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Staff 2009

Edward Bak is an accomplished and internationally respected pianist and vocal coach, with credits in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, and Asia. He has performed widely in such venues as the Philips Collection, Tanglewood Festival, Lanaudiere Festival, Monnaie, Kolarac Hall, and Teatro Colón. He is in high demand as vocal coach and collaborative pianist. He has expertise in French, German, and Russian, as well as Italian and Spanish. He is currently on the faculty of The Ohio State University School of Music, and previously held faculty positions at the Cleveland Institute of Music Preparatory, the Peabody Institute Preparatory. He has given master classes at the Escuela Moderna in Santiago and the Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón. He was a visiting professor of piano in Seoul, South Korea.

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Mihaela Bogdan, (director Die Fledermaus )is the resident stage director of Romanian National Opera Cluj and is currently the founder and stage director of ExArt organization. She is a Fulbright Alumni and the recipient of the 2007 Dr. David Farrar Assistant Stage Director Grant for The Martina Arroyo Foundation’s Prelude to Performance®. iShe has directed opera and theatre productions in Romania, Germany and USA, such as Rake’s Progress, The Magic Flute, Lakme, Horarius with the T-Bob company, Henze’s Moralities, Susa’s Transformations, Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief and the acclaimed production of Piazzolla - Maria de Buenos Aires. Her activity includes leading acting workshops at Indiana University Bloomington (IU Summer Opera Workshop 2005 and 2006 editions) and at Miami University of Ohio (culminating with The Magic Flute production of 2007). As an assistant stage director she was involved in projects with IU Opera Theater, Vancouver Opera Company, Indianapolis Opera, Martina Arroyo Foundation NYC, and her participation in the acclaimed Festival Junger Künstler in Bayreuth, Germany.

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Charles Caine costume designer, brings his talents and experience to out program for our fifth season. After 16 seasons as resident costume designer at the Metropolitan Opera, he designed for many other opera companies, including Canadian Opera, Montreal Opera, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, Chicago Lyric, Washington Opera, Philadelphia, Orlando, Dallas, Houston, Miami, and NYCO. His designs have appeared in the acclaimed PBS-TV production of Luisa Miller starring Domingo, Milnes and Scotto. He is also now presenting lectures recalling the glories from the Golden Days backstage at the Met.

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Michael Ehrman, (La Boheme) Stage Director for over 150 productions at companies including Houston Grand Opera, Greater Miami Opera, Minnesota Opera, Wolf Trap Opera. 20 productions for Central City Opera, including recent Susannah, Vanessa, and 50th Anniversary The Ballad of Baby Doe (2006). Also recent: La Boheme, Madison Opera; Falstaff, Indianapolis Opera; Noye's Fludde, Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Chicago premiere of Ronald Perera’s The Yellow Wallpaper (2006). Ehrman’s staging of the musical Carnival was named on several of Chicago ‘s “Ten Best” lists for 2005. Author/director of many educational opera programs. Former Director of Opera at Northwestern University, University of Tennessee, Knoxville and at Roosevelt University/Chicago College of Performing Arts . Recurring Guest Director (7 productions) at Indiana University; also guest director for Yale University, New England Conservatory, Hartt School of Music, University of Kentucky. Artistic Staff/Stage Director/Acting Coach for Young Artist Programs at Central City, Chautauqua Opera, Wolf Trap, Greater Miami Opera, Virginia Opera, Lake George Opera, Utah Opera, Israeli Vocal Arts Institute, Intermezzo Young Artist Program, Brevard Music Center, Berkshire Opera Festival, and New National Theater, Tokyo. Upcoming: Indianapolis Opera La Boheme, Indiana University Romeo et Juluette, new productions of Don Quichotte for Tulsa Opera and Porgy and Bess for University of Kentucky.

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Steven Horak, Makeup and Wig Designer, has been on the Makeup Department Staff of the Metropolitan Opera for fourteen seasons, following twelve seasons as a wigmaker and makeup artist at the San Francisco Opera. Prior to joining the Met, his many years as a journeyman included seasons as Wig and Makeup Designer for Michigan Opera Theater, Chicago Opera Theatre, the Lake George Opera Festival, and as a wig and makeup artist for the opera companies of Philadelphia, Miami, and St. Louis. He is currently also principal wig designer and constructor for Studio E.I.S., a Brooklyn-based company which furnishes realistic human figures to museums across North America. These include the new Education Center at the Mount Vernon Estate in Virginia which features forensically age-regressed figures of George Washington.

