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Scenes in the Wittcoff

Headshot of opera soprano singer Cadie J. Bryan with Arizona Opera

Cadie J. Bryan

Vocalist

A former Marion Roose Pullin Arizona Opera Studio Artist, Louisiana-born soprano Cadie J. Bryan has been praised by Opera News as “sparkling” and “pertly pealing”. Recent highlights include a number of house debuts including The Dallas Opera in concert for the Hart Institute for Women Conductors, Opera Las Vegas as Addie Mills in the west coast premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s The House Without a Christmas Tree, and The Atlanta Opera as Berta in The Barber of Seville, as well as a return to Arizona Opera to reprise the role of Despina.

In the summer of 2021, she debuted the roles of Clarine in Rameau's Platée under the baton of Gary Thor Wedow, and Prilepa in Queen of Spades as an Ensemble Artist at Des Moines Metro Opera. Prior to the COVID-19 shut down, she was slated to sing the role of Naiade in Ariadne auf Naxos at Arizona Opera where she completed two years as a Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artist (2018-2020). In her final season, she performed four main stage roles including Bess in Craig Bohmler’s Riders of the Purple Sage, Musetta in La Bohème, Lucy in Fellow Travelers, and Maid in the Taliesin West Premier of Daron Hagen’s Shining Brow.

In her 2018-2019 season, she made her main stage debut at Arizona Opera as Chan Parker in Daniel Schnyder's and Bridgette Wimberly’s Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, as well as Annina in La Traviata, and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. As an apprentice artist at Des Moines Metro Opera, she made her main stage debut as the Second Wood Sprite in an Emmy Award-winning production of Rusalka (2017).

Bryan is an alumnus of Ravinia’s Steans Institute for singers (2017, 2018) where she studied and performed in a variety of art song and Lieder recitals with world-renowned pianists and coaches. Other career highlights include Clara in Jake Heggie’s and Gene Scheer's It’s A Wonderful Life (2017), Marian in The Music Man (2017), Zerlina in Don Giovanni (2014), and Lisette in La Rondine (2014).

She received a Master of Music and a Performance Diploma from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of soprano Heidi Grant Murphy and her Bachelor of Music from Louisiana State University with baritone Dennis Jesse.

American soprano and Phoenix resident Kaitlyn Sabrowsky (nee Johnson) is at home in operatic repertoire ranging from classical to contemporary. Sabrowsky completed two seasons as a Marion Roose Pullin Arizona Opera Studio Artist from 2018-20, highlighted by back-to-back main stage leading roles as Musetta in La Bohème and Jane Withersteen in Riders of the Purple Sage in the company’s 2020 season. Her Jane garnered praise for her “strong dramatic voice and the kind of acting skills that showed her character’s growth from one scene to the next” (Operawire). Other Arizona Opera role highlights include Miss Lightfoot in Fellow Travelers and Doris Parker in Charlie Parker’s Yardbird. Additional notable engagements include her debut with The Phoenix Symphony and as Frasquita in the Atlanta Opera’s Carmen. Often celebrated on the operatic stage for her "powerful and dramatic soprano," (The Bloomington Herald-Times), Sabrowsky has appeared in such roles as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and the title role in Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas. Kaitlyn Sabrowsky is the recipient of awards from the Orpheus Vocal Competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Georgina Joshi International Fellowship from Indiana University and the Farb Family Outstanding Graduate Award from Rice University. She is a graduate of Indiana University (MM) and Rice University (BM, cum laude), and is an alumnus of the Institute for Young Dramatic Voices, Aspen Opera Center and Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artist Vocal Academy. Sabrowsky is currently completing her doctoral degree at Arizona State and is an active voice teacher throughout the Valley, teaching students at Grand Canyon University and privately through the Sabrowsky Song Studio.

Headshot of opera mezzo-soprano singer Katherine Beck with Arizona Opera

Katherine Beck

Vocalist

This season, Katherine Beck returns to Arizona Opera as well as makes her Saint Louis Symphony debut as Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana and returns to the roster of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She recently sang Rosina in The Barber of Seville (Florentine Opera), Isabella in L’inganno felice (Opera Festival of Chicago), Karolka in Jenůfa (Santa Fe Opera), Angelina in La Cenerentola (Opera Buffs), and a recital at her alma mater, SUNY Purchase. She is a previous member of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center where she sang Wellgunde in Twilight: Gods and excerpts of Carmen in concert at Grant Park. Previous performances at Arizona Opera include Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, and Mary Johnson in Fellow Travelers.

