(Credit: Eric Joannes) Florida Grand Opera has announced that Maria Todaro will serve as the company’s Interim General Director throughout the 2023-24 season. Todaro commenced her professional life as a mezzo-soprano and entrepreneur. She founded the company Arteodor and took on a stage directing career where she worked with such organizations as Minnesota Opera, Atlanta Opera, and Hawai’i Opera Theater. {…}
Florida Grand Opera has announced a unique new concert season. “We are breaking out of the box and exploring a lot of new things,” says Director of Artistic Operations Matt Cooksey said in an official press statement. “Even though we have great traditional operas at the big houses, this season is about challenging ourselves to prepare innovative vocal concerts in {…}
The Florida Grand Opera’s General Director and CEO Susan T. Danis has announced her resignation. Danis has been the leader of the opera company for more than a decade and announced that she was leaving to pursue another opportunity. However, she will remain with the company through a transition period to help ensure that the coming season is off to {…}
The Florida Grand Opera has announced its 2023-24 season with three renowned operas. The season opens with Verdi’s timeless classic “La Traviata.” The opera will star Cecilia Violetta López, Pavel Petrov, and Troy Cook. Chía Patiño directs and Joe Illick conducts. Performance Dates: Nov. 11 – Dec. 2, 2023 The second opera of the season will be Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci.” It {…}
The Florida Grand Opera has announced its 2023-4 Studio Artists. The artists are Sara Kennedy, Taylor-Alexis DuPont, Joseph McBrayer, Joseph Canuto Leon, and Keith Klein. The studio artists will spend the full season performing principal and comprimario roles alongside FGO’s roster of acclaimed directors, conductors, and musicians. They will also perform more often in concerts all over Miami-Dade and Broward {…}
This August, Florida Grand Opera is set to shine the spotlight on its administrative staff in “Staff Sing.” Per an official press release, the company will feature soprano/Director of Finance Susana Diaz, mezzo-soprano/Artistic Administration and Finance Associate Lauren Frick, contralto/Marketing and Communications Manager Cindy Sadler, tenor/Development Associate Peter Rivera, baritone/Director of Artistic Operations Matt Cooksey, and bass-baritone/Samuel M. Townsend Studio {…}
The Florida Grand Opera has announced its Studio Artists for the 2022-23 season. This season’s artists include mezzo Erin Alford, tenor Charles Calotta, bass-baritone Phillip Lopez, tenor Joseph McBrayer, soprano Page Michels, and soprano Ashley Shalna. The artists will spend the full season performing principal and comprimario roles alongside FGO’s roster of acclaimed directors, conductors, and musicians. They will also {…}
The Florida Grand Opera has announced its 2022-23 season featuring four productions. Cimarosa’s “El matrimonio secreto” will get a new production set among the world of the hard-working Cuban diaspora in the Miami Beach of the 1980s. The work will star Vanessa Becerra, Page Michels, Catalina Cuervo, Ashley Shalna, Erin Alford, Joseph McBrayer, and Phillip Lopez. Marlene Urbay conducts the {…}
(Photo: R. Tinker) The ever-elusive Verdi baritone. A voice with a unique timbre, range, expressive quality, and psychological immersion that manages to let us into the lives of the composer’s most complex and complete characters. A lot of baritones aspire to this title, but it’s not in the cards for most of them. But it was for Todd Thomas. Just {…}
Marlon Daniel has been appointed to the position of Associate Conductor of the Florida Grand Opera. Daniel will act as cover conductor for the upcoming 2022 season productions as well as a resident conductor on other projects throughout the year. “I have always dreamed of a career in music that followed in the footsteps of some of my favorite conductors {…}
The Florida Grand Opera has named Cindy Sadler the new Marketing and Communications Manager. The company noted, that Sadler’s “eclectic operatic career represents the benchmark of entrepreneurial artistry. A standout performer in any cast with her rich, abundant contralto and charismatic characterizations, she has made herself indispensable in the classical music arena through her writings, consulting, and educational work, as {…}