Deborah Voigt, one of the world’s favorite international opera luminaries, will turn her estimable vocal talents toward the world of musical theater to provide us with a delightful evening of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gershwin, Kern, Sondheim and others. Teaming up with Ted Sperling, one of Broadway’s foremost conductors, arrangers and directors, Ms. Voigt will prove her flawless ability to move and captivate audiences in this musical genre as well. See her strut her Broadway stuff with The Chorale just before she begins her widely anticipated debut in Annie Get Your Gun at Glimmerglass. Paulo Szot, critically acclaimed baritone who starred last season in both The Nose at the Met and South Pacific on Broadway, will join in this Special Event.

This season, Voigt made her role debut as Brünnhilde in Robert Lepage’s new production of Wagner’s Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera; her house role debuts as Minnie in Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West at the Met and Lyric Opera of Chicago; and her Washington National Opera debut as Salome in a new production by Francesca Zambello.  In concert she performed with the Staatskapelle Dresden at Lincoln Center, and will present Schoenberg’s Erwartung with the New York Philharmonic. As the first artist-in-residence at upstate New York’s Glimmerglass Festival next summer, she stars in Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun and in a one-woman show written by Terrance McNally and directed by Francesca Zambello.

A devotee of Broadway and American song, Voigt has given acclaimed performances of popular fare, including benefit concerts for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and New York Theatre Workshop. 

Paulo Szot is one of the most versatile baritones in the world, winning great acclaim both as an opera singer and as an actor.  He won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Emile De Beque in the Broadway revival of South Pacific at Lincoln Center Theatre.  He also made his highly acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in a new production of The Nose by Shostakovich conducted by Valery Gergiev, and his Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Pops Orchestra in a program of Lerner and Lowe. 

During the 2010/2011 season Paulo Szot made his debut at Dallas Opera in the title role of Don Giovanni and returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Escamillo in Carmen,  He will debut with the Paris Opera Cosi Fan Tutte and at the Festival de Aix-en-Provence as Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro.

Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the son of Polish immigrants, Mr. Szot made his New York Philharmonic debut in a concert conducted by Marvin Hamlisch appearing alongside Liza Minnelli, and he debuted at the Ravinia Festival in concert with Kelli O’Hara.  He appeared in concert in the Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center as part of the American Songbook Series.

Ted Sperling won the 2005 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his orchestrations of The Light in the Piazza, for which he was also music director. Broadway credits as music director / conductor / pianist include: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Angels in America, My Favorite Year, Falsettos, Drood, Les Miserables, Roza and Sunday In the Park With George. Mr. Sperling was also an original cast member of the Broadway musical Titanic. Off-Broadway credits as music director include: A Man of No Importance, Wise Guys, A New Brain, Saturn Returns, Floyd Collins, Falsettoland, and Romance in Hard Times. As a stage director, his credits include: Charlotte: Life? Or Theater? and Striking 12, as well as a revival of Lady in the Dark starring Andrea Marcovicci. Mr. Sperling conducted the musical scores for the films The Manchurian Candidate and Everything Is Illuminated, and directed the short musical film Love, Mom, starring Tonya Pinkins.  He has conducted The Collegiate Chorale twice, in critically acclaimed performances of Weill’s The Firebrand of Florence and Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Roger Rees created the title role in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby for the Royal Shakespeare Company (Olivier Award) and on Broadway (Tony Award, Best Actor in a Play). Other Broadway credits include Indiscretions (Tony & Drama Desk nominations) and Uncle Vanya and The Rehearsal at the Roundabout. Off-Broadway: A Man of No Importance (LCT); The End of the Day (Obie Award) and The Uneasy Chair (Playwrights Horizons); The Misanthrope (CSC). In London: the original productions of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing and Hapgood; Double Double; Waiting for Godot w/ Ian McKellen; and for the RSC: title role in Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost, Cymbeline, Much Ado About Nothing and The Suicide. Film: Julie Taymor's Frida, The Scorpion King, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Invasion, The Prestige, Next Stop Wonderland, Sudden Manhattan, Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Bob Fosse's Star 80, If Looks Could Kill. Television: "Cheers," "The West Wing," "Boston Common," "My So-Called Life," "The Ebony Tower," "The Crossing," "Double Platinum," "Titanic," "Liberty!" His theatrical directorial credits include Peter and the Starcatcher (with Alex Timbers, NYTW); Arms and the Man (Roundabout); Here Lies Jenny; Love's Labour's Lost and The Merry Wives of Windsor (Old Globe). Williamstown Theatre Festival (Artistic Director, 2005-07), as director: The Taming of the Shrew (playing Petruchio opposite Bebe Neuwirth's Katherine), The Rivals, Anything Goes, Late Middle Classes, Herringbone, The Film Society. He enjoys touring his one-man Shakespeare show, What You Will, throughout America and Britain.

The mission of The Collegiate Chorale, led by Music Director James Bagwell, is to enrich its audiences through innovative programming and exceptional performances of a broad range of vocal music featuring a premier choral ensemble.  Founded in 1941 by the legendary conductor Robert Shaw, The Chorale has established a preeminent reputation for its interpretations of the traditional choral repertoire, vocal works by American composers, and rarely heard operas-in-concert, as well as for commissions and premieres of new works by today’s most exciting creative artists.  The many guest artists with whom The Chorale has performed in recent years include:  Bryn Terfel, Stephanie Blythe, Nathan Gunn, Kelli O’Hara, Victoria Clark, Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, and Deborah Voigt. Last season’s highlights included the world premiere two-act concert version of Ricky Ian Gordon’s opera The Grapes of Wrath at Carnegie Hall.  In addition to The Chorale’s presentations, the chorus is performing in five programs during the American Symphony Orchestra’s 2010-11 season, will return to Verbier in the summer of 2011, and will perform with the Israel Philharmonic in Salzburg and Israel in July 2012.

The company’s 2010/2011 Season began with Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody, Op.53 and A German Requiem at Carnegie Hall in October and continued with Knickerbocker Holiday in January at Alice Tully Hall and We Remember Them: Choral Music from the Camps and the Ghettos in March at Central Synagogue.

For more information, visit www.collegiatechorale.org.

Here are the photos from the concert. Photos by Erin Baiano are Deborah Voigt and Paulo Szot.