Opera Bursts Forth, Larger than Life

The Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS Program brought a full cohort of fortythree rising young operatic talents to Aspen for a summer of artistic community and mentorship envisioned by co-artistic directors Renée Fleming and Patrick Summers. The ebullience of the company’s first production was a triumph of the co-artistic directors’ goal to offer young singers a well-rounded education in not only performance and vocal rigor, but also navigating the professional world of opera.

World-renowned Welsh baritone

Sir Bryn Terfel joined the students in the title role of Verdi’s Falstaff, and served as a mentor along with Fleming, Summers as conductor, and The Metropolitan Opera’s Paula Suozzi as director. Suozzi’s witty staging, which had Terfel picking Summers’s pocket and popping cans of local beer, delighted students and audience alike.

The young artists of AOTVA also performed Mozart’s Don Giovanni, starring Fleming Fellowship Artist and baritone Michael J. Hawk in the title role. The singers were guided by one of the leading Mozartians of our time, Dame Jane Glover, who also conducted on the stage, not on a podium but at the harpsichord, sometimes holding her baton in her teeth to play.