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The St. Petersburg Opera Company

The St. Petersburg Opera Company

Masterclass Rehearsals

Mark Sforzini, artistic director, and Emerging Artists in rehearsal.The St. Petersburg Opera Company invites you to listen in and enjoy their Masterclass Rehearsals at The Studio@620.  They’ll present portions of  “Daisy”, a new opera by Mark Sforzini loosely inspired by “The Great Gatsby”,  Master classes with Joseph and Violette Meyers, plus Don Giovanni rehearsals as part of the St. Petersburg Opera Company’s Emerging Artists program.

Joseph K. Meyers is a graduate of the Vienna Academy and holds the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He has studied with Lotte Lehmann, Dr. Erik Werba, and Elisabeth Rado, and he has sung at the Vienna Kammeroper and at opera houses in Bonn, Salzburg, Duesseldorf, and Berne, as well as in concert and oratorio in Vienna, Linz, Graz, Innsbruck, Milan, Florence, Trieste, Turin, and Palermo. In 1983-84 he was guest professor of the Munich Musikhochschule where he taught the Lieder class of Dr. Erik Werba. He was Head of Solo Voice at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne from 1974 until his retirement in 1995. He was named outstanding teacher of the year in 1993.

Violette Vernaud Meyers is a graduate of the Geneva Conservatory, where she studied with Maestro Fernando Carpi, and of the Vienna Academy, where she studied with Dr. Erik Werba and Elisabeth Rado. She was a prize winner in the Geneva International Singing Competition and has performed in concert and on the radio in cities such as Geneva, Lausanne, Berne, Brussels, Liege, Paris, Vienna, and Linz. She has sung under the baton of Zubin Mehta in Vienna, Rome, and Milan. She was a professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne from 1974 until her retirement in 1995. In April 1996 she was engaged to be the French coach for Cecilia Bartoli's first French CD (Chant d 'Amour) for the Decca-London Recording Company in London.

Dr. and Mrs. Meyers taught voice for 22 years at the Fort Wayne campus of Indiana University until their retirement in 1995. Since 1983 they have presented concerts and Master Classes throughout the North American Midwest as well as at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Summer Workshop in Vancouver, Canada (French, German, and Italian Workshops). This widely traveled team has taught on five continents in cities including Buenos Aires, Argentina; Vienna, Austria; Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador de Bahia, Brazil; Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile; Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hangzhou, China; San Jose, Costa Rica; Alexandria, Egypt; Bali, Indonesia; Siena, Italy; Osaka, Kobe, and Takaoka, Japan; Guadalajara, Mexico; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Singapore; Taipei, Taiwan; Bangkok, Thailand; and London, Birmingham, and Bristol, United Kingdom. Since their arrival in Tampa in 1998 they have been teaching voice privately in their home and presenting master classes at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center as well as in area universities and colleges. They have also offered choral clinics for church and high school choirs in the Tampa Bay area, emphasizing improvement in vocal technique.

Emerging Artists Program

History & Mission: The Emerging Artists Program was first developed at the Palladium Theater in June 2005 for The Barber of Seville. It is an important component of the SPO’s mission to provide an artistically challenging environment for younger Opera performers. Participants are generally nearing the end of their educational studies or in the beginnings of their professional career. Artists attend all rehearsals of the principal cast, learning not only the music for the opera, but also all staging and any dialogue or recitative. In addition, the covers have their own rehearsals and coachings with Artistic Director/Conductor, Mark Sforzini and the stage director. Unlike many covers programs, the artists are given an opportunity to rehearse once with full orchestra, an experience that is invaluable to an aspiring opera performer’s preparation for a role. Our Cover Cast also has opportunities for ancillary performances. All of the musicians participating in the Emerging Artist Program perform in the chorus of the production, unless, of course, they are called to substitute for the principal artist.

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