FORMER ‘AMERICAN TENORS’ STAR AND GREEK SOPRANO DEBUT IN LA BOHEME

Tenor Nathan Granner and the captivating Greek soprano Eleni Calenos will headline Opera Santa Barbara’s lavish production of Puccini’s most beloved opera, La bohème at The Granada Theater. Performances will take place at 7:30 on Friday, November 9 and at 2:30 on Sunday, November 11. Ranging in price from $29 to $204, tickets can be purchased online at granadasb.org or by calling 805-899-2222. 

Nathan Granner was a founding member of The American Tenors, whose Sony Masterworks album reached top five in the classical crossover charts. Since that time, he has established a reputation as a solo and collaborative artist with roles as wildly diverse as Kanye West in Hunter Shelby Long’s Fair Looks and True Obedience (“known as the Kardashian opera”) to Nemorino in The Elixir of Love. He has previously sung the role of Rodolfo in La bohème with companies such as Lyric Opera Kansas City, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Tulsa Opera, Spoleto USA, Wolf Trap and Glimmerglass Opera and will reprise the role for Opera Santa Barbara.

Soprano Eleni Calenos has admiring reviews for her performances in Tosca (Tosca), Il Tabarro (Giorgetta) and Madama Butterfly (Cio-Cio San) and La bohème (Mimi) to name a few recent appearances with companies including Palm Beach Opera, Tulsa Opera, Sarasota Opera, Glyndebourne Opera and Zomeropera (Belgium). Her recordings include Macagni’s Zanetto with Odyssy Opera of Boston. She will sing the role of Mimi for Opera Santa Barbara’s production of La bohème.

 Joining these two accomplished opera singers is an OSB favorite, baritone Luis Alejandro Orozco, who made his OSB debut as Assan in The Consul in 2014, and returned as Taddeo in L’italiana in Algeri (2015) and as Belcore in The Elixir of Love (2016). Orozco has performed leading roles across the United States and as far away as South Korea. He was part of the Kennedy Center World Stages Festival in the premier stage reading of Fallujah by composer Tobin Stokes. Singing the role of Musetta is another popular OSB artist, Elle Vlaera, an alumna of last season’s Chrisman Studio Artist Program, during which time she sang the role of Berta in The Barber of Seville and Poussette in the company’s 2017 production of Manon.  She is a recent LA District Winner and Western Region Finalist for the Metropolitan Council Auditions and 2017 Aspen Music Festival fellowship student. Rounding out the principal roles are Vincent Grana (Colline) who sang the role of Noye in Britten’s Noyes’ Fludde and the officer in The Barber of Seville, both for Opera Santa Barbara, and Yazid Gray (Schaunard), a 2018-19 Chrisman Studio Artist. E. Scott Levin will sing Benoit/Alcindoro. 

Opera Santa Barbara Artistic & General Director Kostis Protopapas will conduct the OSB Orchestra. Omer Ben Seadia will direct the opera. 

About the opera: 

La bohème is an opera centered around four “bohemian” artists living in a garret in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1830s, at a time when young self-proclaimed revolutionaries defied the conventions of polite society. It is a story about friendship, hope, love (at first sight) and the toll that poverty takes on those caught in its grip.

Opera Santa Barbara’s 25th Anniversary season also includes an Anniversary Gala Concert & Party, January 26, 2019 at the Lobero Theater and OSB premiere productions of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (sung in Russian) March 1 and 3, and Robert Ward’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, The Crucible, April 26 and 28, also at The Lobero Theater.