Virginia Wimberly Theater in Boston's South End. Andy is resident scenic designer at Boston Opera Collaborative.
While Andy loves designing for all forms of performing arts, she is particularly interested in opera and has worked with the Glimmerglass Festival and Opera Saratoga, as well as assisted scenic designers Alexander Dodge, Julian Crouch, Louisa Pregerson Thompson, and Beowulf Boritt. Andy also has a background in drawing and painting and is an avid equestrian. She grew up overseas in a diplomatic family and has lived in Turkey, Uruguay, Croatia, El Salvador, Italy and Austria.
Andy is currently a creative designer at Adirondack Studios, a scenic and themed entertainment design and production company based in upstate New York and previously worked as an adjunct professor of theatre at CUNY -York College.