Yeghishe Manucharyan, tenor (Count Almaviva)

Admired for his outstanding musical intelligence and for the purity, power, and flexibility of his voice, tenor Yeghishe Manucharyan is quickly becoming one of the most sought after young tenors singing today. During the 2004-2005 season Yeghishe will debut at New York City Opera as Nadir in Les Pêcheurs de Perles. Last season he sang the Duke in Rigoletto with Baltimore Opera and returned to the Orquesta Sinfonica del Estado de Mexico as Rodolfo in La bohème. In 2003 he debuted at the Caramoor International Music Festival in the role of Potoski in the world premiere of Donizetti’s opera Élizabeth and opened the Tulsa Opera season as Alfredo in La traviata. Recent performances have included the Dvorak Stabat Mater with the Masterworks Chorale in Boston and a debut as tenor soloist in an all-Beethoven program with the Baltimore symphony Orchestra.

Randall Reid-Smith, tenor (Fiorello)

Randall Reid Smith has enjoyed a thriving international career in opera and as a concert soloist and recitalist. For more than a decade he has performed leading roles in Europe at the German State theatres in Aachen, Augsburg, Braunschweig, Dessau, Dortmund, and Dresden. He has dazzled audiences in Amsterdam at the Concertgebouw, in Berlin at the Konzerthaus and the Philharmonie. Since his return to the United States, Reid-Smith has sung with the National Choral Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center, The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, The Huntington Symphony Orchestra and The Cathedral Cultural Series of Detroit with the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra. He has also been heard in Toledo Opera productions of Lucia di Lammermoor, Sweeney Todd and Amahl and the Night Visitors. Returning to Europe, Mr. Reid-Smith recently performed the roles of Narraboth in Salome and Steuermann in Die Fliegende Holländer in Germany, Switzerland and a ten-city tour of Japan.

Kay Walker Castaldo, Stage Director

A director of opera and theatre, Kay Walker Castaldo has over 100 productions to her credit. She is a regular guest director at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Opera and Indianapolis Opera, where she has been the inspiration for several "brilliantly-conceived" new productions. Ms. Castaldo has served as Director in Residence for the Opera Company of Philadelphia where she worked as both director and choreographer. She choreographed the Emmy Award winning televised productions of Un Ballo in Maschera, Pique Dame, and The Damnation of Faust. Ms. Castaldo's work has also been seen at New York City Opera, Florida Grand Opera, L'Opera de Montreal, Opera Delaware, Cincinnati Opera, Piccolo Opera at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Syracuse Opera, Saratoga Opera, Manitoba Opera, Calgary Opera, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and Pittsburgh's Opera Center Apprentice Program for Young American Artists.

Recent engagements have included Madama Butterfly and new productions of I Capuleti e I Montecchi and Werther with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Eugene Onegin and Il Trovatore with Indianapolis Opera, and a premiere of The Scarlet Letter with the Academy of Vocal Arts. She recently returned from a very successful debut with Lyric Opera of Kansas City, directing their production of Rigoletto and returned to the Opera Festival of New Jersey for Eugene Onegin. Upcoming engagements include Il Trovatore and The Pearl Fishers with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, L'Elisir d'amore with Indianapolis Opera, and Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera Omaha.

Productions she had directed include Madama Butterfly, La Boheme, Cavalleria and Pagliacci, Don Giovanni, and new productions of Norma and The Tales of Hoffmann for the Opera Company of Philadelphia, a new production of The Flying Dutchman for Opera Delaware, Buoso's Ghost, a sequel to Gianni Schicchi composed by Michael Ching, The Rake's Progress, La Traviata and Madama Butterfly for Indianapolis Opera, Elektra, L'elixir d'Amore, Cosi fan tutte, Eugene Onegin, Der Fliegende Hollander, La Boheme, and Madama Butterfly with Pittsburgh Opera, I Pagliacci with Cincinnati Opera, and The Rape of Lucretia with The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Ms. Castaldo earned her Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan and pursued post-graduate studies in Opera Direction at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Subsequently she took over as director of the Opera Department where she held tenure and produced and directed more than 30 scene workshops and 20 complete productions. These included the American premieres of Raimondi's Il Ventaglio and Bucchi's Laudes Evangelii. She has also directed four commissioned works for Greek National Television, and directs for the New Dramatists' Composer-Librettist developmental workshops in New York.

Ms. Castaldo, also a mezzo-soprano has been heard in Handel's Messiah at the Episcopal Church of the Advent with the Beethoven Choral Fantasy with the Delaware Valley Chorale in a duet recital with soprano Linda Kelley. The multi-talented director was also the album director and a featured soloist on a recently-released recording of Quasimodo, Prince of Fools composed by Michael Rapp and based on Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. As a choreographer, she has staged over 50 productions. She has performed in cabaret and musical theater in New York, Philadelphia, and the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. She has also taught acting at the prestigious Yale University for a number of years as well as the Wilma Theater and the Music Theater Project in Athens, Greece.

Thomas Conlin, Conductor

Thomas Conlin’s performances in America and abroad have generated great enthusiasm. The New York Times calls his leadership “brilliant” and Opera News “passionate,” also reporting that he “conducted the complex work [Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia] with a beat so clear that he must have brought joy and confidence to his singers and instrumentalists.”

