New voices at Pittsburgh Opera

Robert Croan had a chance to hear some new voices from the Pittsburgh Opera Center, er, Residents Artists of ...

Here his thoughts: 

Pittsburgh Opera has renamed its training program, formerly the Pittsburgh Opera Center, as the Resident Artists of Pittsburgh Opera, and the young singers will have a greater presence in the company’s main stage productions, along with an annual production in CAPA Theater downtown. Saturday evening in the Opera’s 25^th Street Headquarters, the 2009-10 “Rising Stars” gave a free concert in a simulated audition format: each singer first performed an aria of his or her choice, followed by a second chosen by Hahn from their submitted list.

“This is how they got here,” general director Christopher Hahn explained at the start.

Three of this season’s eight singers were returning from last year. Mezzo-soprano Katherine Drago (above left) was fresh from a summer in Santa Fe, where as an apprentice she understudied the role of Zerlina in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” As it happened, the originally scheduled singer experienced an accident and Drago got to sing the remainder of the run. Sounding more soprano than mezzo, she gave a delightfully rambunctious delivery of Zerlina’s aria, “Batti, batti.”

Soprano Danielle Pastin, who had a lead in last year’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” chose the exquisite “Depuis le jour,” from Charpentier’s “Louise,” showing off her opulent timbre and shimmering high notes here and also in an aria from Puccini’s “La Rondine. Hers is one of most beautiful voices to be heard in Pittsburgh in recent years.

Bass Liam Moran gave a preview of the upcoming “Eugene Onegin” with the aria of Prince Gremin, a role for which he is the understudy.

Among the newcomers, the knockout was Lindsay Ammann, a genuine contralto, whose deep tones and sensuous presence were assets in arias from “Samson et Dalila” and “Carmen.” Shannon Kessler Dooley took over the stratosphere with silvery high notes punctuating the presentation of the rose from Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier.”

There are two new tenors. Noah Baetge, a recent Metropolitan Opera Auditions finalist, began with an impressive aria from “Lucia di Lammermoor,” while the more lyrical James Flora gave a second glimpse of this year’s opening production with Lenski’s aria from “Eugene Onegin.” Baritone Dan Kempson filled out the roster with light-voiced, Broadway-ish renditions from Korngold’s “The Dead City” and Britten’s “Billy Budd.”