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THE BAILEY APPRENTICE ARTIST PROGRAM

2019-2020 Season Apprentice Artist Program

The Cornelia T. Bailey Apprentice Artist Program offers recent music school graduates valuable performance experience alongside Palm Beach Opera’s intensive training curriculum. The Bailey Apprentice Artists act as Palm Beach Opera’s community ambassadors, singing throughout the region in education and community engagement concerts, while also covering supporting roles, studying leading roles, and adding strength to all mainstage production choruses.

The Bailey Apprentice Artist Program is part of a unique three-tiered training system at Palm Beach Opera that includes the Studio Program and the Benenson Young Artist program.

The Bailey Apprentice Artist Program is also sponsored in part by the Gladys and Sy Ziv Foundation.

  • Suzannah Waddington
    Suzannah Waddington
    Soprano
  • Emily Helenbrook
    Emily Helenbrook
    Soprano
  • SarahAnn Duffy
    SarahAnn Duffy
    Mezzo-Soprano
  • Jenny Anne Flory
    Jenny Anne Flory
    Mezzo-Soprano
  • Maire Carmack
    Maire Carmack
    Mezzo-Soprano
  • David Anderson
    David Anderson
    Tenor
  • Juan Hernández
    Juan Hernández
    Tenor
  • Philippe L’Esperance
    Philippe L’Esperance
    Tenor
  • Eric Smedsrud
    Eric Smedsrud
    Baritone
  • Matthew Soibelman
    Matthew Soibelman
    Bass-Baritone

Would you like more information about auditions?

For more information about our 2018 Apprentice Artist Program and auditioning, click here.

Faculty

Guest Vocal Coaches
Craig Rutenberg
Former Head of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera

Anthony Manoli
Mannes College of Music

Danielle Orlando
Curtis Institute & Academy of Vocal Arts

Rachelle Jonck
Teatro Nuovo & Westminster Choir College

Guest Voice Teachers
Stephen King, baritone
Rice University, Houston Grand Opera & Los Angeles Opera

Elizabeth Futral, soprano
Peabody Institute

Guest Diction Coaches
Corradina Caporello, Italian diction
The Juilliard School & Curtis Institute

Kathryn LaBouff, English diction
The Juilliard School & Manhattan School of Music

Masterclass
Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano

Resident Music Staff
David Stern, Chief Conductor
Greg Ritchey, Associate Conductor & Chorus Master
Timothy Cheung, Young Artist Program Head Coach
Ksenia Leletkina, Apprentice Program Coach
Ben Malensek, vocal coach
Anna Fateeva, vocal coach
Cassie Makeeff, vocal coach

2018-2019 Season Apprentice Artists

Sooyeon Kang, Soprano
Suzannah Waddington, Soprano
Maire Carmack, Mezzo-Soprano
Jenny Anne Flory, Mezzo-Soprano
Michael Anderson, Tenor
Anthony Ciaramitaro, Tenor
Pavel Suliandziga, Tenor
Robert Gerold, Baritone
Michael Miller, Baritone
Christopher Carbin, Baritone

2017-2018 Season Apprentice Artists

Maria Brea, Soprano
Sooyeon Kang, Soprano
Brooklyn Snow, Soprano
Kelsey Robertson, Mezzo-Soprano
Emily Spencer, Mezzo-Soprano
Matthew Greenblatt, Tenor
Elliott Paige, Tenor
Robert Gerold, Baritone
Samuel Hinkle, Baritone
James Wright, Baritone

Suzannah Waddington
Soprano

A native of New York City and Philadelphia, Suzannah Waddington is a young soprano pursuing a career in opera performance studying under soprano Angela Meade. Performing since the age of 12, Suzannah has taken on roles in the operatic and musical theater repertoire. In 2015, Suzannah won her category at the CNYFL-NATS competition, and soon after was awarded the Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan National Council Awards. In 2014, she had the honor of being the soprano soloist cover at Carnegie Hall for the National Sacred Honor Choir’s world premiere. Most recently Suzannah was selected as a participant in Joyce DiDonato’s Master Class series at Carnegie Hall. In the summer of 2018, Suzannah will be singing Pamina with Blooming Voce Summer Opera Workshop and will be an apprentice artist with Teatro Nuovo (formerly Caramoor). This fall, she will be an apprentice artist with Palm Beach Opera and will cover Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. Suzannah currently resides in Philadelphia.