Bille Bruley

Bille Bruley

Vocalist

Praised by the Huffington Post for his “ringing high notes,” Texas-born tenor Bille Bruley has garnered attention for his strength and versatility in operatic repertoire from baroque to contemporary.

Bille’s 21/22 season is highlighted by role/house debuts in Mason Bates and Mark Campbell’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (Steve Wozniak) with Austin Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and The Atlanta Opera. He will also return to Arizona Opera for Così fan tutte (Ferrando).

Recently he joined the roster of Lyric Opera of Chicago Dead Man Walking to cover Father Grenville and Howard Boucher and returned to Arizona Opera for Shining Brow (Louis Sullivan) and Riders of the Purple Sage (Bern Venters). Highlights from previous seasons include Britten’s War Requiem with the Tulsa Symphony, a program of Mozart arias with the Phoenix Symphony, and a return to The Santa Fe Opera, where he created the role of Benjamin in the world premiere of Poul Ruders’ The Thirteenth Child.

Bille Bruley hails from Montgomery, Texas and is a graduate of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and Baylor University.

Jarrett Porter

Jarrett Porter

Vocalist

Praised for his “imposing baritone” and “supple vibrant baritone that he deploys with unaffected lyricism and manifest honesty” by Opera News, American baritone Jarrett Porter is quickly making a name for himself with a fearless talent and commanding intellect. Porter is currently a member of the Artist Diploma in Opera Studies at The Juilliard School.

In the 2020/21 Season, Jarrett makes his professional debut at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Neil Armstrong in the world premiere of Steve Mackey’s Moon Tea, and as the Adjudicator in the world premiere of Damien Sneed’s The Tongue & The Lash. He joins Internationale Meistersinger Akademie in Neumart, Germany where he will make appearances on Bavaria Radiofunk, as well as with the Nürnburg Symphony. At Juilliard, he appears in their Liederabend series, with New York Festival of Song@Juilliard, and as Polyphemus in Händel’s Acis & Galatea with Juilliard415.

In the 2021/22 Season he looks forward to making his professional debut at Arizona Opera as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. He will return to Opera Theater of Saint Louis to create the role of Oliver Sacks in the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Awakenings, based on the memoir of the same name.

Porter’s 2019/20 Season included his principal debut at Tulsa Opera as Dancaïre in Carmen. At the Santa Fe Opera in his second year as an Apprentice, he sang the Sergeant in La boheme, covered Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, appeared in scenes as the title role in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and joined Renée Fleming and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra under the baton of Harry Bicket as a soloist in Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music.

In the 2018/19 Season he finished his second and final year as a Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artist at Arizona Opera, where he performed as Antonio and the cover of Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Father Palmer in Silent Night, and Baron Douphol in La traviata. In the 2017/18 Season at Arizona Opera, he was seen as the title role in Patrick Morganelli’s Hercules vs. Vampires, Maximilian in Candide, Sciarrone in Tosca, and Fiorello in Il barbiere di Siviglia. He joined Santa Fe Opera in 2018 as a member of the company’s Apprentice Program, singing Der Perückenmacher in Ariadne auf Naxos, and covering Maximilian in Candide. Role engagements elsewhere have included the title role of Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin, Le Chevalier des Grieux in Massenet’s Le portrait de Manon, Sid in Albert Herring, Harry Easter in Weill’s Street Scene, and Morales in Carmen. Other programs include Opera Saratoga (2016) and The Glimmerglass Festival (2017), as well as Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artist Vocal Academy (2014).

As a sought after recitalist, Porter has held fellowships at the Ravinia Stean’s Music Institute at The Ravinia Festival, and at SongFest at the Hidden Valley Music Festival under the mentorship of Sir Thomas Allen and Graham Johnson. Accompanied by narration from Allen and Johnson, he made his National Public Radio debut with selections from Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, and in the spring of 2018 joined pianist Taylor Hutchinson in recital to present Winterreise in Katzin Hall at Arizona State University.

Awards include: winner of The Sullivan Foundation (2019), winner of the 2019 St. Louis District of the Metropolitan Opera National Council, the Lisa and Bernie Kalvelage Award at the 2018 Holt Competition, the 2017 Grand Prize Winner of the Pacific Music Society Competition, the Ellie Silver Award Winner at the 2017 Holt Competition, and the First Prize of the inaugural Esther C. Weill Competition. A native of coastal New Jersey, he holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music (2015) and a Master of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (2017), where he was a James Schwabacher Fellow. He can be seen in the June 2020 issue of Opera News, where he was the magazine’s Soundbite. A student of Darrell Babidge, Porter resides on the Upper East Side in New York City.

