Werther Artist Biographies
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Werther Artist Biographies Joseph Beutel (Le Bailli) 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 ofViva 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 PenzanceWestern Michigan University. Mr. Beutel is a district finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2011 and a Palm Beach Opera Competition Encouragement Award recipient 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. Christoph Campestrini (conductor) Conductor Christoph Campestrini resides in Vienna and received his musical education in the United States. He studied in New York City at the Juilliard School while simultaneously majoring in philosophy and languages at Columbia University. In addition to German and English, he speaks Italian, French, Russian and Spanish. Following his studies at Juilliard and Columbia, he was the only European chosen to be admitted to the founding class of the prestigious Yale University Affiliate Artists Conducting Program. While at Yale, he worked with prominent conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Kurt Sanderling. After his return to Europe he started an active international career, conducting more than 80 Symphony Orchestras on all 5 continents. Among them are the London Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Cologne Radio Symphony, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Moscow Radio Symphony, Prague Radio Symphony, Prague Philharmonia, Vienna Radio Symphony, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Orchestre Lamoureux Paris, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Queensland Philharmonic, Israel Sinfonietta and many others. He has worked with such soloists as Gidon Kremer, Julian Rachlin, Rudolf Buchbinder, Sharon Kam, Julia Fischer and Emmanuel Pahud. Equally in demand as an accomplished opera conductor, Campestrini has served as principal conductor at the prestigious Essen Aalto Musiktheater and the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra, where he conducted more than 15 different operas in over 100 performances. Other opera credits include the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf (Die Zauberflöte), Opera Lyra Ottawa (Le nozze di Figaro), Austin Lyric Opera (Don Giovanni), and Carinthian Summer Festival, Cremona Opera, National Opera of Vietnam, Zagreb National Opera and the Hong Kong Opera Academy. Season 2011–2012 brings a Beethoven Gala with the Indianapolis Symphony and Lang Lang as soloist, his debut with the Rochester Philharmonic, and a production of Massenet’s Werther in the pit of the Minnesota Opera. Among last season’s North American highlights figured engagements with the Vancouver Symphony, Toledo Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, and Quebec Symphony, in addition to an appearance at the Round Top Festival. He also appeared for a New Year’s concert at the Teatro Regio in Torino, and led the Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal and the Nürnberg Symphony as well as L'Orchestre philharmonique Royal de Liège at Vienna’s Musikverein and the opening concert of the Carinthian Summer Festival. During the 2009–2010 season he returned to the Sakai City Opera with Massenet's Cendrillon, debuted with the Indianapolis Symphony, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Navarra (Spain), the Hungarian Radio Symphony Budapest and returned for re-engagements with orchestras such as Calgary Philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic and Brno Philharmonic. He also made a return to Yale Opera with Le nozze di Figaro. The conductor’s 2008–2009 season debuts included Opera Lyra Ottawa in performances of Le nozze di Figaro with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in the pit, as well as Sakai City Opera in Osaka, Japan with a performance of Rusalka. The National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan was another debut. Additionally, he was re- engaged to the San Antonio, Toledo and Oregon symphonies, the latter in a subscription series. The 2007–2008 season was perhaps one of Campestrini’s most important seasons yet. Major debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Florida Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Huntsville Symphony, the Texas Music Festival, The International Festival-Institute at Round-Top and the Seoul Philharmonic figured alongside re-engagements with the Colorado Symphony and Santa Rosa Symphony. In Europe, he maintains a permanent relationship with the Czech State Philharmonic Brno, which he conducts in several programs each season as well as on tour. In addition, he works with orchestras such as the Camerata Salzburg, Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the Slovak Philharmonic. Roxana Constantinescu (Charlotte) Roxana Constantinescu had already enjoyed several earlier competition successes in Belgium-Concours de Chant Verviers, Italy- Competizione Tito