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Molly Johnson, soprano, is Associate Professor of Voice and Director of Opera and Music Theatre at The University of Texas at Tyler.  Performing credits include roles with Opera East Texas, Baton Rouge Opera, Asheville (NC) Lyric Opera, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, Music Theatre of Wichita and Nebraska Theatre Caravan in addition to frequent concert, recital, and oratorio appearances. Directing credits include Rodger & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, The Old Maid and the Thief, Hänsel und Gretel, Howland & Dickstein’s Little Women, and Godspell. Together, she and her husband maintain an active private voice studio and have released two recordings of sacred solo and duet music. She holds the BM degree from Oklahoma City University and the MM and DMA degrees from Louisiana State University. 
 

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Joan Krueger was named “2004 Coach of the Year” by Classical Singer magazine. She has accompanied Cecilia Bartoli, Sumi Jo, and Vinson Cole at New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, was seen with Carol Vaness on A&E’s Breakfast With The Arts, has performed collaborative recitals in Avery Fisher Hall, The Met Museum of Art, The United Nations, and many other venues across the U.S. She was an Assistant Conductor for the Sarasota Opera, Music Director for NYU’s Opera Workshop, and a coach for Intermezzo Opera Festival. Currently, she is on the faculty of SUNY Purchase and the Westchester Summer Vocal Institute. She is the pianist for the Jensen and the Chester. Ludgin Verdi Baritone competitions and was a judge for the Classical Singer vocal competition. She maintains an active coaching studio in NY.

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Shayna Leahy has been selected as the recipient of the David Farrar Internship for Assistant Stage Direction. She recently served as assistant director for the Wichita Grand Opera’s production of Pirates of Penzance. She has directed Hansel and Gretel for Opera Kansas, and works as both music director and stage director for the Hiawatha Area Arts and Theatre Society and Theater Atchison in NE Kansas. Ms. Leahy is the Director of Vocal Music & Theory at Highland Community College, where she leads an innovative opera education program in collaboration with the Wichita Grand Opera, which allows undergraduate students to perform with the chorus in a professional production each season. She received a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Nebraska-Omaha and a Master of Music in Opera Performance from Wichita State University. Future engagements include a return to the Wichita Grand Opera as a stage director during the 2008-2009 season.

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Brad Lemons (Fight Director) Metropolitan Opera House: Carmen, Otello, Wozzeck, Simon Boccanegra, Forza del Destino; Connecticut Opera Company: Carmen; Prelude to Performance: Les Contes D’Hoffman, Don Giovani; Broadway: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (assistant to B.H. Barry); Off-Broadway: Evil Dead: The Musical, A Stone Carver; New York City Theatre: Romeo & Juliet, The Wild Party, Laundry & Bourbon/ LoneStar, Macbeth, Zastrozzi, Rashomon, Payment, Electra Votes, looking4sex, Richard III, Samuel the Fourth, Seeking Eden, Agrippina, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Once Upon a Mattress, Random Violence, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Witch of Edmonton. Regionally: Othello, American Buffalo, Murder in the Cathedral, Klonsky and Schwartz, Tilt Angel, Ten Percent of Molly Snyder, Old Clown Wanted, Lemonade, A Real Cowboy, As Bees in Honey Drown, Hamlet. Film: Elevator Music, Bust, Sandwich, Paralysis. TV: All My Children, Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He has taught at Cornell University, The Martina Arroyo Foundation, HB Studios, Southern Connecticut State University, the New York Film Academy, and is currently teaching “Broadway Classroom: Behind the Scenes Broadway” and at Circle in the Square Theatre School.

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Lydia R Popper – Born in Vienna, Austria. Acquired doctorate in European Law. She has translated libretti and acted as German diction coach on several early Richard Strauss operas for Opera Orchestra of New York and later fulfilled the same functions for New York City Opera under Beverly Sills and Christopher Keene. Her work there included an all-new German production of Die Zauberflöte, which was telecast on PBS, Die Tote Stadt, and the first staged New York productions of Moses und Aron and Die Soldaten. In addition to some private coaching, together with Neal Goren, the director and conductor of Gotham Chamber Opera, she also conducted some courses at Mannes College of Music on the interrelationship between European cultures and certain specific periods of music, as well as their significance in the interpretation of song and opera.