Headshot of opera bass-baritone singer Brandon Morales with Arizona Opera

Brandon Morales

Vocalist

Brandon Morales, Bass-Baritone and graduate of the Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artist Program, has performed with opera companies all over the US - stretching from the Pacific northwest’s Portland Opera to Virginia Opera on the East coast. Morales has recently completed two years with Virginia Opera’s Heardon Foundation Emerging Artist’s Program with highlights including Bartolo in The Barber of Seville, Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Jose Castro/Billy Jackrabbit in La Fanciulla del West, and the Mother in Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins.

A graduate of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, he has been highly active in the Ohio area performing with Dayton Opera, NANO Works, Cincinnati Chamber Opera, Queen City Chamber Opera, Cincinnati College-Conservatory, Cincinnati Opera, participated in Toledo Opera’s Resident Artist program, and performed the roles of Friedrich von Telramund in Lohengrin and the Dutchman in Die Fliegende Holländer in concert with the Wagner Society of Cincinnati, where he is a part of their blooming Wagner studio. A native of San Antonio, TX, Morales currently enjoys the vagabond life of performing, but misses his faithful cat, Elsie.

Michael Lewis is a second year Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artist and is the Studio Pianist for the 2018/19 season. Prior to joining Arizona Opera, he attended Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ where he studied with Russel Ryan and received his Master's degree in Collaborative Piano. Before his time in Arizona, Michael was the Assistant Music Director and Chorus Master at Tri-Cities Opera of Binghamton, NY where he served as principal coach and head pianist on Carmen, Don Giovanni, Die Fledermaus, Rigoletto, l'Italiana in Algeri, and Faust. While holding this position, he also was on staff as Adjunct Lecturer at Binghamton University. As a vocal coach, Michael has worked with The Glimmerglass Festival, Aspen Summer Music Festival, International Vocal Arts Institute, Mill City Summer Opera, CoOPERAtive Program, and Ithaca College School of Music. During his undergraduate studies in vocal performance at Ithaca College, Michael assisted in the creation of the first student-run opera company at the college in which he served as Assistant Music Director and vocal coach. Along with performing, Michael is also a composer whose works have been performed throughout the United States and Australia.

Dale Dreyfoos

Dale Dreyfoos

Stage Director

Dale Dreyfoos (Professor of Opera/Music Theater at Arizona State University and Resident Stage Director for Lyric Opera Theatre) has had a multi-faceted career as a Stage Director, Character Tenor, Actor, Educator, and Arts Administrator.  Dreyfoos made his Arizona Opera debut in 2000 in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville in the role of Ambrogio and has returned to perform the roles of the Duchess of Krackenthorp in La Fille du Regiment (Donizetti), Njegus in The Merry Widow (Lehar) and Pelligreen in Arizona Lady (Kalman). Dreyfoos has also been an active participant in Arizona Opera’s Education and Outreach Program, having served as the Stage Director for the first Arizona Opera Outreach production of Rossini’s Cinderella. The company’s Opera Dell’Arte Series was created for his unique blend of talents as an actor, singer, and writer, for which he presented previews of operas from the perspective of a character in the opera. His preview for Hansel and Gretel, as told from the perspective of the Witch, was one of his most memorable.

Dreyfoos began his performing career at the age of 10 as the Boy Soprano soloist with the Atlanta Boy Choir, during which time he appeared as a soloist in Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes de Confessore with Robert Shaw & the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, as well as appearing in the French, Spanish, and Moroccan premieres of Benjamin Britten’s chamber opera The Golden Vanity. For his performance in Paris, he received special accolades from the musical icon, Mlle. Nadia Boulanger (the protégé of Faure and teacher of Bernstein and Copland) and Mme. Khachaturian (the wife of the famous composer).

Since that time, Dreyfoos has made a specialty of appearing in a wide variety of character roles including Vespone in La Serva Padrona, Ambrogio in The Barber of Seville, Goro in Madama Butterfly, Frosch & Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus, The Old Prisoner in La Perichole, Senex in A Funny Thing That Happened On The Way To The Forum, Henry in The Fantasticks, Herr Schultz in Cabaret, King Sextimus in Once Upon A Matress, Moonface Martin in Anything Goes, Voltaire/Dr. Pangloss/Governor/Host and Sage in Candide, Frisellino in Le Pescatrice, Njegus in The Merry Widow, Mozart in A Visit with Amadeus, Ben in The Telephone, the Duchess of Krackenthorp in The Daughter of the Regiment, Edna in Bye,Bye, Birdie and Queen Elizabeth II in Hms Pinafore with such companies as the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Arizona Opera, Opera Carolina, Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, Birmingham Civic Opera, Mississippi Opera, Newberry Opera, Charleston Opera Company, Shakespeare Sedona, and ASU’s Lyric Opera Theatre. He has also appeared as the “Bargain Countertenor soloist” in P.D.Q. Bach’s The Seasonings with the Alabama Symphony under the direction of Peter Schickele. He has also made special guest appearances for television and public radio stations in Charleston, SC, Charlotte, NC, Phoenix, AZ, and Atlanta, GA, and is a featured performer on two educational compact discs, Bible Times I & III, and a cd-rom Opera-Ha Ha, produced by Arizona Opera. A specialist in “character voices”, Dreyfoos’s voice can be heard on several historical audio tours including the State of Georgia’s commemorative audio tours for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Edgar Allan Poe House in Richmond, Virginia and on a Civil War Tour of Lexington, Kentucky.

