No Bad Deed Goes Unpunished

Bruno Taddia, born in Pavia, Italy, began his musical training with the violin. After his stage debut at the prestigious Rossini Opera Festival in Il viaggio a Reims (Don Alvaro) he began to collaborate with many of the top musical institutions in the world. Recently, he starred in Iphigénie en Tauride, Winterreise, The Daughter of the Regiment, L’Elisir d’amore, Don Pasquale, and made a role debut in Falstaff. He also sang Gianni Schicchi at the Puccini Festival in 2020; The Barber of Seville (Figaro) at Grand Theatre de Geneve; Italiana in Algeri (Taddeo) and Der Vampyr (Lord Ruthven) at Hungarian State Opera Budapest; The Barber of Seville (Figaro) and La bohème (Marcello) at Teatro La Fenice di Venezia; Le gare generose (Bastiano) at the Giovanni Paisiello Festival; and debuted the title role in Don Pasquale at Opera Montpellier in 2019. He also appeared in the new recording of Vivaldi edition’s Tamerlano as Bajazet, under the baton of Ottavio Dantone. His interpretations combine a wide range of characters in the baroque, classical, and contemporary operatic repertoire as well as in the symphonic and vocal chamber music.

Australian-American bass Joshua Bloom is frequently praised for his “resplendent bass” and “huge vocal capacity” alongside an “outstanding dramatic precision and power” (New York Times, Independent) across a remarkable variety of repertoire from Mozart, Wagner, and Strauss, to world premiere works by Gerald Barry and Richard Ayres. He has sung principal roles with Oper Köln, English National Opera, Garsington Opera, the Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, LA Opera, Opera Australia, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Badisches Staatstheater, Irish National Opera, and New Israeli Opera, among others. In the 2022-23 Season, Bloom will make multiple house debuts in Semele (Cadmus) for Opera de Lille, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bottom) for Opéra de Rouen Normandie, and Nixon in China (Kissinger) for Opéra national de Paris. On the concert platform, he will perform Handel’s Messiah with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and The Death of Klinghoffer (Rambo) at The Concertgebouw. Highlights from past seasons include Die Vögel (Ratefreund) and Rusalka (Vodnik) for Opera Köln, Aida (Ramfis and the King) for New Israeli Opera, and Don Giovanni (Leporello) for Welsh National Opera.

Quoted as having “a lovely demeanor and irresistible creamy timbre” by Opera News, American soprano Danielle Pastin is gaining accolades from opera houses around the country.  In the 2021-22 Season, Pastin returned to Pittsburgh Opera in Carmen (Micaëla) and made her house and role debut in Gianni Schicchi (Nella) with Tulsa Opera. On the concert stage, she joined the Glacier Symphony for their Mozart and Mahler Spring Festival, with repertoire including Mozart’s Requiem and Mahler’s Liebst du um Schönheit. This season, she will also return to her role in Pagliacci (Nedda). She made her mainstage Metropolitan Opera debut in The Queen of Spades (Masha/Chloë, cover) and has since been invited back to perform in Pagliacci (Nedda), a new production of Massenet’s Manon (Javotte), Carmen (Frasquita), a role she also performed in her debut with the Dallas Opera, and Francesca da Rimini (Samaritana, cover).

American soprano Ellie Dehn has been praised by critics as “a revelation” (Chicago Sun-Times), acclaimed for her “great stage presence and a voice combining metallic clarity and sensual richness” (Wall Street Journal). In the 2022-2023 Season, Ms. Dehn will perform Messiah with the New Jersey Symphony, Elijah with the Florida Orchestra, and return to the Metropolitan Opera in Falstaff (Alice Ford, cover). In the 2021-2022 Season, she made her debut at Seiji Ozawa Music Academy in Die Fledermaus (Rosalinde) and returned to the Metropolitan Opera in La bohème (Musetta, cover) and Le nozze di Figaro (Countess). On the concert stage, she sang Britten’s Spring Symphony with the Grant Park Music Festival. Pandemic highlights included Albert Herring (Lady Billows) in a filmed version with Minnesota Opera.

Known for his “voluptuous elegant tone,” and a “robust tenor with baritonal heft,” American lyric tenor Joshua Dennis is a star on the rise. Mr. Dennis, a champion of new works, had the honor of originating two roles: Minnesota Opera’s world premiere production of The Fix (“Shoeless” Joe Jackson) and Poul Ruders’ The Thirteenth Child (Prince Frederic) with the Santa Fe Opera. Additionally, he was heard in Huang Rou’s Paradise Interrupted at the MGM Grand in Macau and was the host of Santa Fe Opera’s virtual event Songs from the Santa Fe Opera. Additionally, he performed in the world premiere of Nadia Boulanger’s La ville morte (Leonard) with Catapult Opera.  In the 2022-23 Season, he performed in Opera Colorado’s Rigoletto (Duke of Mantua) and as the tenor soloist in Handel’s Messiah with both the Santa Fe Symphony and Pacific Symphony.

