When:
Monday March 3 @ 5:30 p.m
Rsvp: Email events@florentineopera.org to rsvp and for any questions about the event.
Viva la Mamma and comedic prologue Il maestro di capella are sure to be a night of roaring laughter! Join us for an opportunity to hear from our stage director and conductor about opera satire and experience a short performance from the leading bass-baritone.
About Versed
We build operas over the course of a few years! In that time, dozens of creatives work on costuming, lighting effects, historical juxtapositions and casting. For each mainstage production, we offer a Versed experience for the Milwaukee community (and beyond). Come to hear about the work's history, stay to experience a musical demonstration featuring a lead artist and conductor!
Our Versed series takes place as an intimate gathering in our very own Lueders Opera Center in the Riverwest neighborhood. These are FREE and open to the public.
Please RSVP at events@florentineopera.org
Featuring
Anthony Barrese
Conductor
Anthony Barrese, hailed by South Florida Classical Review as conducting “with passion and idiomatic fluency,” has earned accolades as both a composer and a conductor. He is the recipient of the 2007 Georg Solti Foundation U.S. award for young conductors. His original works have won numerous awards, and he is regularly engaged by opera companies in North America and Italy.
Currently serving as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Opera Southwest, Mr. Barrese will lead the company productions of L’occasione fa il ladro and Bluebeard’s Castle this season. Barrese also serves as Music Director of OperaDelaware, a role he assumed in 2017. Additional conducting engagements this season will include L’infedeltà delusa at Sarasota Opera and Zorro at Opera Santa Barbara. Last season, he conducted Zorro, Le comte Ory, and Turandot with Opera Southwest, as well as Florida Grand Opera’s production of Il barbiere di Siviglia.
In recent seasons, the Maestro has conducted La scala di seta, La Traviata, Pelleas et Melisande, Ali Baba, Tosca, Maria de Buenos Aires, La cambiale di matrimonio, Lohengrin, Guillaume Tell, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Fledermaus, La Cenerentola, Rossini’s Otello with the American staged première of the finale lieto, and a “Return of Rossini” festival, all with Opera Southwest; Korngold’s rarely heard opera Die Kathrin with Folks Operetta; Il barbiere di Siviglia and Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Delaware; Sarasota Opera’s production of Roméo et Juliette; La bohéme with Opera Tampa; Kurt Weill’s operetta Johnny Johnson with Chicago Folks Operetta; The Merry Widow for Opera Saratoga; Suor Angelica and Il Tabarro with Opera Delaware; and Orfeo ed Euridice in a return to Florida Grand Opera. Mo.
Barrese has made débuts at Florida Grand Opera conducting Les pêcheurs de perles and Norma, Opera Theatre of St. Louis conducting The Kiss, Opera North conducting L’elisir d’amore, and Boston Lyric Opera conducting Don Giovanni. In 2014, Mr. Barrese held the prestigious honor of leading the world première of Franco www.quintanaartists.com bob@quintanaartists.com Faccio’s little-known opera Amleto with Opera Southwest, not heard anywhere since 1871. With his background as a musicologist, Barrese worked vigorously for nearly ten years to rediscover, prepare, and edit the critical edition of Amleto, in conjunction with Casa Ricordi, for American audiences. In the following years, Amleto premièred on the east coast with Opera Delaware (under Barrese's baton) and as a part of the Bregenz Festival in Austria (conducted by Paolo Carignani).
Mr. Barrese made his operatic conducting début in Milan with La bohème and made his début in France conducting Turandot at the Opéra de Massy. He led several productions with Sarasota Opera including, Lakmé, Le nozze di Figaro, and Hansel and Gretel; and a new production of Turandot in the historic Teatro Ventidio Basso, with a cast that included Nicola Martinucci as Caláf. Barrese was the Assistant Conductor of the Dallas Opera in 2006-2007 and later returned there as Guest Conductor for a production of Tosca, and La Wally. He also recorded Roberto Andreoni’s “quattro luci sul lago” with I Solisti della Scala, a chamber group made up of the first chair musicians of the La Scala Philharmonic, for broadcast on Italian National Radio (RAI 3).
Other notable highlights include being the recipient of numerous composition awards including a N.E.C. Contemporary Ensemble Composition Competition Award for his “Madrigale a 3 voci femminili,” The Sir Georg Solti Conducting award, and two B.M.I. Student Composers Awards.
Jill Ann Ponasik
Director
Cosi? is Jill Anna’s third production for The Florentine Opera, and 2023 marks her 14th season as artistic director of Milwaukee Opera Theatre, where she produces, directs, teaches, and fails to keep up with her email.
Select past productions include: Rusalka, Cendrillon, Mahagonny-Songspiel, Ruddigore, Oklahoma!, Carmina Burana, Zie Magic Flute, Doc Danger and the Danger Squad, Svadba, Tales of Hoffmann, A Chorus Line, Handel’s Bestiary, The Kreutzer Sonata, Song from the Uproar, 1776, Master Class, The Mikado, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, Guns N’ Rosenkavalier, Maria de Buenos Aires, and 26.
Always eager to collaborate, Jill Anna has developed work with Skylight Music Theatre, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Present Music, Renaissance Theaterworks, The Florentine Opera, In Tandem, First Stage, Quasimondo Physical Theatre, Danceworks Performance Company, Wild Space Dance Company,Theater RED, Carroll University, and The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.
Her work has been presented in parks, gardens, ballrooms, breweries, churches, classrooms, lobbies, recital halls, bookstores, masonic temples, parking lots, and sometimes (like right now), in theaters.
Patrick Carfizzi
Bass-Baritone
In the current season, American bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Swallow in Peter Grimes and the Sacristan in Tosca. He also returns to Houston Grand Opera as Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro and Baili in Werther. Last season marked the twenty-second anniversary of his Metropolitan Opera debut by returning as the Speaker in The Magic Flute, the Sacristan in Tosca, and the Lackey in Ariadne auf Naxos.
Notable past engagements include Cecil in Sir David McVicar’s production of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda (Metropolitan Opera), his role debut as Zeta in Lehár’s The Merry Widow opposite Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson, (Lyric Opera of Chicago), Henry Kissinger in Nixon in China (San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera and Houston Grand Opera), Paolo in Simon Boccanegra (San Francisco Opera, Metropolitan Opera, and Houston Grand Opera), and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte (Houston Grand Opera and Dallas Opera).