Dreyfoos is also the author of two highly acclaimed educational music dramas, A Visit With Amadeus and A Visit With Mr. & Mrs. Bach, which have received over 2,000 performances throughout the eastern United States. He has also recently served as a the author of two narration scripts for the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe Opera and an Opera Gala for Arizona Opera, which were narrated by Frederica Von Stade and Hugh Downs, respectively. Dreyfoos has been on the faculty of Arizona State University since 1994, where he received the “Distinguished Professor Award” for the College of Fine Arts in 1996.

As a Stage Director, Dreyfoos has directed productions ofThe Marriage of Figaro, Die Zauberflote, Cosi Fan Tutte, Elixir of Love, Oklahoma, Giulio Cesare, Xerxes, Ariadne auf Naxos, Hms Pinafore, La Perichole, The Secret Garden, the Turn of the Screw, Dido and Aeneas, Amahl and the night visitors, the Coronation of Poppea, Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, Nunsense, Susannah, La Serva Padrona, Hansel and Gretel, Don Pasquale, The Impresario, The Bartered bride, Riders to the Sea, The Barber of Seville, The Daughter of the Regiment, Albert Herring, Gallantry, Die Fledermaus, La Cenerentola and the world premiere of the Ransom of Red Chief for such companies as Opera Carolina, Piccolo Spoleto festival, Charleston Opera Company, Birmingham Civic Opera, Arizona Opera Education Tour, Milton Center Series, and Arizona State University’s Lyric Opera Theater. He has also served as an assistant director for productions of La Cenerentola, The Mikado, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Boheme, and Don Pasquale with the Lyric Opera of Chicago Center for American Artists, Opera Carolina, Des Moines Metro Opera, Birmingham Civic Opera and the Mississippi Opera. Since 1996, he has served as a Stage Artistry Instructor for the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.

Headshot of pianist Christopher Cano with Arizona Opera

Christopher Cano

Pianist and Musical Director

A seasoned recitalist, orchestra soloist and collaborative pianist, Christopher Cano has performed throughout the US, Mexico, Israel, Europe and the Far East.

Having maintained his private studio in New York City since 2002, Cano has prepared singers for appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Chicago Lyric Opera, and orchestral appearances with the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic among others.

As a collaborative artist, he has played in the masterclasses of Licia Albanese, Fedora Barbieri, Anna Moffo, Lauren Flannigan, Martin Katz, Craig Rutenberg, and Suzanne Mentzer. Cano has also played for the masterclasses of Marilyn Horne in New York City at Carnegie Hall. As a studio pianist, Cano has had the distinct privilege of working with some of the great artists and teachers of singing including Marilyn Horne, Sherrill Milnes, Luciano Pavarotti, Marni Nixon, Patricia McCaffrey, Joan Patenaude-Yarnell, Rita Shane and Diana Soviero.

Cano has been a member of the music staff at the Festival Lyrique-en-Mer in Belle-Ile, France, Toledo Opera, San Diego Opera, Utah Festival Opera, Opera Company of North Carolina, Florida Grand Opera, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, among others.

Beginning with the 2017/18 Season, Cano was appointed as the Director of the Marion Roose Pullin Opera Studio and Head of Music of Arizona Opera.

Henri Venanzi

Musical and Language Preparation

Henri Venanzi, Chorus Master at Arizona Opera, is in demand today as an accompanist, vocal coach and lecturer throughout the United States and Europe. Venanzi has served as Chorus Master of the Cincinnati Opera since 1974 and is currently Music Director of the Cincinnati American Arts Program. Venanzi has accompanied Metropolitan Opera stars Martina Arroyo, Jerry Hadley, Mignon Dunn, Kathleen Battle, Italo Tajo and Sandra Radvanovsky in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and The Châtelet (Paris), among others.