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Ellen Rievman, Libretto Class, has a performing career spanning nearly three decades. For 24 years, as a member of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, she performed in over 100 productions alongside some of our generation's greatest opera stars. Since leaving the Met in 1995, she has worked with singers to coach the drama, explore the text, and incorporate these skills with gesture, movement, stagecraft, and physical eloquence. She is a Senior Associate at The TAI Group working with business clients internationally, is a core consultant of New Triad for the Collaborative Arts, and is on faculty of Martina Arroyo’s summer workshop, Prelude to Performance. She has been featured in interviews in Classical Singer Magazine and Opera News, and in 2006 and 2008, she presented Master Classes for the Classical Singer Conventions. A partial list of her accomplishments includes teaching Master Classes and directing for Apprentice Artists of the Santa Fe Opera, Sarasota Opera, National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) National and Regional Conventions, Metropolitan Opera Guild, Manhattan School of Music, the Juilliard School, Mannes College of Music, UNC, Greensboro, and New York Singing Teachers' Association (NYSTA) National Symposium. As a director, she has staged scenes, directed cabaret acts, produced and directed opera evenings of contemporary composers, directed concerts and recitals. She has been on the Prelude faculty since it’s inception, and during Prelude 2007, she directed Cosi’ Fan Tutte.

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Sergio Stefani was born in Bologna, Italy and grew up in Rome, where he studied Liberal Arts at Liceo “Pilo Albertelli” and Law at the University of Rome, before coming to the United States. About twenty years ago, he devised a unique approach for teaching his native language - the opportunity of learning at one’s own pace - a teaching program that must be the student’s learning program - individual lessons to cover grammar or special individual needs - conversation classes to hone one’s skills - diction and role interpretation to opera singers. Sergio has enjoyed being a supernumerary at the Metropolitan Opera and he is proud to have had, among his students, some members of that company. Today, his activity is concentrated on special programs.

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(La Boheme) With a career that ranges from symphony to opera, Broadway to chamber music, Maestro Gerald Steichen has established himself as one of America’s most versatile young conductors. He currently holds the positions of Music Director/Conductor of the Ridgefield Symphony (Connecticut), Principal Pops Conductor of the Utah Symphony, and Associate Conductor of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held for eleven seasons. Steichen is a frequent guest conductor for the Boston Pops Orchestra and the New Jersey Symphony, and has appeared with the symphonies of Columbus, Oklahoma City, Eastern Connecticut, Hartford, Wheeling, Memphis, and the New York Pops. International appearances include the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo City Symphony, the NDR Philharmonie Hannover at the Braunschweig Festival, and the Norwegian Radio Symphony.

Steichen made his Lincoln Center debut with New York City Opera conducting performances of La boheme, followed by Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince and Jonathan Miller’s production of The Mikado. Also for NYCO he conducted L’elisir d’amore, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, and The Pirates of Penzance. Mr. Steichen has led performances of The Mikado at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, served as an on-stage pianist for NYCO’s acclaimed productions of Porgy and Bess and Carmina Burana, and performed at the harpsichord for Stephen Wadsworth’s production of Xerxes and Mark Morris’ Platee. Mr. Steichen has also conducted readings of new American operas as part of City Opera’s VOX: American Composer’s Showcase, serving last season as the Associate Musical Supervisor for the entire series. In 2007, he led the New York City Opera Orchestra and soloists in a live WQXR broadcast of Wall to Wall Opera from New York’s Symphony Space.

 
For the Utah Symphony & Opera, Steichen has conducted classics and pops concerts, numerous performances at the Deer Valley Music Festival, and productions of La cenerentola, Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, The Gondoliers and HMS Pinafore. He also serves as Principal Guest Conductor of the Anchorage Opera, having led performances of Don Giovanni, Die Fledermaus, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Il trovatore and Le nozze di Figaro. He has conducted Giulio Cesare, Les contes d’Hoffmann, La cenerentola, Naughty Marietta, The Magic Flute and Il barbiere di Siviglia for the Utah Festival Opera. For New Jersey Opera Theatre, he led a concert version of Verdi’s masterpiece Falstaff. He debuted with the Glimmerglass Opera Company in Cooperstown, New York, conducting a new production of Offenbach’s Bluebeard; and serves as the Artistic Director of Opera East Texas, having conducted performances of Tosca, Carmen, Madama Butterfly, The Pirates of Penzance and this season’s La boheme.