Thomas Conlin conducts the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Chorus and soloists in George Crumb’s Star-Child on a CD which won the 2001 Grammy Award for “Best Contemporary Classical Composition.” Even before the Grammy finalists were selected, Conlin’s recording (Bridge 9095) had received highest recommendations from virtually every music publication in the world, including Billboard, Classic CD, Klassik Heute, Gramophone (“monumental”), Amazon.com (Editor’s Choice), and ClassicsToday.com: “This miraculous disc represents the fulfillment of a dream for all those music lovers who find themselves captivated by Crumb’s haunting, evocative and passionate musical landscapes.” His recording of Crumb’s A Haunted Landscape (Bridge 9113), also with the Warsaw Philharmonic, was nominated for an Indie Award in the category “Best Orchestral Recording.” The third CD in the series, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Echoes of Time and the River was released in October, and Crumb’s Variazioni will be recorded later in 2004.

Comparing Conlin’s recording of Star-Child with the New York Philharmonic’s, released at the same time but not nominated for a Grammy, Fanfare magazine said: “Both performances are stunning: Boulez tight and potent, Conlin warm and free. Despite the former’s credentials as one of the millennium’s musical greats, this emotional outpouring from Warsaw is irresistible.” According to American Record Guide, “The Warsaw Philharmonic [conducted by Conlin] makes a brave, exciting noise in the climaxes and is wonderfully restrained in the long fade-in and fade-out.” “The sustained intensity of Thomas Conlin’s performance is unlikely to be bettered,” stated the International Record Review, “quite eclipsing the tentative coordination of the New York [Philharmonic] performance.” For Naxos, Conlin is recording the six piano concertos by Brazilian composer Camargo Guarnieri with the Warsaw Philharmonic and pianist Max Barros.  

The Tucson Citizen has described Thomas Conlin as “the perfect conductor – lithe as a jaguar on the podium and graphic as a mime,” but offstage he is equally effective in the behind-the-scenes role of Artistic Director. Under his guidance the regional West Virginia Symphony Orchestra achieved a season subscription rate that is triple the national average, per capita, and became the only symphony in the United States regularly producing fully-staged opera. The symphony’s annual operating budget grew tenfold during his tenure and the WVSO gained national prominence for its artistic excellence. Among the many great instrumentalists who have performed with the WVSO under Conlin’s baton are Emanuel Ax, Alicia de Larrocha, Leon Fleisher, James Galway, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern.

Reviewing the WVSO’s 50th Anniversary concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Musical America referred to Conlin’s “masterful direction.” Conlin and the WVSO won a Gold Award (1st Prize) at the 1992 Houston International Film Festival for their music video Symphonic Wonderworks, which was also a finalist in the Entertainment Category of the 1992 Telly Awards. Owing in large part to Conlin’s vision and energy, the WVSO opened the 2003-2004 season in its new home, the $135 million Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, in Charleston. In recognition of his outstanding leadership, the Symphony has conferred upon him the lifetime title Conductor Laureate.                

Thomas Conlin is a frequent guest conductor with opera companies, ballet companies and symphony orchestras on  five continents,  while serving as  Principal Conductor of  Toledo Opera. Recent seasons have included performances in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Turkey and throughout the United States. He founded the Snowshoe Music Festival in the Appalachian mountains and frequently conducts at music festivals in Europe, Japan and America. His repertoire includes compositions of all styles and periods, with an emphasis on music of our time. Conlin has presented numerous world and national premieres of works by American composers.

Maestro Conlin has collaborated with many of the world’s greatest singers, including Kathleen Battle, Maureen Forrester, Marilyn Horne, Cornell MacNeil, Robert Merrill, Sherrill Milnes, Roberta Peters, Giorgio Tozzi and Frederica von Stade. He has served as vocal coach for many artists currently on the rosters of San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera and other major companies. He is a distinguished teacher of the art of conducting, having served in that capacity for the American Symphony Orchestra League, Queens College of the City University of New York, the Conductors’ Institute at the University of South Carolina and elsewhere. Articles by or about Thomas Conlin have appeared in numerous international publications, and he has lectured widely on opera and other musical subjects.                        

While a student at Peabody Conservatory of Music (Johns Hopkins University), Conlin made operatic history with the Chamber Opera Society of Baltimore through his innovative use of projected English translations (Supertitles). As the society’s Artistic Director, he prepared and presented the American premiere – and first staged performance in modern times – of Mozart’s early masterpiece, Lucio Silla. His performing edition has been heard at San Francisco Opera and New York’s Mostly Mozart festival. The conservatory awarded him the Bach-Horstmeier Prize for performance of works by J.S. Bach and the Zaidee Thomas Prize in  composition. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Charleston (Doctor of Music) and West Virginia Wesleyan College (Doctor of Humane Letters).

His principal teachers of conducting are Leonard Bernstein, Sir Adrian Boult, Boris Goldovsky, Seiji Ozawa, Erich Leinsdorf and Richard Lert. At the invitation of Herbert von Karajan, Mr. Conlin assisted with the Metropolitan Opera production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. At the Met he also assisted Erich Leinsdorf and Karl Böhm. He studied piano under Walter Hautzig, organ under Adolph Torofsky, violin under Paul Turchowitz, bassoon under Friedrich Pfeiffer and composition under Ernst Krenek, Benjamin Lees, Lester Trimble and Sandor Veress.

Thomas Conlin comes from a musical family. His grandfather was a violin virtuoso and his grandmother an opera singer. His father’s ancestry has been traced back to English madrigalist William Byrd. Conlin perfected his craft conducting opera, while his musicianship developed through intensive study of composition and the piano, on which he plays jazz as well as the classics. His compositions include symphonic works, soundtracks for several movies and television documentaries, songs, chamber music and musical theater.

“A rare triumph and a remarkable musical experience,” (Baltimore News-American) typifies critical reaction to Conlin’s performances. According to The Providence Journal, “the audience was swept away by the excitement” and in Dublin The Irish Times reported that “the long ovation was richly deserved.” The Norwegian Rogaland Avis summed up Thomas Conlin’s guest conducting appearance as “an evening we will remember as one of the grandest.”