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Opera Orlando’s The Daughter of the Regiment Headlined by two Hispanic Powerhouse Artists

The regiment is in town and gearing up to take over Steinmetz Hall for Opera Orlando’s final MainStage production this season, Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment. Sung in French with English dialogue and supertitles, this light-hearted, family-friendly opera is equal parts comedy, romance, and vocal fireworks. 

 

The Daughter of the Regiment has come full circle for the Company. We, unfortunately, had to cancel our 2020 production of the work due to the pandemic, but it will now make a fitting and fun end to our 2022-23 Opera Everlasting MainStage series at Dr. Phillips Center,” says Opera Orlando general director Gabriel Preisser. “We are so happy to bring back the cast and creative team to finish what we started, but this time in Steinmetz Hall. This show has everything: exciting music, virtuosic singing, and uproarious hijinx with a real musical theater feel for those Broadway fans out there.”  

 

Taking on the title role of Marie, the “daughter of the regiment,” is internationally recognized Puerto Rican soprano Camille Ortiz, who is quickly establishing herself as a leading operatic artist. In recent seasons she has presented concerts and masterclasses of Latin American art song across the United States, an Ars Lyrica Houston tour of Spanish and Latin American baroque repertoire, and a debut with the Music Before 1800 music series in New York City. She has also performed the role of Pamina in Eugene Opera’s production of The Magic Flute, sung a recital and masterclass at the Puerto Rico Conservatory, and debuted with the Boston Baroque as Oriana in Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula. Ms. Ortiz made her Kennedy Center debut with Opera Lafayette as Elena in their adaptation of Gretry’s Silvain, and she has appeared with the Philhamornia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, the Naples Philharmonic, the Dallas Bach Society, the Orchestra of New 

 

Spain, the Festival of the Aegean in Greece, the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina (John Rutter conducting), and at Carnegie Hall with MidAm International. Ms. Ortiz is also a recording artist appearing in the highly-acclaimed CD recording of Rameau’s Le temple de la gloire with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, conducted by Nicholas McGegan, for which she was named “the stand-out” of the recording by BBC Music Magazine. Her fall 2018 performances with the Philharmonia Baroque of Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate, Coronation Mass in C major, and Litaniae Lauretanae have also been broadcast on San Francisco’s KDFC classical music radio.

 

Singing Tonio opposite Ms. Ortiz’s Marie will be 2018 Metropolitan Opera National Council audition winner, tenor Carlos Enrique Santelli. This role will prove to be quite the homecoming for the Venezuelan tenor who was born and raised in Orlando. After graduating from Freedom High School, Mr. Santelli received his bachelor of music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and his master of music from the University of Michigan, where he had the distinction of holding a Jessye Norman graduate fellowship. He is a graduate of Los Angeles Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein young artist program, where he covered Nadir in The Pearl Fishers, and in recent seasons he has sung the roles of Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Finger Lakes Opera, Lorenzo in William Bolcom and Mark Campbell’s Lucrezia with Opera Louisian, Valcour in the rarely seen The Anonymous Lover with Minnesota Opera, and the role of Pong in Turandot and Tybalt in Romeo et Juliette for Houston Grand Opera. He has most recently reprised the role of Tybalt with Opera San Antonio and Almaviva with San Diego Opera. Mr. Santelli also spends a considerable amount of time on the concert stage, regularly performing with his wife and fellow Metropolitan Opera National Council audition winner, mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon.

 

Rounding out the cast will be Metropolitan Opera bass-baritone Peter Strummer, last seen in the title role of Opera Orlando’s 2016 production of Don Pasquale, in the buffo role of Sergeant Sulpice, with mezzo-soprano Jenni Bank making her Company debut in the role of the Marquise de Berkenfield. The production, featuring the Opera Orlando Chorus, is another wonderful partnership with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and dancers from the Orlando Ballet

 

Full production details here: The Daughter of the Regiment

 

THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT  |  music by Gaetano Donizetti

libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard

sung in French with English dialogue and supertitles (translated text projected above the stage)

 

FRIDAY  |  April 21, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.

SUNDAY  |  April 23, 2023 at 2 p.m.

 

Tickets start at just $19 through the Dr. Phillips Center’s Bill & Mary Darden Box Office (445 S. Magnolia Avenue, Orlando), online at www.DrPhillipsCenter.org, or by calling (407) 839-0119, ext. 0.

 

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About Opera Orlando:     Celebrating, expanding, and sharing the world’s greatest art form,  the 2022-23 season marks Opera Orlando’s seventh season producing high-quality operatic entertainment and educational programs that engage Central Florida audiences.

 

Stay up to date with Opera Orlando’s season online at www.OperaOrlando.org, and follow and like the Opera’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts to share in all the Company has planned for 2022-23.

 

See YOU at the Opera!

 

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