Boston Lyric Opera: The Power of Women’s Voices

In honor of Women’s History Month, Boston Lyric Opera presents a revelatory evening exploring the power of women’s voices in opera performance, musical composition, and professional advocacy. Artist-scholar Dr. Dana Lynne Varga will lead a conversation with fellow singers about the historical, dramaturgical, and personal resonance of vocal music drawn from wide-ranging contexts. Curated by BLO Artistic Advisor Nina Yoshida Nelsen, the musical program will include works by Alma Mahler, Florence Price, and other extraordinary female composers.

To attend, please register here.

Soprano Dana Lynne Varga has established herself as a dynamic interpreter of a wide variety of repertoire on opera and concert stages. She recently appearance as Pallas Athene in Gluck’s rarely heard Paride ed Elena with Odyssey. Favorite opera roles performed across the eastern seaboard include Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Musetta in La bohème, Anna Maurrant in Street Scene, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Micaëla in Carmen and Alcina in Alcina. Dana appears frequently as a soloist at Carnegie Hall; most recently in the Mozart Requiem with Manhattan Concert Productions and both the Brahms Requiem and Haydn Lord Nelson Mass with Mid-America Productions. Other highlights of her busy concert schedule include Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Cantata Singers, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony with the Metropolitan Chorale, Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor with Coro Allegro, and countless performances of Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Dana was the second place winner of the 2019 American Prize in art song and oratorio, and the first place winner of the 2016 Classical Singer National Vocal Competition. She earned her DMA from Boston University and MM from The New England Conservatory of Music. An accomplished voice teacher, career coach, and producer, Ms. Varga is a fierce advocate for singers, devoted to progressive change in the classical vocal industry. 

Please visit www.danavarga.com and www.theempoweredmusician.com.

A native of Poland, pianist Maja Tremiszewska is an Assistant Professor of Voice (Opera Coaching) at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and a head coach for MassOpera Young Artists Program at Longy School of Music at Bard College. She frequently collaborates with various opera companies including Enigma Chamber Opera, Mass Opera, Guerilla Opera, Boston Opera Collaborative, Chicago Summer Opera and Wagner Institute at Miami Music Festival. An Emerging Artist for Boston Lyric Opera, she served as a rehearsal pianist for their production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and performed recitatives on harpsichord for the same production at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater. As a freelance recitalist, she has performed in various venues, among them Jordan Hall, Berklee Performance Center, Goethe Institute, Merkin Hall at Kaufman Center in NYC and Ozawa Hall in Lenox, MA. In 2005, she won first prize at the First International Chamber Music Competition of New England and consequently performed at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. As a winner of the University Concerto Competition, she presented Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G at Tsai Performance Center. She holds a doctorate degree in Collaborative Piano from Boston University and B.A. and M.M in Piano Performance from Gdańsk Academy of Music in Poland. Dr. Tremiszewska is a scholarship and fellowship recipient of Aspen Music Festival Opera Center, Miami Music Festival, Fontainebleau School of the Arts and Bowdoin Summer Music Festival.

Soprano Brianna J. Robinson is a native of Ravenna, Ohio. Recently, Ms. Robinson was named a finalist in the 2021 Benjamin Matthews Vocal Competition with Opera Ebony. She returns to Boston Lyric Opera as a Jane and Steven Akin Emerging Artist, having covered roles in BLO’s The Handmaid’s Tale and performed the role of Lucy in Spears’ Fellow Travelers. This season, she will cover Mimi in La Boheme and Julie in the New England premiere of Omar. Her most recent work includes singing the role of Florence Price in Florence Comes Home by Francine Trester with Shelter Music Boston, as a soloist with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, and her Tanglewood concert debut with Castle of Our Skins. In the 2023 season, she will debut with the Akron Symphony performing Brahm’s Requiem and New World Chorale performing Mozart’s Requiem. Brianna has also participated in international programs such as the Berlin Opera Academy, and Opernfest Prague and made her international debut in Ruse, Bulgaria, as Ophelia in Joseph Summer’s Hamlet in 2021. In January 2020, she was awarded 1st prize at the 6th ‘Getting to Carnegie’ Competition at Carnegie Hall, New York City.

Soprano Michelle Trainor recently premiered the roles of Gertrude in Joseph Summer’s Hamlet with Bulgaria’s State Opera Ruse, Helen McDougal in Julian Grant’s Burke & Hare and La Madre in Omar Najmi’s En la Ardient Oscuridad; and performed the role of Miss Lightfoot in Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers and Ofglen in Ruder’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Ms. Trainor has performed roles with companies including Detroit Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Odyssey Opera, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Tuscia Opera Festival, IlluminArts, Bulgaria’s State Opera Ruse and Enigma Chamber Opera. She can be heard on recordings of La Reine de Saba with Odyssey Opera, Hamlet with The Shakespeare Concert Series, Haroun and the Sea of Stories with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Clemency with Boston Lyric Opera. Ms. Trainor made her Carnegie Hall debut as a soloist in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and returned for Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Wozzeck. This season Michelle made her debut with Opera Columbus singing Clorinda in La Cenerentola and she covered the role of Marcellina with Handel and Haydn Society in their performance of Le Nozze di Figaro. She continues the season covering the role of Judith in Boston Lyric Opera’s Bluebeard’s Castle and singing the role of Lucy in Awakenings with Odyssey Opera.

Opera Night at the Boston Public Library is a legacy community partnership between Boston Lyric Opera and the Boston Public Library offering equitable access to quality opera learning experiences for over 25 years.

About the BPL's COVID-19 health and safety protocols:

• Program attendees are recommended to wear masks covering their noses and mouths.
• Read the BPL's latest COVID-19 guidelines for visiting the library.
• Program performers will remove their masks during the program.

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