Press Release

THE LAST GREAT ROMANTIC

Toledo Opera’s Sixth Annual Gala Features Three Luminous Sopranos Performing Selections from the Operas of Richard Strauss

Three guest artist sopranos, accompanied by the Toledo Symphony, perform selections from operas of the ultimate Romantic composer, Richard Strauss, on Saturday, February 9, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. in the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle Theater.

As in past Galas, the 2008 Gala has a theme that is designed to appeal to regular opera goers and those who have never attended an opera. The musical experience is enhanced by Maestro Thomas Conlin’s informative, often amusing, narrative between selections. The Gala is an important part of the Toledo Opera season because it allows us to present gems from operas that are rarely performed or are very large in scale when fully produced.

About the Composer

The Romantic Period is like an unruly teenager. Music from this time is known for breaking the rules of composition and structure. Composers like Strauss explored the use of large ensembles, extreme emotion, and fantastic orchestration. In the same way that Bach marked both the pinnacle and the end of the Baroque Era, Richard Strauss was the last of the great Romantics. Like his contemporary Gustav Mahler, he both followed and greatly extended the type of musical expression founded by composers such as Richard Wagner, where highly charged music was performed by enormous orchestras. He was very much a celebrity at the peak of his career as both composer and conductor, which gave him the unique opportunity to record virtually all of his major orchestral works.

An evening of music from Strauss operas is particularly appropriate because all his life, Richard Strauss was enthralled by great operatic voices, especially soprano voices. Say what you will about his operas, they indisputably offer singers of all types and categories some of the most seductively rich roles in the repertory. Strauss’s music vibrates with color and literally smacks the listener with riotous force – it’s irrestible.

The Gala’s three soprano guest artists have been selected to showcase Strauss’ operatic music. They will perform arias and scenes from Ariadne auf Naxos, Salome, Elektra, Die aegyptische Helena and Der Rosenkavalier. The Toledo Symphony will also perform orchestral interludes from Der Rosenkavalier. 

About the Artists
Soprano Tonya Currier made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2000 as the featured soloist for the Durufle Requiem. She went on to sing with the Milwaukee, Augusta, Mansfield, Lake Forest and Greenville symphony orchestras. She has performed the role of Dorabella in Chicago Lyric Opera Center’s production of Cosi fan tutte, a role she has also performed with Opera Carolina, Piedmont Opera, Central City Opera and the Academy of Vocal Arts. Other recent performances include Angelina in La Cenerentola with Mississippi Opera and Florentine Opera, Rosina in The Barber of Seville with Connecticut Opera Theater, and the title role in Carmen with the South Carolina Opera Theater. She is a graduate of the New England Conservatory, and a Mid-Atlantic regional winner of the NATSSA Competition for Singers. Upcoming engagements include selections from Der Rosenkavalier with the Metro Chamber Orchestra, NYC and the Brahms Requiem with the Augusta Symphony.

Coloratura Soprano Rachele Gilmore is a young singer with a silvery timbre and dynamic stage presence. Rachele began the 2007 season making her Carnegie Hall debut singing Mozart’s Coronation Mass. She continued the season in Paris as a participant in Placido Domingo’s prestigious Operalia Competition where she was chosen as a Zarzuela winner, a Finalist in the Opera Division and sang in the final concert at Théâtre Châtelet under the baton of Maestro Domingo. In the latter part of the summer she returned to Italy for her second summer with Opera Ischia to sing the role of Suzanna in Le Nozze di Figaro and went on to sing Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Orlando Opera. In 2008 she will join Indianpolis Opera to sing Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffman.

This season mezzo-soprano Deanne Meek will reprise her acclaimed performed of Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream both in France and on tour in Athens. She returns to both Utah Opera for Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Opera North for Meg Page in Falstaff, as well as to the Teatro Real in Madrid as Kristina in The Makropulous Case. Among Ms. Meek’s other recent engagements is her return to the English National Opera for Ruggiero in Alcina, Dorabella in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte at Opéra National du Rhin and Rossweisse in Die Walküre at the Châtelet in Paris. A frequent presence on the stage of the New York City Opera, she has appeared as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel and Diana in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, and Harriet Mosher in the New York premiere of Tobias Picker’s Emmeline. An active recitalist, Ms. Meek has sung solo recitals in the United Kingdom, Paris, New York, Baltimore, Washington D.C., St. Louis and the Pacific Northwest.

The Gala sponsor is National City.

Single ticket prices for The Last Great Romantic begin at $20.00 and may be purchased online at toledoopera.org or by phone at 419-255-7464. Following the performance Toledo Opera will host an after-opera party at DIVA. Tickets are available beginning at $50.00.