TOSCA

“Opera is about us,” Keelan points out, “Puccini knew it, and his music is hair-raising, scandalous, ravishing, heart-achingly tender, as the moment requires.”

“Tosca,” complete with its passionate depictions of torture, murder and suicide, contains some of P

For Tosca to be performed, a soprano, tenor and baritone of great vocal power and dramatic surety are required. Finding the principal voices of Tosca, Cavaradossi and Scarpia living in a line from Chester, VT to Northampton, MA made the choice of opera not only possible, but inevitable.uccini’s best-known arias, including Tosca’s “Vissi d’arte, I have lived for art and love” sung at a desperate moment as Scarpia’s net tightens around her. 

Jenna Rae, a co-founder of PanOpera, will be making her soprano debut as the celebrated singer Tosca.  As a mezzo- soprano, Ms. Rae has performed locally in recital and solo work with The Friends of Music at
Guilford, The Memorial Hall Benefit Series and the Windham Orchestra. In December of 2008 she sang the role of La Zia Principessa in the Hugh Keelan Ensemble production of Suor Angelica in Brattleboro, VT.   In 2011 Ms. Rae sang Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Monadnock Music Festival and Kindertotenlieder in the Hurricane Irene Flood Relief Benefit Concert in Brattleboro.  

Ms. Rae is a graduate of Northwestern University where she studied voice and clarinet.  She went on to study voice and opera performance at the New England Conservatory and the Longy School of Music and sang with the chorus for Boston Lyric Opera.  She is studying voice with Stan Norsworthy.  Ms. Rae teaches music and drama at The St. Michael School in Brattleboro.  Ms. Rae lives in Putney, Vermont with her two wonderful young boys.  

He is an alumnus of The University of Massachusetts at Amherst and received his Master’s Degree from Boston University, where he appeared as Acis in Acis and Galatea, Reverend Pollard in Stephen Paulus’ The Village Singer, the Mayor in Albert Herring, Harlekin in Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, and Ferrando in Cosi fan Tutte.  In May 2003, he finished the program at Boston University’s Opera Institute with the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo, which was the subject of a feature article by Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe.From Northampton, Massachusetts, tenor Alan Schneider will perform the role of Mario Cavaradossi, an artist, free-thinker, and the lover of Tosca.  Mr. Schneider has appeared in opera, operetta, and music theatre productions with many companies in his native New England and elsewhere, including Opera Boston, Sarasota Opera, OperaDelaware, Florida Grand Opera, The Huntington Theatre Company, The North Shore Music Theatre, Opera New England and Boston Bel Canto Opera. With Boston Lyric Opera, he has appeared in The Flying Dutchman, La Traviata, Lucia de Lammermoor, Salome, Don Carlos, Carmen, La rondine, and Rigoletto over the course of seven seasons with the company, and will return to Boston in the spring of 2015 for Katya Kabanova. In July of 2010 he made his international debut as Idomeneo with IVAI in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Baritone Stan Norsworthy will perform the role of Baron Scarpia, the Roman Chief of Police, who plots to possess Tosca and execute Cavaradossi. Stan Norsworthy has had an extensive and distinguished career in the U.S. and Europe, both as a baritone and a heldentenor.  He has performed solo engagements with orchestras throughout North America and Europe, has participated in major music festivals such as the Chautauqua Music Festival, has perform

Mr. Norsworthy completed a bachelor’s in vocal performance at Baylor University.  Among many honors, he won first place in the Metropolitan Opera Southwest Regional Auditions and the Young Artist Competition of the National Federation of Music Clubs. He continued study at Indiana University with a Master’s in vocal performance working with retired Metropolitan Opera singers Margaret Harshaw and Charles Kuhlman. Because of his exceptionally powerful voice and wide range he was encouraged by Julius Bürger, Metropolitan Opera coach, to make the transition to hed many of the major baritone and heldentenor operatic roles, and has soloed in major concert works such as Handel’s “Messiah” and the Requiems of Verdi, Brahms, Mozart, and Faure.

After studies at the Academy for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria with a Metropolitan Opera National Council Grant, one of three that Mr. Norsworthy has received, he was engaged as Heldentenor by the German Staatstheater Braunschweig.  Mr. Norsworthy lives and teaches in Chester, Vermont.  His students have been engaged by great opera houses throughout the U.S. and Europe.

The supporting cast for “Tosca” all have local ties, and are of strikingly varied backgrounds: a clown; ; a conductor, singer and teacher; an 11 year-old, a musicologist; three are novices to operatic singing. The supporting 

A true community effort, also joining the Windham Orchestra for “Tosca” are a children’s group, an adult chorus, military drummers for an execution, and the work of local artists contributing to the projected “set.”  Each group involved brings a rich constituency to the community that for a few weeks is Tosca.cast includes; baritone Cailin Marcel Manson, Director of Music at The Putney School, as the Sacristan; Javier Luengo-Garrido as Cesare Angelloti;; Patrick Donnelly; and Preston Forchion.

The audience will also be invited to contribute with an opportunity to sing the climactic final notes of Act 1 – but be forewarned, Stan Norsworthy as Scarpia will overpower you! 

Join the Windham Orchestra and PanOpera for “Tosca” at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro, VT on Friday, May 30, 7:30, and Sunday, June 1, 2:00 pm; or at the Academy of Music in Northampton, MA, on Thursday, June 5, 7:30 pm.

For Brattleboro tickets:  General admission pick your own price $10-40, Premium Seating (3-4 rows
in center front section) $75, purchase on-line at BrattleboroTix.com; or call the Brattleboro Music Center at 802-257-4523.  

For Northampton tickets:  General admission $20 all seats, purchase on-line at academyofmusictheatre.tix.com or call Academy of Music at 413-584-9032 ext 105.

For additional information visit www.bmcvt.org or call the Brattleboro Music Center at 802-257-4523.