Emily Helenbrook
Soprano

23-year-old soprano, Emily Helenbrook, has performed several times as a featured soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic under the direction of JoAnn Falletta. Emily performed on From the Top at the Chautauqua Amphitheatre and again as an alumni in Kodak Hall at the Eastman School of Music. She has studied at the Oxford Lieder Festival led by Roger Vignoles, Imogen Cooper, Ann Murray, and Robert Holl. She received her B.M. in Vocal Performance and B.A. in Political Science at the Eastman School of Music and University of Rochester Dual Degree Program. She has performed with the Eastman Opera Theatre as Suor Genovieffa and Suor Cristina in Suor Angelica andMese Mariano and as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro. Last summer, Emily spent the summer as a vocal fellow at the Aspen Opera Center covering the roles of La Bergère and La Chouette in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. She performed as the soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate with the Livermore-Amador Symphony in California. Miss Helenbrook also premiered the song cycle, Tippet Rise Songs by Antón Garcia-Abril at the TippetRise Art Center in Montana with pianist Christopher O’Riley. Emily recently won the Getting to Carnegie Competition which was held at Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall. She was then invited to the Water Island Music Festival in the Virgin Islands, where she performed in various concerts at the festival.  Emily will soon be performing Adele in Die Fledermaus at the 2018 Opera in the Ozarks summer festival. Emily is pursuing her Master’s of Music in Vocal Performance at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University with Dr. Stephen King.

SarahAnn Duffy
Mezzo-Soprano

American mezzo-soprano SarahAnn Duffy is a passionate interpreter of opera, oratorio, and contemporary music.

In the 2018-2019 season, SarahAnn joins Teatro Nuovo, directed by William Crutchfield as a Studio Artist where she will be covering the role of Lucia in Rossini’s La gazza ladra. In the fall, SarahAnn will be an Apprentice Artist at Palm Beach Opera for their 2019-2020 season.

SarahAnn has most recently appeared as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, as the mezzo soloist, Maria, in Ottorino Respighi’s Laud to the Nativity with the Bard College Conservatory’s Vocal Arts Program curated by Dawn Upshaw, the alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah with Classics on Hudson, and Star Wars: The Last Maestro, as Rose, with the Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller. In the 2018-2017 season SarahAnn appeared as the alto soloist in a staged production of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. Other recent performances include Valetto in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea with dell’Arte Opera Ensemble.

An avid performer of new music, SarahAnn made her debut at the National Sawdust performing two New York premieres this past April. Alongside members of the Bard College Conservatory’s Vocal Arts Program, SarahAnn sang the role of Ljubica in the Serbian Opera, Svadba (Ana Sokolović, 2015) as well as the premiere performance of Christopher Theofanidis’ Cows of the Apollo at the Aspen Opera Theater Center in 2015.

SarahAnn received her bachelor of music from the New England Conservatory and her master of music from the Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory under the mentorship of Dawn Upshaw and Kayo Iwama. She currently studies with Lorraine Nubar.

Jenny Anne Flory
Mezzo-Soprano

Mezzo-soprano Jenny Anne Flory, from Dayton, Virginia, graduated with her MM in Opera Performance, as a member of the University of Maryland Opera Studio (May 2017) where she was the first recipient of the Maryland Opera Studio Scholarship.  She holds a BM in Vocal Performance from James Madison University (May 2015).

Over the 2017 summer, she participated in the Wintergreen Music Festival Vocal Intensive where she sang the alto solo in the Mozart Requiem, and worked with conductor Erin Freeman.  She also

traveled to Italy to participate in the BelCanto in Tuscany Emerging Artist Program.  There she worked with vocal coach, Giovanni Reggioli, and teachers, Elizabeth Bishop and Arianna Zukerman. This spring and summer (2018) she will be performing in a recital for the Potomac Vocal Institute, and hopefully returning to the BelCanto in Tuscany program.

Ms. Flory sang Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Cupidon in Offenbach’s Orfée aux enfers, and the title role in Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia last season with the Maryland Opera Studio.  She recently performed the role of Flora in Charlottesville Opera’s La traviata, and participated in the chorus of MOS’ productions of Regina and Don Giovanni. She also sang with her classmates in the MOS New Work reading and the MOS

Opera Scenes (Spring 2016).  Some of her previous roles at JMU include Lady Angela/Patience, Buttercup/HMS Pinafore, Third Lady/Die Zauberflöte, and Edith/Pirates of Penzance.

Flory has performed as the alto soloist for Handel’s Messiah (Ovation Singers, St. Anne’s Episcopal, JMU), Mozart’s Requiem (JMU), Haydn’s Maria Theresa Mass (First Pres. Charlottesville) and Vivaldi’s Gloria (JMU).  She also sang the soprano solo in the Dvořák Mass in D Majorand Te Deum.

She sang the National Anthem at the inauguration of University of Maryland Chancellor Robert L. Caret, and at the school wide 2015 graduation at James Madison University.  Ms. Flory previously studied voice with Dr. Carrie Stevens, Delores Ziegler, and Linda Mabbs, and currently studies with Elizabeth Bishop and Arianna Zukerman.

