Singers from the Conservatory Perform with The Cleveland Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra has engaged three singers from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music to perform as soloists in its concert production of Verdi's Don Carlo, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, at Severance Hall Thursday, June 5, and Saturday, June 7. Both performances are at 7 p.m. Robert Porco and Betsy Burleigh are preparing The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus for the performances.

Soprano Malia Bendi Merad has been cast as A Voice from Heaven, mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle will sing Thibault, and tenor Joseph Holmes is the Count of Lerma. This performance--a mere week and a half after Bendi Merad, Ringle, and Holmes will have received their Oberlin bachelor of music degrees--represents their Cleveland Orchestra debuts.

Bendi Merad, whose "perfectly placed, expressive soprano and excellent French diction proved [her] a singer to watch" (The Wall Street Journal), studied at Oberlin with Associate Professor of Singing Lorraine Manz. Ringle, who will enroll this fall in the master of music program in opera at the Yale School of Music, was a student of Professor of Singing Gerald Crawford. Holmes, winner of the 2002 Barbara E. Maze Award for Musical Excellence from the Handel and Haydn Society, studied with Professor of Singing Richard Miller.

Don Carlo will be sung in Italian with projected English surtitles. These performances of the revised four-act Italian version of the opera, which dates from 1883-84, will include one 30-minute intermission between Acts II and III. (The original five-act version of the opera, Don Carlos, completed in 1866, was first performed at the Paris Opéra and is sung in French.) The libretto of Don Carlo by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle (based on the dramatic poem by Friedrich von Schiller) was translated into Italian by Achille de Lauzières and Angelo Zanardini. The setting of Don Carlo is France and Spain, about 1560.

In addition to being the first opera performances by The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst, these will be the first Cleveland Orchestra performances of an Italian opera in Severance Hall since the 1934-35 season.

These performances are also significant for Oberlin because they will be the final Cleveland Orchestra concerts for Oberlin Professor of Trombone James DeSano, occupant of the Gilbert W. and Louise I. Humphrey Chair in the orchestra's trombone section. DeSano, principal trombonist for the orchestra since 1989, is retiring from the orchestra in June.

TICKET PRICES (Add $5 for Saturday): Orchestra: $75, $60; Dress Circle: $90, $65; Balcony: $75, $65, $40. Tickets are available at the Severance Hall Ticket Office. Please call 216-231-1111 or 800-686-1141 for more information, or visit the orchestra's web site at www.clevelandorchestra.com.

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865, is renowned internationally for the professional training opportunities it provides its students. Young singers at Oberlin work with some of the best artist-educators in the country, and Oberlin voice students have won the praise of critics from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Plain Dealer. Although Oberlin student singers, and the Oberlin College Choir, have performed with The Cleveland Orchestra in the past, this collaboration is part of Franz Welser-Möst's new educational initiatives featuring collaborations with the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and other area music institutions, established at the start of Welser-Möst's tenure as music director. In addition, Welser-Möst is committed to participate in the coaching and conducting of Oberlin students and student ensembles. He is in his first season as music director of The Cleveland Orchestra.

Oberlin students will again perform with the orchestra in select concerts during its 2003-04 season.