Madame Butterfly Artist Biographies Joseph Beutel (the Bonze) Joseph Beutel, bass, joins Minnesota Opera’s Resident Artist program after spending the summer as a Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Artist, where he covered Méphistophélès in Faust and the Catholic Priest in The Last Savage. Previous roles have included the Impresario/Direttore in the young artist production of Viva La Mamma! at Seattle Opera; Benoit and Alcindoro in La bohème for South Texas Lyric Opera; Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte, Mustafà in L’italiana in Algeri, Simone in Gianni Schicchi, Le Roi in Cendrillon and Herr Reich in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor for IU Opera Theatre; and the Sergeant in Pirates of Penzance for Western Michigan University. Mr. Beutel was a district finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2011, won the Sullivan Foundation Career Development Award in November and received the Palm Beach Opera Competition Encouragement Award in 2010 and 2011. For Minnesota Opera this season, he will appear as the British Major in Silent Night, Le Bailli in Werther, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor and the Bonze in Madame Butterfly. This summer he sings Lamoral in Arabella for Santa Fe Opera. Arturo Chacón-Cruz (Pinkerton) – performs April 14, 17, 19, 21 Born in Mexico, in recent seasons lyric tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz has made many important international debuts in theaters including the Berlin State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Cologne Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Teatro San Carlo, Naples, Teatro la Fenice, Venice, Teatro Regio di Turin, Palau de la Reina Sofia in Valencia, Opéra de Montpellier, L’Opéra de Lyon and at the Festival de Radio France in Montpellier. In North America, he has appeared with the Washington Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Florida Grand Opera and many others. Arturo Chacón-Cruz began the 2011–2012 season with his debut in Stockholm as Rodolfo in La bohème. He subsequently debuted at the Teatro alla Scala in the title role of Les contes d’Hoffmann. Other engagements for the season included his return to Moscow in performances of Werther and La bohème at the Stanislavsky Theatre. He then sang the title role in Roméo et Juliette for Palm Beach Opera, Alfredo in La traviata in Mexico City, and will sing Madame Butterfly for the Minnesota Opera as well as his first Idomeneo with the Florentine Opera. In the spring of 2011, Chacón-Cruz sang his first performances of Massenet’s Werther for the Opéra de Lyon in a new production which marked the directorial debut of Rolando Villazon. Highlights of the 2010–2011 season also included Les contes d’Hoffmann for the Aichi Arts Center in Japan and for his debut in Moscow, where he was also heard as Werther. Chacón-Cruz made his Norwegian debut as the Duca in Rigoletto for Den Norske Opera in Oslo, and his Swedish debut at the Malmo Opera in Hoffmann. He also returned to the Opera Royal de la Wallonie for La bohème. During the summer of 2011, he sang Rossini’s Stabat mater at the Festival de Saint-Denis conducted by Myung Whun Chung. A protégé of Ramón Vargas and recipient of the Ramón Vargas Opera Development Scholarship and of the Plácido Domingo Scholarship, Arturo Chacón-Cruz was also a prize winner of Operalia 2005. Chacón- Cruz is a graduate of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, where he appeared in productions of several works including Madame Butterfly, Roméo et Juliette, Manon Lescaut, the world premiere of Lysistrata and Mozart’s Idomeneo. In the fall of 2006, Chacón-Cruz appeared at the Washington Opera as Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly and subsequently made his Italian stage debut as Rodolfo in La bohème at the Teatro Comunale, Bologna. This was followed by appearances as Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. His Spanish debut was in Valencia where he appeared as Christian in Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Plácido Domingo in the title role. Chacón-Cruz sang the title role in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette to his repertoire for Michigan Opera Theatre in the spring of 2007. He then was heard at the Festival de Radio France in Montpellier as Marcello di Bruges in Donizetti’s Il duca d’Alba. Arturo Chacón-Cruz began his 2007–2008 season with a concert of the Verdi Requiem, presented by the Los Angeles Opera and conducted by Plácido Domingo. He subsequently returned to the Washington Opera as Rodolfo in La bohème, a role he also performed for his stage debut with the Los Angeles Opera, with Opera Pacific and for his German operatic debut at the Staatsoper Berlin in February 2008 under Gustavo Dudamel. He made his debut with the Teatro la Fenice in Venice in January 2008 as Ruggero in Puccini’s La rondine. Chacón-Cruz returned to the Michigan Opera Theatre for his first Alfredo in La traviata and appeared with the company in La rondine as