This week, Union Avenue Opera opens its 30th anniversary season with the piece the company’s fans request the most: Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.” “Every year we do an audience survey, and every year the top request is ‘Carmen,’” says UAO artistic director and conductor Scott Schoonover. “We’ve done ‘Carmen’ before, but it’s been a long time.
It’s a show I love, and it’s got a lot of great music. It has something for everybody.” One thing that makes this year’s production extra special is the return of mezzo-soprano Elise Quagliata, who is singing the role of Carmen.
“Elise sang here early in her career quite a lot,” Schoonover says. “And then she went off for the past seven or eight years, really making it kind of big on her own. She’s wonderful.
She’s sung Carmen all over the world. But she grew with us, and that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing here.” Singing the other main roles are Brendan Tuohy as Don José and Joel Balzun at Escamillo (both making their UAO debuts) and Meroë Khalia as Micaëla (she was the governess in last year’s “The Turn of the Screw.
”) Mark Freiman is the stage director and Schoonover will conduct the orchestra for “Carmen” as well as the other two productions. UAO began modestly back in 1995 following Schoonover’s appointment as Union Avenue Christian Church’s music director the year before. “I told the minister and the music committee that I was interested in putting on per.
