Oresteia

Upcoming debuts include Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, Opera Philadelphia, Ekaterinburg State Opera in Russia, and Staatstheater Braunschweig in Germany. Strassberger earned a degree in engineering from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City and received a Fulbright fellowship to complete the Corso di Specializzazione per Scenografi Realizzatori at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 2001. For more information, visit www.tstrassberger.com.

Botstein has an active schedule as a guest conductor all over the world, and can be heard on numerous recordings, including operas by Strauss, Dukas, and Chausson, as well as works of Shostakovich, Dohnányi, Liszt, Bruckner, Bartók, Hartmann, Reger, Glière, Szymanowski, Brahms, Copland, Sessions, Perle, and Rands. Many of his live performances with the American Symphony Orchestra are now available for download on the Internet. Leon Botstein is highly regarded as a music historian. He is the editor of The Musical Quarterly and the author of numerous articles and books. In 2011 he gave the prestigious Tanner Lectures in Berkeley, California. For his contributions to music he has received the award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Harvard University’s prestigious Centennial Award, as well as the Cross of Honor, First Class, from the government of Austria. In 2009 he received Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award, and in 2011 was inducted into the American Philosophical Society. He is also the 2012 recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society.

Upcoming productions include Cosi Fan Tutte for Opera Touring Company, Dublin; and Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, and Roberto Devereux for Welsh National Opera, Cardiff. She was a finalist for the European Opera Directing Prize 2007 for her design concept for Rusalka, with director Alessandro Talevi, and was awarded a 2008 design fellowship from Independent Opera.

Ullrich has designed regionally for The Old Globe, Asolo Repertory, Cincinnati Playhouse in The Park, Goodspeed Musicals, Huntington Theatre Company, Dallas Theater Center, Delaware Theater Company, and New York Stage and Film. Her film projects include Year of the Fish (Sundance 2007), Sovereignty (multifestival award-winning short), and Shoplifting Chanel. In 2006, she was awarded the European Opera Prize for her collaboration with Thaddeus Strassberger.

He has recreated the designs of Tony Tucci, Mark McCullough, Nick Phillips, Kevin Meek, Nacho Duato, Jeff Bruckerhoff, and Jennifer Tipton. As an assistant lighting director he has managed the creation of four operas for New York City Opera and 48 operas for San Francisco Opera. As a lighting supervisor he has produced tours for Washington Ballet and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in hundreds of venues around the world, including The John F. Kennedy Center, Washington D.C.; Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris; Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Milan; and Victorian Arts Center in Melbourne.

Among Sokolova’s acclaimed international engagements are Erda in Das Rheingold and Siegfried (Aalto Theater Essen), Ulrica Arfvidsson in Un ballo in maschera (Theater St. Gallen), Countess in The Queen of Spades, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung (Latvian National Opera, Riga), Countess in The Queen of Spades (Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg), Larina in Eugene Onegin (Oper Leipzig), Amneris in Aida (Royal Albert Hall, London), and Yevpraksiya Romanovna in The Enchantress (Erfurt).

His international appearances include Figaro (Italy), Pimen in Boris Godunov (Budapest, Liège, and Debrecen), Calchas in Iphigénie en Aulide (Rome), Ser Amantio di Nicolao in Gianni Schicchi (Lyon), and Alfonso D’Este in Lucrezia Borgia (Santiago de Chile). Kuzmin-Karavaev has won honors at the International Glinka Singing Competition in Moscow (third prize, 2009), the International Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Singers Competition (2008), and the “Bella Voce” Young Opera Singers’ Competition in Moscow (2002).

Recent and upcoming engagements include Radames in Aida (Mariinsky Theatre), Pollione in Norma (Dortmund), Andrey in Mazeppa (Heidelberg), Mime in Das Rheingold (Liceu, Barcelona), the tenor part in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona I Nacional de Catalunya), Shabby Peasant in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and covering Yeroshka in Prince Igor (Metropolitan Opera).

Borisenko’s recent and upcoming engagements include Ezio in Attila (Teatro dell’Opera, Rome); Schelkalov in Boris Godunov; Gryaznoy in The Tsar’s Bride; the title part in Rigoletto; several roles in Shostakovich’s The Nose (Teatro dell’Opera); Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca (Baden Theater, Austria, and Japan); and Verdi’s Macbeth (Magdeburg, Germany).

She is the laureate of a number of competitions, including first prizes at the 20th International Competition of Opera Singing “Iris Adami Corradetti” in Padova, Italy (2005), the Irina Bogacheva All-Russian Competition in St. Petersburg, (2005), and the “Hopes, Talents, Masters” at the XIII International Youth Music Festival in Bulgaria (2008).

Other repertoire includes Liù in Turandot and roles in other Puccini operas (Tosca, Lauretta, Manon Lescaut, and Cio-Cio San); the title part in DvoÅ™ák’s Rusalka; Leonora in Il trovatore; Olga in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Maid of Pskov; Katerina in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Serena in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess; Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia; Micaëla in Carmen; and Antonida in The Life for the Tsar. Tolkmit is the diploma winner of Elena Obraztsova VIII International Competition for Young Opera Singers and a nominee for The Golden Masque Award, Best Female Operatic Performance, for the role of Mimi in La bohème at Mikhailovsky Theatre.

He is a frequent guest artist with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, making his debut in the world premiere of the opera Amistad and since appearing as Pistola in Falstaff, One Armed Man in Die Frau ohne Schatten, and in La Gioconda, Roméo et Juliette, Tosca, The Magic Flute, Salome, and Aida, as well as covering Gremin in Eugene Onegin, Heinrich in Lohengrin, Osmin in Abduction from the Seraglio, and King Marke in Tristan und Isolde. Up next, Funk performs King Marke with Florida Grand Opera and joins the Metropolitan Opera for its production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.