CLAUDETTE PETERSON'S

OPERAFEST

 July 4 - July 18, 2010

Students from both On-Island and Off-Island audition for places in the two-week opera intensive which  culminates in a fully costumed, staged, professional performance.

Directed by Claudette Peterson and David Kline 

The Claudette Peterson Vocal Studio's OperaFest is an intensive opera training program for exceptional young singers from both on and off the island held at the Vineyard Arts Project's compound in Edgartown,  MA.  The program, directed by former New York City Opera soloist Claudette Peterson and her husband, Columbia Artists bass-baritone David Kline, provides an opportunity for young singers to study all aspects of opera performance.  Faculty includes renowned vocal coaches Katherine Olsen and Ronald F. Land, and opera singers Ben Heppner, Renata Scotto, Gary Lakes, Cheryl Studer and Marcello Giordani, among many others. 

OperaFest offers vocal coaching, master classes in all aspects of opera performance from diction to structure and musical phrasing, acting and role preparation, to stage movement and makeup.  Students will prepare and rehearse  arias and scenes from both classic opera and Broadway. 

OperaFest is presented by The Oradell Arts and Business Coalition, a not-for-profit arts organization located in New Jersey, in association with The Vineyard Playhouse and The Claudette Peterson Vocal Studio.

DIRECTOR BIOS

Claudette Peterson (Artistic Director) has been a leading soprano at New York City Opera, singing roles ranging from the title roles in Massanet's Manon and Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen to Sophie in Werther and Cunegonde in Candide. She appeared on PBS's Live >From Lincoln Center broadcast of Puccini's La Rondine and the Gala of Stars singing Cunegonde's aria Glitter and Be Gay conducted by James Levine. Miss Peterson was also featured on PBS's broadcast of The Kennedy Center Honors, which honored Beverly Sills. Miss Peterson also created and recorded the role of Fan in Thea Musgrave's A Christmas Carol for MMG Records. In America, she has with major opera companies including San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Opera Company of Boston, and Washington Opera. Internationally, she received rave reviews in Geneva, Switzerland in Offenbach's Barbe Bleu, and in Nice, France as the title role in Lehar's The Merry Widow. A superb musical artist, she has collaborated with maestros Julius Rudel, Michael Tilson Thomas, Jose Serebrier, and James Levine. 

David Kline (Executive Producer), Bass Baritone is a veteran of over 1,000 professional performances ranging from leading roles in 67 operas to soloist in Beethoven's 9th Symphony with Robert Shaw. His opera repertory covers the gamut from seven world premieres to Mozart's Figaro and Leporello, with a special love for the comic basso buffo classics like Don Pasquale, Dr. Dulcamara, and Rossini's Dr. Bartolo. He has sung leading roles with the Hawaii Opera Theater, San Francisco Opera's Western Opera Theater, Seattle Opera, Fort Worth Opera Association, the Dallas Grand Opera, Virginia Opera Theater, Michigan Opera Theater, Des Moines Metro Opera, Arizona Opera, the Lake George Opera Festival and the opera companies of Orlando, Columbus, Indianapolis, Syracuse and at Duke University. A consummate musician, Mr. Kline has worked with classical composers from Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Gian-Carlo Menotti to Tom Pasatieri and Robert Ward, to Broadway's Charles Strauss creating the role of Tex in Singers and the title role in Gary William Friedman's Mordecai. Orchestra concerts include soloist with orchestras in New York, Missouri, Michigan, Indiana and North Carolina. Starting out on the right foot as an undergraduate at Westminster Choir College, he sang with the famous Westminster Choir under Leopold Stokowski, Eugene Ormandy, Pierre Boulez, and William Steinberg, went twice to the Spoleto, Italy Festival, and toured with Roger Wagner. He won a full scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music for his Master's degree, where he was awarded the John Brownlee prize for outstanding singing actor.