The resident artist program at the Toledo Opera Association is a decorated and popular one that brings the best and brightest from all around the country.
After the season long program many stick around — like Brendan Boyle, who was a resident artist in the 2022-2023 season, and returned to sing the lead tenor role in Ragtime and will sing Mario Cavaradossi, the love interest of the titular character in Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca this month — and some do not.
But this year’s crop of four singers and one pianist, hailing from as diverse of places as the Bay Area, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, are sure to bring their best through the season’s two operas and beyond.
Brady DelVecchio
Tenor Brady DelVecchio is no stranger to the Valentine Theatre’s stage. The Pittsburgh native arrived in the area as the coronavirus was easing to sing in the Detroit Opera chorus.
“A couple of friends who were in the chorus [in Toledo] asked me to audition for their chorus. I did,” DelVecchio said. “I've sung several shows with the Toledo Opera and saw the resident artists from previous years. I saw the incredible work they were doing and how their careers had taken off afterward, and the ability to really perform and work with really world-class talent. ... I just was in awe and wanted that experience.”
DelVecchio has his chance. He and the other resident artists arrived after Labor Day and have already coalesced.
The group has sung in several Opera Outdoors performances, and members are rehearsing for Beauty and the Beast, the modified opera that the outreach program Opera on Wheels will roll out for area schools to give children in grades K-6 a taste of opera.
DelVecchio plays the prince, though, he laughed, he only gets three lines at the end. He will do much more this season when he performs Spoletta, the villain’s henchman in Tosca, and the “professor,” a sailor in South Pacific, and various other singing opportunities.
DelVecchio made his debut at Le Prince Charmant in Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon.
He says his goal is to make a living by singing.
“I've always been fascinated with kind of the athleticism that's involved in classical singing,” he said, “because all of our sound is produced without amplification outside of our bodies.”
The lyric tenor said his dream role is Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. “As we're moving into October, Halloween, [Don Giovanni] has that spookiness of a giant statue coming to life. ... Don Ottavio is a role that requires so much nuance.”
The others came to the TOA via the usual process: find an opening and apply to any program that sounds like an opportunity.
Robbie Raso
While baritone Robbie Raso said he is new to the city, he did sample Tony Packo’s when he auditioned here, he said. He didn’t credit the famous hot dogs as the reason he took the residency.
“[The TOA] had a lot of good seasons, and the shows that they did were great,” Raso said. “But when I got here, we just kind of hit it off from the beginning, and it was definitely the right thing to do.”
Raso said he is looking forward to singing Luther in South Pacific, a character that brings some humor to the musical set in World War II, and he is performing the combined role of Gaston and Belle’s father in Beauty and the Beast.
It took some time for Raso to warm to singing. He soon realized that if he wanted lead roles in musical theater, he would have to sing.
“I was somewhat shy at first. I had one singing line, and I didn't even want to do that,” he said. “By the time I was a senior in high school, I was singing some pieces from operas, some art songs, and then ... the main singing parts.”
He was drawn to classical singing after he saw his first Don Giovanni in his senior year in high school.
“I liked it so much, and the music was so beautiful,” Raso said of opera.
His first role was in a student-composed opera during his undergraduate days. “[The opera was] ID Please. Later that summer, we reprised it in an Opera Festival in London.”
Raso’s dream role is the same one that started his journey in opera — Don Giovanni.
“The style of singing, the way that it's able to express emotions is very unique,” Raso said. “The Commendatore scene — it's just one of the most sublime moments in all of opera.”
He said he wants to pursue an international opera career, adding that he plans to move to Europe.
Sarah Rachel Bacani
Sarah Rachel Bacani yearned to perform.
“I did my undergrad and a master's degree. That's like seven straight years of studying. And as much as I love that experience, I just feel so at home on stage, and I wanted to get to a point where I can do that as much as I possibly can,” Bacani said. “When Toledo gave me an offer. I was really, really just over the moon.”
In Beauty and the Beast, Bacani said she will perform two roles: Belle’s sister Adele, and the Spirit of the Rose. It requires many costume changes, she said, But that’s OK.
“I like it because it's an interesting spin on it, making the rose an actual character,” she said.
Singing is in her DNA, she said
“I'm Filipino, and so singing is very, very ... present in our culture. And so I grew up singing musical theater, pop, that kind of music,” she said.
But something didn’t feel quite right.
“I realized that as much as I love singing it, it wasn't the right fit. As much as I would like to, I can't belt. And so I started kind of dabbling in singing in a more classical style,” Bacani said.
It was when she attended a musical about opera that she tried to sing it.
“Even though I know that Phantom of the Opera is not an opera, that was the first time I tried singing in that style, and it actually felt really comfortable. It felt so much more natural to me,” Bacani said. “My world was forever changed.”
Bacani sang her first roles while a student at Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. While she began with Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zauberflote, she said her favorite role thus far is Juliette in Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, which she covered at the Central City Opera in Central City Opera in Central City, Colo.
