STANDING OVATION!
Thank you to our Artists and Audience for making our 2024 Best of Broadway & Opera concert a wonderful experience and great success. Check back soon for our video of the entire performance as well as photos such as this one featuring our standing ovation!
February 3, 2024, 7 pm
Our 2024 Best of Broadway & Opera concert featured soprano Chelsea Lehnea, tenor Joshua Wheeker, bass-baritone Andrew Allan Hiers, and mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Beteag. With Master of Ceremonies, Ian Campbell. And the Vero Beach Opera Chorus. VBHS Performing Arts Center
What a range! Our 2024 Best of Broadway & Opera concert featured music from Turandot, Westside Story, La Traviata, Sunday in the Park with George, Lucia di Lammermoor, Sweeney Todd, Lakmé, State Fair, I Pagliacci, and more!
Chelsea Lehnea
Soprano
Vero Beach Opera audiences know Chelsea as our Second Prize ($5,000) winner of our 2023 Rising Stars Vocal Competition in March. Hailed by the New York Times for her "mercurially colored, highly responsive instrument that flew seamlessly through its registers," Chelsea is known for her powerful artistry, fearless personality, and unique sense of style. She has performed roles such as Paolina in Poliuto, Musetta in La Bohème, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in opera houses across the country. She stars in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor and will sing Liù in Turandot for St. Pete Opera in 2024. Learn more here.
Andrew Allan Hiers
Bass-Baritone
Vero Beach Opera audiences know Andrew as Il Commendatore in our 2024 production of Don Giovanni, Benoit in our 2022 production of La Bohème, and as 2021 Rising Stars Vocal Competition finalist. He is known for his “mature musicianship and superb comic timing” and possessing a dark, yet vibrant timbre with both an extensive vocal and dramatic range. He is an alumnus of the Merola Opera Program and Opera Colorado’s Resident Artist Program. Role highlights include Don Bartolo and Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Leporello in Don Giovanni, and the title roles in Falstaff, Le nozze di Figaro, Gianni Schicchi, and Don Pasquale. Learn more here.
Joshua Wheeker
Tenor
Vero Beach Opera audiences know Joshua, most recently as our Third Prize ($3,000) winner of our 2023 Rising Stars Vocal Competition in March. Recent roles include Nemorino in Opera Maine’s L'Elisir d'Amore, Don Ottavio in Dayton Opera's Don Giovanni, the Duke of Mantua in Tulsa Opera’s Rigoletto, and Tamino in LA Opera’s Kosky production of Die Zauberflöte. Opera News described his Duke with Tulsa Opera as “showing complete technical mastery” and his Nemorino as "an unfailingly fluid Italianante tenor...producing a bright but warm tone that remained both solid and supple...". He has performed on the MET Opera stage, most recently covering in Lucia di Lammermoor. Learn more here.
Gabrielle Beteag
Mezzo-Soprano
American mezzo Gabrielle Beteag brings a fresh joy and commanding warmth to repertoire spanning baroque to contemporary works. Praised as a “showstopper” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Gabrielle's recent performance in the Merola Grand Finale concert was called “a virtuoso display of rhythmic precision and vocal exuberance.” She was a Grand Finals Winner of the 2020 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (now the Laffont Competition). Endlessly inspired by the challenges inherent in developing new works, Gabrielle counts her role creation of Iras in John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra during SFO’s Centennial Season as a career highlight. Learn more here.
Anna Fateeva
Pianist
Vero Beach Opera audiences know Anna, most recently as pianist in our 2023 Phantom Goes to the Opera concert and our 2023 Rising Stars Vocal Competition. She has performed with distinguished artists such as Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Renée Fleming, Denyce Graves, Vivica Genaux, Nadine Sierra, and Wendy Bryn Harmer, among others. She has collaborated with Florida Grand Opera, Palm Beach Opera, and the Magic City Opera. She is a faculty member for the Miami Music Festival and is frequently engaged as a pianist for the Naples Vocal Academy at Opera Naples, and as a coach and pianist for the FGO Studio Artists. Anna Fateeva holds a Doctor of Musical Arts diploma from the University of Miami, Professional Studies Certificate from the Manhattan School of Music (studio of Warren Jones). Anna is an active member of non-profit organization Young Patronesses of the Opera. This group has been very generous to Vero Beach Opera, and donated the workbooks we currently use in our OPERA IN THE CLASSROOM program.
Ian Campbell
Narrator
Ian Campbell has worked in opera for more than fifty-five years as a singer, stage director, artistic director, broadcaster, lecturer, and company director. He began his career in 1967 in his native Australia as a tenor with Opera Australia, singing a variety of roles through the opening season in the Sydney Opera House, appearing in Der Rosenkavalier, Tannhäuser, Otello, The Rake’s Progress and Un ballo in maschera among many other operas. He moved into administration and stage direction in 1974, but returned to the stage as Ambrogio in The Barber of Seville with Florida Grand Opera in April, 2023.
He has been General Director of The State Opera of South Australia, Assistant Artistic Administrator with the MET Opera, and for thirty years was General Director and Artistic Director of San Diego Opera.
He has given master classes around the USA and Australia including at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, San Diego State University, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and the University of Denver. He chaired the jury for the Metropolitan Opera Auditions at the Sydney Opera House and was a member of the jury for the Marcello Giordani Vocal Competition with Vero Beach Opera.
As a stage director his productions include Falstaff, Katya Kabanova, Tosca, Don Quichotte,
Murder in the Cathedral, La traviata, Il trovatore and La Bohème for San Diego Opera, The
Tales of Hofffmann and La Bohème for the State Opera of South Australia, and Cavalleria
Rusticana and Pagliacci for Opera Santa Barbara. He directed Terrence McNally’s play, Master Class, for Opera Orlando in 2015. He was a member of the faculty for Martina Arroyo’s young artist program, Prelude to Performance, in New York in 2016, 2017 and 2018 directing La Bohème, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi and Falstaff. He directed Aida for Opera Idaho in 2019.
For more than twenty years his weekly radio program, At the Opera with Ian Campbell, was heard in San Diego. In 2003 the San Diego Press Club honored him with both First Place for a Radio Series, and Best in Show for Radio in their annual awards program. The same year he received the Wolfensohn Award from Sydney University Graduates’ Union, North America, for services to the community.
Chorus
Vero Beach Opera Chorus
Daniel Bell, Jon Bell, Marlene Blattman, Rachel Carter-Murphy, Charise Courtney, Sarah Cruz, Annette Godfrey, Susan Grandpierre, Ed Halsey, Joan Howell, Frank Kesterman, Dan Kroger, Toni Lemoine, Eileen Lindsay, Melvyn Lobo, Addison Logemann, David Maclean, Janet Michaud, Stephen Mumbert, Aidan Murray, Michael Rodriguez.
Our New Piano!
Vero Beach Opera debuts our new piano at our Best of Broadway & Opera Concert on February 3. Thanks to a special arrangement with Atlantic Music Center, Vero Beach Opera is now the proud owner of a Yamaha CFX piano which we will use in future productions, concerts and our Rising Stars Vocal Competitions!