Kevin Thompson, acclaimed by the New York Times as a “stentorian bass”, and he “possesses a voice with extraordinary range, depth, color combined with a commanding stage presence…a mountain of a voice, with resonance from the Escorial of Philip II to the throne of Boris Godunov, and the majestic court of Sarastro…” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

The 2022-23 Season engagements include house debuts with Washington National Opera in Elektra (Der Pfleger des Orest and Ein Alter Diener) and in Aida (Il Re) with Fort Worth Opera. Mr. Thompson will also return to Opera Omaha for an Opera Outdoors concert, where he will perform scenes from Boito’s Mefistofele (Mefistofele), and to Roanoke Opera for their Opera Gems Gala Concert, and with Odyssey Opera for Rachmaninoff’s Troika: Aleko (Old Gypsy), The Miserly Knight (Ivan), and Francesca di Rimini (The Ghost of Virgil). Future engagements include house debuts with Opera Colorado and Dallas Opera.

Appointed in 2015 as Opera Colorado’s first-ever music director, Ari Pelto’s “breathtaking wizardry in the pit” (The Denver Post) has been widely celebrated, with Pelto in demand at opera houses and concert halls throughout the United States. At the age of 24, Pelto was appointed Assistant Conductor at the Spoleto Festival and he has since gone on to conduct worldwide. International engagements include performances with Bochumer Philharmoniker and opera productions at New National Theatre of Tokyo and the Teatro Nacional Sucre in Quito, Ecuador. In 2004 he made his highly-praised debut with New York City Opera, conducting La Traviata, after which he became a regular, returning for productions of Madama Butterfly, La bohème, and Carmen. Recent successes include Eugene Onegin at Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Lucia di Lammermoor at Virginia Opera, and La Voix Humaine at Chicago Opera Theater.

Iranian pianist and conductor, Sahar Nouri, returns to Opera Colorado for a sixth season, serving as the company’s chorus master, assistant conductor, and pianist coach. Ms. Nouri is the newly appointed music director of the Lamont Opera Theatre at Denver University. While being based in Denver, she continues to serve as guest coach/faculty with various organizations including San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Opera North Carolina, Opera Steamboat and more.

Previously, Ms. Nouri has been a member of the music staff at Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Utah Opera, Aspen Opera Center, Opera Parallèle, and Opera in the Heights. Her repertoire includes numerous classic operas as well as many world premieres such as: Prince of Players (Carlisle Floyd), O Columbia! (Gregory Spears), Steal a Pencil for Me (Gerald Cohen), and Today It Rains (Laura Kaminsky). A multi-lingual, Nouri has done studies in the Czech Republic, Italy, and Austria, and is frequently in demand as a language coach and recitalist.

David Lefkowich is an accomplished stage director and fight choreographer who has enjoyed success with different companies including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatre alla Scala, San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Minnesota Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera. Recent directing engagements include a site-specific Acis and Galatea for Out of the Box Opera, an immersive Pagliacci at Boston Lyric Opera, a site-specific Tosca for Austin Opera, Tosca and La Cenerentola at Annapolis Opera, and Pagliacci at Opera Colorado. Also, Don Giovanni at L’Opéra de Montréal, Don Giovanni, Idomeneo, Le Nozze di Figaro and L’Histoire du Soldat at the Ravinia Music Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Maestro James Conlon. David made his European debut directing Le Portrait de Manon at the Gran Teatre Liceu in Barcelona and followed with The Rake’s Progress at La Monnaie in Brussels. David is a guest artist and performs master classes at several young artist programs and universities including the San Francisco Opera Center Adler Fellowship Program, Atelier Lyrique at L’Opéra de Montréal, Maryland Opera Studio and Ithaca College. David is a graduate from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Science in Theatre and has a certificate from École Jacques-Lecoq in Paris, France. David served as the Artistic Director of the Mill City Summer Opera in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he directed the annual summer offerings. Currently, he is the Artistic Director of Out of the Box Opera in Minneapolis, a company dedicated to creating high-quality operatic experiences in site-specific locations, most notably with Diva Cage Match, an epic battle of voices, egos, and talent in a boxing gym.