Planning for the new schedule of performances and how they will be delivered are still in the works and will be announced in the next several weeks. While the goal is to perform live, The Atlanta Opera has also created a digital media department to speed up development and distribution of artistic content. The Company Players are instrumental to this effort.
In addition, the company has convened a Health & Safety Task Force, comprised of epidemiologists, public health specialists, doctors and attorneys to advise the company on protecting the health of cast, musicians and crew members as well as audiences while attempting a new season of programming during a pandemic.
In creating The Atlanta Opera Company Players, the company was inspired by Shakespeare’s theater troupe, The Kings Men, which operated at a time when plague regularly shuttered London’s theaters, as well as the modern, critically acclaimed Steppenwolf Theater Ensemble in Chicago.
“We have been dreaming of creating a European style “fest model,” and this is the right time for it,” Zvulun said. “The list of world class talent residing in Atlanta and the southeast goes well beyond these magnificent twelve, and we only wish we could have included them all. Together we plan to present a season full of fantastic collaborations, a sense of community pride and the potential for artistic fireworks.”
In what is believed to be a groundbreaking arrangement in opera, the singers will receive salary and benefits from the company. In return, the singers will commit to performing the season and to serving as mentors and coaches to the six members of the company’s Studio Artists program.
Members of the Atlanta Opera Company Players include:
Soprano Jasmine Habersham is known to The Atlanta Opera audiences for her performances in The Pirates of Penzance and Jake Heggie’s Out of Darkness: Two Remain. Her numerous other credits include the Glimmerglass Festival, Cincinnati Opera, Kentucky Opera, Minnesota Opera and Utah Opera, where she was recently hailed as a “cast standout” (Opera News) as Pip in Moby Dick.
Grammy-nominated soprano Talise Trevigne made her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut last fall, before reprising her star turn as the female lead in The Atlanta Opera’s spring staging of Porgy and Bess. Besides creating key roles in the world premieres of Moby Dick, JFK, Proving Up, It’s A Wonderful Life and Castor and Patience, she has headlined productions on both sides of the Atlantic, proving herself “a Butterfly worthy of mention alongside Maria Callas” (Voix des Arts).
Superstar mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, whose honors include the Beverly Sills Artist Award, Richard Tucker Award, first prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and 2020 Personality of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards, is “an artist whose time truly has come” (Opera magazine). A Georgia native, last season she made her role debut as Sister Helen Prejean in The Atlanta Opera’s celebrated Southeast premiere of Dead Man Walking.
With “a voice like polished onyx: strong, dark, deep and gleaming” (Opera News), mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack has created leading roles in the world premieres of Elizabeth Cree and JFK. She has appeared at houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as well as collaborating with orchestras including the Chicago and Boston Symphonies and the New York Philharmonic.
American-Italian mezzo-soprano Megan Marino is a “gifted actress with a strong, appealing voice graced by a rich lower register” (Opera News). Her recent credits include the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Opéra National de Paris and the Atlanta Opera, where she made her company debut as Olga in Eugene Onegin.
“One of the most naturalistic actors among opera singers,” tenor Alek Shrader “is distinguished by a simultaneous lyricism and verve” (Opera News). He has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Bavarian State Opera and Salzburg and Glyndebourne festivals. Besides collaborating with the Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, he has been presented in recital by Carnegie Hall, San Francisco Performances and London’s Wigmore Hall.
Known for his “attractive lyric tenor” and “vivid presence” (Opera Today), since winning the 2017 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, tenor and Georgia native Richard Trey Smagur has graced the stages of Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera and Wolf Trap Opera, as well as collaborating with orchestras including the National, Houston and Dallas Symphonies.
Baritone Michael Mayes, for whom “the word powerful cannot be overused” (Huffington Post), is a firm Atlanta favorite. He headlined the company’s recent hit productions of Sweeney Todd and Dead Man Walking, in which his definitive portrait of de Rocher has also wowed audiences from Washington DC to London and Madrid.
Baritone and Atlanta native Reginald Smith has “one of the most exciting baritone sounds to come along in years” (Opera News). A Grand Finals winner of the 2015 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, he launched the present season with his Metropolitan Opera debut as Jim in Porgy and Bess, before singing Jake in the Atlanta Opera production of the same opera.
Bass-baritone Ryan McKinny is “one of the finest singers of his generation” (Opera News) and has become known for his “powerful presence” (The Independent) in roles such as Joseph De Rocher in Dead Man Walking and Jochanaan in Salome. He has appeared at top houses on both sides of the Atlantic, including Metropolitan Opera, Bayreuth Festival, Dutch National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Washington National Opera.
Bass Kevin Burdette has performed for Atlanta audiences in Dead Man Walking, The Pirates of Penzance, and Abduction from the Seraglio. Dubbed “the Robin Williams of opera” (New York Times), he serves on the faculty of The Atlanta Opera Studio, the company’s first young artist program, and may be heard on the Metropolitan Opera’s Grammy- and Diapason d’Or-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording of The Tempest.
Atlanta native Morris Robinson boasts a bass “so deep and assured it’s as if a vibration goes through the audience every time he opens his mouth” (Globe and Mail, Canada). In The Atlanta Opera’s staging of Porgy and Bess, he sang the male lead, which was previously the vehicle for his acclaimed debut at La Scala. He also recently starred at the Metropolitan Opera in The Magic Flute. Robinson made his Atlanta Opera debut in 2010’s Aida, and has also been seen in 2015’s Rigoletto.
Barton, Burdette, Mayes and Robinson already have a formal relationship with The Atlanta Opera as the members of the company’s Artistic Advisory Council.
