NEW!
The Cook-Off
by Shawn E. Okpebholo
Libretto by Mark Campbell
Bon Appétit
by Lee Hoiby
MARCH 29, 2025 7PM
MARCH 30, 2025 3PM
Bios Singers (in alphabetical order)
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Carl Rosenthal, tenor, has performed with several professional U.S. regional companies, including Missouri Opera, Massachusetts Opera, Loudoun Lyric Opera, and Franklin Light Opera, as well as performing as a tenor soloist with the Dayton Philharmonic and the Illinois Symphony Orchestra. Carl also spent the 2022-2023 season as an Artist-in-Residence with Dayton Opera, where he sang the role of Nemorino (The Elixir of Love) and King Kaspar (Amahl and the Night Visitors).
Alize Francheska Rozsnyai, Coloratura Soprano and Librettist, was seen last year on the Hub City Opera stage in her hilarious portrayal of Serpina in "La Serva Padrona." She is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music’s Opera Program. Her performance credits include appearing with Beth Morrison Projects in “when icarus fell, was there a splash?”and at New Music on the Point, performing several world premieres She performed as Katherine Hutchinson in The Silk City, Opera Fayetteville, International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Harrogate, England, ENA Ensemble, and the lead role of Zohara in the world premiere of Meira Warshauer’s opera Elijah’s Violin at the Presidio of San Francisco under the baton of Jonathan Khuner and Directed by Yefim Maizel.
Alize’s concert performances include performing at the Annenberg Center, Cape Cod Symphony, Carnegie Hall and The Curtis Institute’s 20/21 Ensemble at the Kennedy Center. Other favorite performances include the arias of Königin der Nacht with Den Nye Oper Orchestra, in Bergen, Norway, the Soprano Solos in Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts, a stylistic fusion of opera and jazz to open Wilmington, Delaware’s Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, and as a guest recitalist in Saigon’s Performance Complex at the Soul Music and Performing Arts Academy in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
As a librettist, Alize was a finalist, along with composer collaborator Roger A. Martinez, for MassOpera’s NOW (New Opera Workshop), and the recipient of the Lolotte Gaucher Fellowship Award at Really Spicy Opera’s Aria Institute where she will continue her studies as librettist in the Spring of 2023. Several of her works including Potentialite, Phony, and her “boundary-pushing” (Broad Street Review) Alcina REVAMPED adaptation have all beenperformed. She recently completed the libretto for Garth Baxter’s A Pregnant Pause, his first chamber opera, and Phony will receive its second performance with Hub City Opera in Spring of 2023.
Tom Sitzler, baritone, has been capturing audiences with his warm, generous voice and convincing stage presence since 2009, when he made his professional debut as the Old Gypsy in Il Trovatore with Union Avenue Opera. Tom joined Hub City Opera and Dance last year as "Son Ami" in Hub City Opera's production of the Le Pauvre Matelot. His most notable roles include Escamillo (Carmen) and Leporello (Don Giovanni) with Boulder Opera, Germont (La Traviata) and Scarpia (Tosca) with Painted Sky Opera, and Prophet (Dark Sisters) with Opera Fayetteville. He has sung the bass solos for Handel’s Messiah, the Verdi Requiem, the Mozart Requiem, the Faure Requiem, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. He also was just recently seen as Golaud (Pelleas et Melisandre) and Karl Baum (Liebovar). Learn more at www.tomsitzler.com
Bios Composer and Musicians
David Matthew Brown, composer, holds music degrees from West Chester University (BM, ‘11) and the University of Delaware (MM, ’13). His compositions have been performed, commissioned, and/or recorded by the New Russia State Symphony Orchestra, Csik Chamber Orchestra (Romania), Vidin Sinfonietta (Bulgaria), International Opera Theater, Network for New Music, LINK Ensemble, 6ixwire Project, and Alter Ego Chamber Opera, of which he was a founding member. Moreover, David is a conductor, tuba player, Celtic strings player (mandolin, mandocello, tenor banjo), and has composed over fifty Celtic jigs, reels, hornpipes, and other dance forms.
Equally active as a violinist, David is the founder of illumine, a violin-voice-piano trio ensemble that champions its unconventional instrumentation, works by living composers, obscure works of history, and performance practice reform. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the Csik Chamber Orchestra–with which he was also guest concertmaster–the Vidin Sinfonietta, and the Newark Symphony.
Benjamin T. Berman, tenor, organist, harpsichordist, and conductor is Music Director of the Presbyterian Church of Bound Brook and of the Highland Park Community Chorus. A variety of pursuits has brought him to play harpsichord with period instrument ensemble La Fiocco; serve on the board as secretary, music director, and founding member of the Hub City Opera and Dance Company; and work as accompanist at his alma mater: for the Rutgers Queens Chorale. Benjamin enjoys an active performing career in the region, performing with Opera Philadelphia, West Jersey Chamber Music Society, Makhelat Hamercaz, Choral Arts Society, and Vocala, and was honored to sing in the Czech Republic in 2018. In recent years, he has conducted the operas Der Mond by Carl Orff, Le pauvre matelot by Darius Milhaud, La serva padrona by Pergolesi, and Goyescas by Enrique Granados, and worked as music director for the innovative virtual programs Un\Rooted and Masks for Hub City Opera. Ben is a member of AGMA, ACDA, NATS, and NYSTA.
Grant funding has been provided by the Middlesex County Board for Chosen Freeholders through a grant award from the Middlesex County Cultural and Arts Trust Fund.
Program funded by Middlesex County, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.