Ravinia 2019, Issue 5, Week 9

6:00 PM TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2019 BENNETT GORDON HALL MAD SCENE Starring MARISOL MONTALVO Musical Direction by WILLIAM HOBBS † Written by JEFFERY ROBERSON and MARISOL MONTALVO Produced by MARK CORTALE Directed by JEFFERY ROBERSON † Mad Scene is an autobiographical tale of the insane challenges faced by an American opera singer as she performs on some of the most prestigious stages across the world, including the Paris Opera and Carnegie Hall. Mad Scene includes the music of both Broadway and opera, featuring the works of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, Gounod, Berg, Donizetti, and Mozart. † Ravinia debut MARISOL MONTALVO, soprano Having developed her voice at the Mannes Col- lege of Music and Zurich International Opera Studio, New York native Marisol Montalvo was a winner of the Philadelphia Concerto Soloists Competition and Metropolitan Opera Audi- tions and soon established herself as a versatile soprano in operatic and concert repertoire. Her stage credits include Sophie in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier with Deutsche Oper Berlin, Es- merelda in Smetana’s The Bartered Bride with Glyndebourne and Zurich Operas, the Princess in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges at Teatro Real and Gran Teatre del Liceu, Oscar in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera at Avignon Opera, Woglinde and the Third Norn in Wagner’s Götterdäm- merung at Théâtre du Châtelet, and Nanetta in Verdi’s Falstaff with São Paolo State Symphony Orchestra. Montalvo has earned particular ac- claim as the title character of Berg’s Lulu , from her debut in the role with Paris National Opera to subsequent performances with Deutsche Oper Berlin and at such venues as the Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse, Teatro de la Maestranza, Theater an der Wien, Komische Oper Berlin, and Theater Basel. She has also created numer- ous roles, most recently the First Soprano in To Be Sung and Prothoe in Penthesilea , both by Pas- cal Dusapin, at La Monnaie, reprising the latter with Opéra national du Rhin, as well as Il Ser- pente and Il Madre in Marco Stroppa’s Re orso with Paris’s Opéra Comique. Since her Carnegie Hall debut under his baton, Montalvo has reg- ularly collaborated with Christoph Eschenbach, performing such works as Matthias Pintscher’s Herodiade Fragmente , Beethoven’s Ninth Sym- phony, and Mahler’s Fourth and Eighth Sym- phonies with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Paris Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra. She is also sought as an interpreter of Pintscher’s works, having sung Herodiade Fragmente with the Vienna Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and Spanish National Orchestra, as well as the composer’s Twilight Song and the German premiere of L’es- pace dernier with Alte Oper Frankfurt. Marisol Montalvo made both her Ravinia and Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts in 2017. WILLIAM HOBBS, music director and piano William Hobbs works at many of the world’s major opera venues, including Paris Nation- al Opera, the Salzburg Festival, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Washington Opera, and the Opéra de Mon- te-Carlo. He has assisted conductors Claudio Abbado, Charles Mackerras, Jiří Bělohlávek, Andrew Davis, James Conlon, and many oth- ers. He has worked closely with such singers as Renée Fleming, Frederica von Stade, Plácido Domingo, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Hobbs is the founder and artistic director of Opera Slavi- ca and is currently on the faculty of Juilliard and Westminster Choir College. JEFFERY ROBERSON, writer and director Also known as Varla Jean Merman, Jeffery Roberson starred in the Off-Broadway musical Lucky Guy opposite Leslie Jordan at the Little Shubert Theatre, prompting the New York Times to rave, “If Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman had stood in front of the right pair of funhouse mirrors, they might have resembled Ms. Mer- man and Mr. Jordan in stature as well as come- dic talent.” More recently, Roberson starred in the films Hush Up Sweet Charlotte , Girls Will Be Girls , and Varla Jean and the Mushroomheads . On Broadway, Roberson played the role of Mary Sunshine in the revival of Chicago . JULY 29 – AUGUST 4, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 95