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 Stefan
Szkafarowsky, Soloist
Bass Stefan Szkafarowsky is praised for the beautiful quality of his bass voice
as well as for his impeccable technique. He is highly sought after by opera
companies and orchestras in this country and abroad. Upcoming engagements include
Banquo in Macbeth with Florentine Opera, the title role in Falstaff with
New Jersey Opera Theater, the King in Aida with Opera Pacific, Benoit/Alcindoro
in La bohème with Fort Worth Opera, Bonze in Madame Butterfly at
Opéra de Québec, Commendatore in Don Giovanni with Opera
Pacific, Benoit/Alcindero in La bohème and Bartolo in Le
nozze di Figaro with Metro Lyric Opera. Mr. Szkafarowsky has appeared
with Washington Opera as Ferrando in Verdi's Il trovatore as well
as Crespel in The Tales of Hoffman. He has performed with many other
renowned opera companies such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, New York City
Opera, New Orleans Opera, Arizona Opera, San Diego Opera, Dallas Opera, and
Pittsburgh Opera. A native of New York, Mr. Szkafarowsky attended the American
Opera Center at Juilliard. He is a recipient of grants from the Sullivan Foundation
and the Tito Gobbi Award from the Rosa Ponselle Foundation.
 Thomas Conlin, Conductor
Thomas Conlin is a frequent guest conductor with symphony orchestras and opera
companies on five continents, most recently in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia,
Croatia, Egypt, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Poland, Russia,
Spain, Turkey and throughout the United States. Last season at the National
Opera of Croatia he led performances of La fille du Régiment and the
Eastern European premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.
Future appearances include an arena staging of Aida in four cities
in India and return engagements in Croatia, Germany, Poland and Italy. Next
summer he performs and records music by George Gershwin with the Dallas Symphony.
Maestro Conlin’s recording of George Crumb’s Star-Child,
on which he conducts the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus,
won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.
His music video, Symphonic Wonderworks, won the Gold Award
(1st Prize) at the 1992 Houston International Film Festival and was
nominated for a Telly Award. His CD of Crumb’s A Haunted
Landscape was nominated for an Indie Award as Best Orchestral
Recording of 2002, and his latest CD on the Bridge label, the Pulitzer
Prize-winning Echoes of Time and the River, was released
in 2004 to great acclaim. The first in a series of recordings of
works by the Brazilian composer Camargo Guarnieri was released on
the Naxos label last Year and will be followed by Vol. 2 in December.
Conlin has collaborated in concert with renowned vocalists Kathleen
Battle, Marilyn Horne, Robert Merrill, Roberta Peters, Giorgio Tozzi
and Frederica von Stade and with instrumentalists Emanuel Ax, Alicia
de Larrocha, James Galway, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern.
For Toledo Opera he has conducted recent productions of The Turn
of the Screw, La traviata, Sweeney Todd, Don Giovanni, La
bohème, The Crucible, The Barber of Seville, Faust,
Madama Butterfly, Pagliacci, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The
Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte and five
of TO’s Opera Galas: Three Tenors! – the Next Generation, A
Night in Old Vienna, The Greatest Wagner Concert Ever!,
Opera Goes to the Movies and From Broadway to the
Met. |