“It's stunning. ... I loved the challenge of singing it,” she said.
Her professional debut in Central City was in the role of Mariola in Jake Heggie’s Two Remain. Other roles include Mozart’s Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, and scenes as Leila in Georges Bizet’s Les Pecheurs de Perles, Micaela in Carmen, and Fiordiligi in Cosi Fan Tutte, another Mozart opera.
The role of the Countess in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro is a dream role.
“Mozart is the first opera composer that I ever fell in love with,” Bacani said. “And so it's always been a dream of mine. And I just, I love the [Countess]. I love her music.”
Emily Cotten
Mozart is also a favorite of mezzo-soprano Emily Cotten. She started out singing soprano as an undergraduate. But she wasn’t comfortable at that register.
“I just never felt like I fit really in the soprano role, and I've settled into mezzo, and it just feels more like me, which I think is the most important thing,” Cotten said.
Becoming an opera singer was not in her plan when she was thinking about careers in high school.
“I had never been to an opera, been to a symphony concert at all when I was applying for college,” she said. “I didn't get into my number one school where I was going to be a history major or something.”
It was her high school music teacher who urged her to apply to the University of Michigan’s music school.
She was accepted, and it was at Michigan that she saw Dead Man Walking, another opera by Heggie.
“I was just like struck by the intensity and the beauty and the power of a human voice,” Cotten said. “I just love the human voice. I think it's really remarkable, and opera is the best venue to showcase the power of the human voice.”
In her first role, she discovered that power.
“I was Miss Copeland in William Bolcom's Dinner at Eight. It was like a three-line secretary role, but I'd never [had] a solo in an opera before, and so, my brain exploded.”
Her first major role, she said, was Despina in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte.
“She's probably the smartest character on stage at any given moment,” Cotten said.
The two roles she’s eager to sing are Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro and Rosina, another strong feminine role, in Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
She began to hear about the Toledo Opera Association.
“It just seemed like a very warm, trustworthy, dependable company,” she said. “I knew Kevin and Jim had a reputation for being really invested in the well-being and artistic growth of their young artists.”
Cotten said, though, she isn’t quite sure what her future holds.
“I’ve been cultivating a dual career since graduating from the University of Michigan,” she said. “I have worked in administration at the Boston Symphony, in the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. I worked as a publicist at the BSO, and I was the artistic coordinator for the Louisiana Phil, so I've been doing arts admin while I've been singing.”
Her time spent in the two sides in the performing arts has been eye-opening.
“It's helped me realize that I think everyone who works at an arts organization wants their artists to succeed and is really invested in the well-being of their artists,” she said. “And I think singing has helped my administration side because I have a lot of empathy for the musicians I work with.
“Being a musician, you have to be disciplined and manage your time well and manage a lot of tasks.”
But she is sure that whatever role she has, she must have music in her life.
Alex Rotundo
Alex Rotundo doesn’t appear on stage or sing, but his role is key to the performers and their performances.
Rotundo said his grandfather was not only an engineer but a “fantastic concert pianist,” so it was no small wonder that Rotundo started piano lessons at age 5.
But he started making his own music at age 6.
“i would like to write on staff paper, and sometimes even my room walls. One of my parents discovered me doing that,” Rotundo said.
Rotundo gives credit to David Conte, a composer of more than 150 works, including seven operas, works for chorus, solo voice, orchestra, band, and chamber music, and an alumnus of Bowling Green State University, for fueling his passion for vocal music.
“However, even though both my bachelor's and master's degrees are in composition, I moonlight a lot as a collaborative pianist,” Rotundo said, adding that he also works as a choir pianist.
Working with singers and studying with musicians who often were commissioned to compose vocal music and operas just added fuel for composing vocal music himself.
He said many students would ask him to collaborate with them on competition projects and recording sessions, and he began to ask himself, “what do I do next?”
He wanted to be a composer. “But of course, that feels very nebulous, like the stereotypical route is that you end up getting a doctorate in composition and then get a teaching position,” he said.
He applied for various opportunities, including administrative positions and composer residencies.
In the end, he said, he took a leap of faith.
“I took a leap of faith in applying to piano compositions, and Toledo Opera took a chance on me, despite the fact that I don't really have any degrees in piano performance.”
Being a collaborative artist isn’t just about accompanying singers; it’s about building relationships and gaining skills and knowledge in composing vocal pieces.
“The pianist needs to stay in lockstep with the vocalist,” he said. “Very often, they know the music better than you do, because you may have had it for up to a few days. They've been working on the [piece] for months, or maybe even years.”
So far, he said, he has found his experiences with the TOA to be challenging yet rewarding.
‘It has been spectacular,” he said. And so far even though I've been given a bunch of arias, like almost last minute, it has been super incredible and super fulfilling and so fun.
“And I'm just super excited for what's next.”
As are the Toledo Opera and its patrons.
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.