Jenny has been taking voice lessons for 8 years, while teaching through part of her undergraduate career and has nine years piano experience.

When Jenny isn’t performing, or teaching you can find her curled up with a good book. She loves Disney, Harry Potter, and spending time with her younger siblings and baby cousins. And she can’t wait to work with you!

Maire Carmack
Mezzo-Soprano

A native of Seattle, WA, mezzo-soprano Maire Carmack graduated summa cum laude with a double major in philosophy and music from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, where she sang Prima Donna in the world premiere of Philip Blackburn’s hyper-opera The Sun Palace. Prize winner in the Pikes Peak Opera League Young Voice Competition, Ms. Carmack joined Opera Theatre of the Rockies for its productions of Lakmé, Tosca, The King and I, The Sound of Music, and Così fan tutte. Ms. Carmack went on to pursue her master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music where she studied with Robert Swensen and performed the role of Empress Ottavia in Eastman Opera Theatre’s production of Monteverdi’s L’incoronzaione di Poppea under the direction of acclaimed conductor and lutenist, Paul O’Dette. While at Eastman, Ms. Carmack also played Margaret Johnson in The Light in the Piazza; a role coached by the composer himself, Adam Guettel. This past summer, Ms. Carmack joined “Si parla, si canta!” in Urbania, Italy, where she sang the roles of La Zelatrice in Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto. Ms. Carmack continues to study with Robert Swensen in Rochester, NY, and will join the Apprentice Artist Program at Palm Beach Opera for the 2018-2019 season.

David Anderson
Tenor
Juan Hernández
Tenor

Puerto Rican Tenor Juan Hernández Mercado began his professional singing career with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra in 2012 and has since been part of many local and international productions in the US and abroad. In the 2019 season he has been selected as a Young Artist at the prestigious Opera Saratoga’s Young Artist Program where he will be covering in La Fille du Regiment as well as performing in various concerts throughout the program. He made his professional Italian debut as Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia with the Accademia Lirica Internazionale Umberto Giordano in Foggia, Italy 2018. Other recent engagements include Gofreddo in Handel’s Rinaldo, Monostatos in Mozart’s Magic Flute, L’arithmétique in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, Gastone in Verdi’s La Traviata, and Basilio in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. Recent awards include first place at the 2019 NATS NYC district competition, Audience’s Choice in the 2015 Opera on the Avalon aria competition and first place in the 2013 Ricardo Morales Sáez competition. Juan began his Music Studies at the Escuela Libre de Música Ernesto Ramos Antonini, Alma Mater of some of the most recognized Puerto Rican artists. After graduating with Honors, he continued his training in Vocal Performance at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of the late William Woodruff. Juan is currently a voice student of Raymon Geis.

Philippe L’Esperance
Tenor
Eric Smedsrud
Baritone

Hailing from Eden Prairie, Minn., Eric Smedsrud, baritone, is pursuing a Master of Music in Voice Performance under the instruction of Carol Vaness. He earned his Bachelor of Music from Lawrence University, where he performed the roles of Superintendent Budd in Britten’s Albert Herring, Frank Maurrant in Weil’s Street Scene, and Sam in Bernstein’s Trouble In Tahiti. Last year, he sang as a soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for their Orchestra Moves concert series. With IU Opera Theater, Smedsrud has performed the title role in Menotti’s The Last Savage and Joseph De Rocher in Heggie’s Dead Man Walking.

Matthew Soibelman
Bass-Baritone

A Los Angeles native pursuing a BM in Vocal Performance at California State University Northridge. Recently, he was awarded the Ben DeBolt Memorial Scholarship at the Henry and Maria Holt Memorial Scholarship Competition, Regional and National Scholarship Winner fromNational Society of Arts and Letters Shirley Rabb Winston Voice Scholarship Competition, he received theS. Livingston Mather Scholarship from The Singers Club of Cleveland Competition , 2ndin Center Stage Opera’s Young Artist Vocal Competition and honored to receive the LA Opera Encouragement Award. He was a Finalist in the Kristen Lewis Foundation Scholarship Competition, as well as the Carolyn Bailey and Dominick Argento Vocal Competition at the 2017 National Opera Association, also taking first place with Pepperdine University in NOA’s Opera Scenes Competition and first place in the Cal-Western Freshman Division of NATS in 2016.

Matthew has had the honor of participating in Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artist Vocal Academy, OperaWorks and the past several years in Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Young Dramatic Voices. He is excited to start this summer participating in Songfest followed by Chautauqua Institute’s Voice Program.

Roles performed include Falstaff in Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, Surin in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, Mr. Slocum in Nice Day for the Races, The Speaker/2ndArmored Guard in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Giorgio in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliersand several other productions. Matthew can also be heard on the film soundtracks of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Force Awakensand Transformers: The Last Knight.

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