 
Mr. Steichen serves as the Associate Conductor of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, conducting Classics concerts, the Pops series, Young People’s Concerts, and their summer Parks Concert series. A passionate educator and advocate for the arts, he leads the NHSO in a series of KinderKonzerts, introducing the instruments of the orchestra to young people. He has conducted the Purchase Symphony Orchestra in performances of The Nutcracker and in a Classics concert. Also at the Purchase PAC, he served as the Chorus Master for the six seasons of their Choral Masterworks series, led by Jane Glover. For Lincoln Center, he continues to perform in the "Meet the Artist” series as conductor, clinician, and pianist. Steichen has worked with students at universities throughout the United States, including the Brevard Music Center, and the opera program at Yale University.

No stranger to the stage, Mr. Steichen played the role of “Manny, the Accompanist” in Terrence McNally’s Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Master Class, starring Dixie Carter as Maria Callas. He conducted the world premiere of A Tale of Two Cities at the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida; and led performances of Lenny Picket’s Beowulf at the Irish Rep in New York. As associate conductor, he toured nationally with The Phantom of the Opera, Lucy Simon’s The Secret Garden, and with Cathy Rigby in Peter Pan. He has conducted Barnum for Music Theatre of Wichita, Kansas, and the world premiere of Tom Sawyer for Music Theatre Works in New York City. He spent two years conducting CATS, leading the final public performance of that show.

Originally from Tonkawa, Oklahoma, Maestro Steichen holds degrees from Northern Oklahoma College, Oklahoma City University and the University of Southern California. He currently resides in New York City.

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Rosemary Taveras is a senior at Brooklyn College studying Psychology, English, and Puerto Rican Latino Studies. She has joined the Prelude to Performance team as an intern from the Jeanette K. Watson Fellowship. This is her first year working with a performance company she is excited and thankful to the Martina Arroyo Foundation for this experience.

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Maestro Willie Anthony Waters, (Die Fledermaus) Music Director, is formerly Artistic Director of Connecticut Opera, and Artistic Director of Houston Ebony Opera. He has conducted numerous productions for Connecticut Opera including Aida, Otello and Porgy and Bess. He is also a regular guest of the opera companies in North America, Europe, and Africa, including notable recent appearances with the Australian Opera, Arizona Opera (Aida, La Fanciulla del West), Boston Lyric Opera (gala concert), Capetown, South Africa (Porgy and Bess), Chautauqua Opera (The Daughter of the Regiment), Cincinnati Opera (Carmen), Cologne(Germany) Opera, Dayton Opera (Carmen), Edmonton Opera (Nabucco), Fort Worth Opera (Turandot), Kentucky Opera (Salome), Manitoba Opera (Nabucco), Michigan Opera, Montreal Opera (La Gioconda, Aida and Tosca), Opera Memphis (Rigoletto and La Traviata), Opera Carolina (Der Fliegende Holländer), Opera Colorado (Porgy and Bess), Opera de Quebec (Carmen), Orlando Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor, Falstaff, Cosi fan tutte, Don Giovanni), San Diego Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor), San Francisco Opera, Vancouver Opera (La Traviata), and the Florida Grand Opera (La Gioconda, Suor Angelica and I Pagliacci). In 2002 he debuted at NYCOpera conducting Rigoletto, and returned in 2003 for Floyd’s Of Mice and Men. He has conducted recordings with opera greats Simon Estes and Shirley Verrett, and two gala concerts with renowned mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves and conducted concerts for many of opera's notable artists.. In 2005, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hartford. He is a frequent guest panelist on the quiz of the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. In July, 2008, he made his debut at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, conducting the Cape Town Opera production of Porgy and Bess.

On the concert stage, he has conducted the Brucknerhaus Orchestra(Linz, Austria), Detroit Symphony, Essen(Germany) Philharmonic, Florida Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, at the Spoleto Festival, Southwest German Radio Orchestra, and Tallahassee Symphony.

He was formerly Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Greater Miami Opera for seven seasons. During his tenure, he led a number of noteworthy productions, including Salome, Manon Lescaut, Die Walküre, Macbeth, Aida, Of Mice and Men, Falsfaff, Bianca e Falliero, Cristoforo Coolmbo, La Gioconda, Turandot, Tosca, Carmen, Trouble in Tahiti, and Lucia di Lammermoor.

He conducted a gala concert for the Boston Lyric Opera, Cosi fan tutte for the Connecticut Opera and Turandot for the Michigan Opera.

Mr. Waters is a native of Miami and graduate of the University of Miami. Following that, he served as Artistic Administrator of the San Francisco Opera under Kurt Herbert Adler. In 1991, he was the recipient of the "prix de Martell," in honor of his contributions to the community.

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