Schipa, Romania-Ionel Perlea and Mihail Jora Competitions or Germany-Paul and Helga Hohen Competition, but it was as the winner of the prestigious ARD Music Competition-Munich in September 2006 that her international career was launched. Ms Constantinescu subsequently joined the Ensemble at Vienna State Opera in the 2007–2008 season making her house debut as Cherubino–Le nozze di Figaro, conducted by Seiji Ozawa. In Vienna, where Roxana remained in the Ensemble through the end of the 2009–2010 season, further roles and experience to date have included Zerlina in Don Giovanni; Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia; Siébel in Faust; Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette; Lola in Cavalleria rusticana; Nicklausse in Les contes d’Hoffmann; Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos and Fjodor in Boris Godunov, among others. The 2010–2011 season’s highlights include the debut as Donna Elvira in a new production of Don Giovanni at the Vienna State Opera, the title role in La Cenerentola in a new staging at the Minnesota Opera, a company debut with the Dallas Opera and new productions of Oberon and Così fan tutte at Theatre du Capitole in Toulouse. This season features Miss Constantinescu’s debut with the Los Angeles Opera as Despina in Così fan tutte, her first appearance at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, a new production of Werther with Minnesota Opera, a new staging of Les contes d’Hoffmann as Nicklausse at Theater an der Wien and a tour in South America. After her prize-winning success in Italy, Miss Constantinescu was invited to make her debut as Angelina in La Cenerentola at the Teatro Politeama di Lecce and went on to appear as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia at Austria’s Tirol Festival. It was also as Rosina that Roxana enjoyed great acclaim in Cologne when she took over the opening night at short notice in September 2007. Other operatic appearances to date have included Ramiro in La finta giardiniera and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Munich’s Prinzregententheater; Conception in L’heure espagnole at Italy’s Teatro Diego Fabbri; Holofernes in Juditha Triumphans at Munich’s House of Art and Prince Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus at both Bucharest’s State Opera and Essen’s Philharmonie. As a concert singer, Roxana Constantinescu is in high demand and had recently her concert debut at Carnegie Hall and Chicago’s Symphony Hall singing Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez. The subsequent compact disc recording was nominated for a Grammy awards. Roxana enjoys an ongoing relationship with Helmuth Rilling and has performed with him around the world in music by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn, and also presented the world premiere of Messiah by Sven David Sandström at the Oregon Bach Festival. Other conductors with whom Roxana Constantinescu has enjoyed collaborations include Gerd Albrecht, Marco Armiliato, Bertrand de Billy, Paolo Carignani, Dan Ettinger, Adam Fischer, Manfred Honeck, Graeme Jenkins, Sir Neville Marriner, Kirill Petrenko, Christoph Poppen, Yannik Nézet-Séguin, Peter Schneider, Marco Zambelli, Sebastian Weigle and Franz Welser-Möst. Also an avid recitalist Roxana Constantinescu has performed in Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Bucharest, Frankfurt, Munich and Washington as well as extensively in the Far East. Even at this early stage in her career, Roxana Constantinescu has already participated in numerous recordings for Haenssler Classic, OEHMS Classics, SWR, CSO-Resound, Artmode Records, Weltbild and Carus Verlag. Born in Bucharest, Roxana Constantinescu first studied percussion and piano at the George Enescu Music Academy, continuing with voice at the National University of Music. In 2003, she was awarded an Erasmus Scholarship to attend Vienna’s prestigious University of Music and Fine Arts, and a DAAD scholarship enabled her to attend postgraduate studies at the University of Music and Theater in Munich with Edith Wiens. Jessica Jahn (costume designer) Jessica Jahn danced professionally in New York City before beginning a career in design. She has had the opportunity to work on various projects with directors such as Tina Landau, Kevin Newbury, Robert O’Hara and Carl Andress, artist Michael Counts, as well as writers Eisa Davis, Norah Ephron and Charles Busch. New York: Monodramas at New York City Opera; Love, Loss and What I Wore at the Westside Theatre; Die Mommie Die! at New World Stages (winner of the Lucille Lortel Award). Regional: In the Red and Brown Water at the Alliance Theatre, La Cenerentola at Glimmerglass Opera; Il trovatore, Roberto Devereux and Maria Stuarda at Minnesota Opera; Life Is A Dream (world premiere) at Santa Fe Opera; and Die Leibe der Danae at Bard Summerscape. Upcoming: Maria Stuarda at Houston Grand Opera, La bohème at Central City Opera and Anna Bolena at Minnesota Opera.