well. He then debuted with the Cincinnati Opera in Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas and joined Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony for Verdi’s Requiem at the Festival de Lanaudiere. Arturo Chacón-Cruz began his 2009–2010 season as Rodolfo in La bohème with the Portland Opera and then debuted in this role with the Cologne Opera and subsequently made his debut with the Hamburg State Opera as Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly. He also returned to the Berlin State Opera in La bohème and also appeared as the Duca in Rigoletto with the Opera de La Wallonie, Liege and with the Florentine Opera in Milwaukee. He opened his 2008–2009 season at the Washington Opera in La traviata. He added the title role in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann to his repertoire for his debut at the Teatro Regio in Turin followed by his first Faust for L’Opera de Montpellier. He also made his Austrian stage debut in a new production of La bohème in Graz. Chacon Cruz added the Duca in Rigoletto to his repertoire in Mexico City, where he has also been heard as Lensky in Eugene Onegin. Other engagements included his debut with the Florida Grand Opera in Madame Butterfly and Verdi’s Requiem with the Colorado Symphony. Michael Christie (conductor) – conducts April 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21 Michael Christie becomes the music director of the Minnesota Opera in September 2012 after eight years as the Virginia G. Piper Music Director of the Phoenix Symphony. Whilst leading the Phoenix Symphony he concurrently was music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic from September 2005 to 2010. He served as the first chief conductor of the Queensland Orchestra (Brisbane, Australia) from 2001 to 2004. With his orchestras, he has embarked on a series of ambitious projects focusing on interdisciplinary collaborations with visual artists, dance companies and theater groups, as well as contemporary composers such as Gorecki, Ligeti, Adams, Golijov and Tan Dun. He is also music director of the Colorado Music Festival (Boulder, Colorado), where he has been much praised for his innovative programming and where festival audiences are at an all- time high and growing in each of his 12 seasons in Boulder. His relationship with the Colorado Music Festival was recently extended to the 2016 season. Over his sixteen year career, he has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Hous- ton Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, Oregon Sym- phony, Indianapolis Symphony and the Cincinnati Symphony, among many others. Christie made his New York Philharmonic debut in March 2007, stepping in for an ailing Riccardo Muti. Michael Christie has also established an excellent reputation as an opera conductor, starting with his operatic and ballet performances at the Opernhaus Zürich. That special relationship began in the 1997– 1998 season and continued for many seasons with his highly successful debut conducting performances of Romeo and Juliet and a new production of Hansel and Gretel. Most recently, extraordinary critical response has surrounded his Opera Theatre of St. Louis productions of John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles and John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer and his Minnesota Opera productions of Verdi’s La traviata, Bernard Herrmann’s Wuthering Heights and Kevin Puts’ new opera Silent Night. After Minnesota’s Madame Butterfly, Michael returns to the Opera Theatre of St. Louis to conduct the North American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland. Mr. Christie has also worked at the Wexford Festival Opera conducting the European premiere of Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles. This production, a collaborative effort with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and directed by James Robinson, won the 2010 Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for Best Opera. He conducted the opera again at the Aspen Music Festival in August 2010. Michael Christie earlier worked with the Finnish National Opera, the Queensland Opera (Australia) and in the Netherlands, conducting John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer. Michael Christie first came to international attention in 1995 when he was awarded a special prize for “Outstanding Potential” at the First International Sibelius Conductors’ Competition in Helsinki. Following the competition, he was invited to become an apprentice conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and subsequently worked with Daniel Barenboim in Chicago and at the Berlin State Opera during the 1996–1997 season. Subsequently, he spent much of his time in Europe with engagements including the DSO Berlin, Orchestre National de Lille, Swedish Radio Symphony, Netherlands Radio Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, NDR Hannover Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic. Australia has been a favorite musical destination for Michael.