Rising Metropolitan Opera stars will perform for MMF

MANCHESTER — Manchester Music Festival’s final concert of the 2009 summer series will feature four young singers who are either Lindemann Young Artists or Metropolitan National Council Winners on Thursday, Aug. 20 at 7:30 p.m.

The Met’s Lindemann Program, founded in 1980, uses the Met’s unique resources to identify the most gifted American singers and educate them in music, language and dramatic technique. The Met offers its participants full-time positions in the program for one to three years and the opportunity to perform on its famous stage as well as with opera companies throughout the country. In the MMF annual concert, this year’s soprano will be Sookhyung Park.

Park has already made her mark as “a lyric coloratura soprano whose performances are notable for unusual beauty of voice, extraordinary range, astonishing agility and sincere musical artistry” according to Dean Artists, her manager. She was praised by critics in Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail: “There are many reasons to see this opera, but Park is the biggest one singing with refinement and poise. Her naturalness and spontaneous liveliness on stage” were also noted.

Laura Vlasak Nolen, a Texas native, has also quickly established herself on the operatic scene for her “large and lush mezzo-soprano.” In the Met’s recent season, she sang the role of Waltraute in Die Walkure as well as Inez in Il Trovatore. She also performed in feature roles with the New York City Opera, the Wexford Festival Opera, the Madison Opera and Dallas Symphony Orchestra. This summer, she sang with the Berkshire Choral Festival as soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.Tenor Matthew Plenk made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2007 under the baton of Maestro James Levine in Tristan und Isolde. He joined the Lindemann program in that year and has had an active concert career, singing with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giusseppe Verdi, Hartford Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Connecticut Chamber Orchestra and Yale Symphonica. He was a national winner in the Metropolitan Opera Guild Competition.

Baritone John Moore made his Met debut last season performing the role of Fiorello in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia and this season performs the role of Figaro in the Welsh National Opera’s production. In 2005, Moore was a resident artist with Minnesota Opera where he performed the roles of Sciarrone in Tosca and Masetto in Don Giovanni. He was a multi-year winner in district and regional Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions.

These four will be accompanied by Caren Levine, a member of the Lindemann Development Program since 2002. As a vocal accompanist she was awarded two consecutive fellowships at Tanglewood and has won several awards. Her popular CD, “Flowers from a Secret Admirer,” was released in 2001.

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Arkell Pavillion, Southern Vermont Arts Center. For reserved seat tickets at $38 each, call 362-1956 (if outside Vermont, 1-800-639-5868).

Taken from: The Manchester Journal

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