Romeo & Juliette: Biographies of the Artists

• Talise Trevigne, Juliette
• David Ossenfort, Romeo
• Francesco Milioto, Conductor
• Craig Fields, Artistic Director

Talise Trevigne, Juliette

Talise Trevigne is a singer noted for the “sheer beauty of her voice” and “exquisite stage presence.” She has collaborated with many acclaimed artists including Marilyn Horne, James Morris, Warren Jones, Roger Vignoles, Will Crutchfield, Rhoda Levine and Larry Foster.

As one critic stated in 2007, “Talise Trevigne is the buzz of the opera world.” She has received well deserved and unconditional praise for her début performances as Lucia, Violetta, Juliette and Pamina.

She recently débuted with London’s Almeida Opera in the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s The Silent Twins. On October 25 and 26, 2007, Ms. Trevigne reprised her dazzling Violetta in a new production directed by Graham Vick for England’s Birmingham Opera with the illustrious City of Birmingham Symphony. In November, she makes her Chicago concert début as soloist with the Chicago Master Singers in the Fauré Requiem and Bruckner’s Te Deum, and with the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra in Vier letzte Lieder. She sings these exquisite Strauss pieces again on March 18, 2008 with Maestro Michael Morgan and the Sacramento Philharmonic. Ms. Trevigne brings her incomparable Lucia to Raleigh and Asheville in January. She sings her first Tytania in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Festival Opera at Walnut Creek (CA) in Jul-Aug 2008.

Ms. Trevigne created the title role in the world premiere of Judith Weir's new opera Armida. The film, shot on location in Morocco, features an international cast and won glowing reviews internationally when televised in December 2005.

The versatile and beautiful Ms. Trevigne appeared as vocal soloist in the World Premiere of Dance Theater of Harlem's St. Louis Woman - A Blues Ballet at the Lincoln Center Festival, the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; and in recital with friend and colleague tenor David Ossenfort in New York’s Schumann Festival. She also starred in the title role of Euridice in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice with Bel Canto at Caramoor.

She made her operatic début under the direction of Maestro Julius Rudel in La Traviata and Don Giovanni in Aspen. She has also performed principal roles in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Les Malheurs D'Orphée, Nerea in Händel's Deidamia, Norina in Don Pasquale, Constance in Les Dialogues des Carmélites, Miranda in The Tempest, and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier.

Equally at home on the concert stage, orchestral and recital performances have included Cantaloube's Chants D'Auvergne, Phedon in Satie’s Socrate, Mahler's Second Symphony, Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915, Prayers of Kierkegaard, Mozart's Missa Brevis and Exsultate jubilate, and Haydn's Creation, and was a featured solo artist on the Trinity Concert Series in New York singing rare works of Maurice Delage, Purcell and Nin-Culmell.

As generous as she is talented, Ms. Trevigne has been a featured soloist in numerous benefits including those for The San Francisco Aids Foundation, the Names Project, and the September 11 Memorial Concert presented by Trinity Church and the WTC Authority in 2001.

David Ossenfort, Romeo

David Ossenfort he has been enthusiastically praised for his performances as concert soloist and on the opera stage in an array of leading roles including Alfredo, Edgardo, Ferrando, Nemorino, Roméo and the Baron von Eisenstein. A truly versatile artist, he has performed in the unique Heinrich Heine Doppelgänger with American Opera Projects, Stravinsky’s Renard with EOS Orchestra, and in the Kennedy Center premiere of Glass’ Symphony No. 5 with the Choral Arts Society of Washington, DC. He has been featured soloist in numerous concerts at Carnegie Hall.

Last season, Mr. Ossenfort appeared with Three Tenors: A New Generation and sang his first Don José in Peter Brook’s The Tragedie of Carmen with Opera on the James. He returns to OOJ as Roméo opposite star soprano Talise Trevigne (Nov) and débuts as special guest vocalist in the engaging Bernstein on Broadway with the Phoenix Symphony (Nov) and the Minnesota Orchestra (Apr ’08). He débuts with Seattle Symphony (Dec) as tenor soloist in The Messiah, and sings Edgardo in a joint production of Lucia with Asheville Lyric and Opera Company of Carolina (Jan ’08).

In addition to his concert appearances abroad, he performed in an all-Russian music program with the Cathedral Choral Society at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, and in Duluth Festival Opera’s inaugural gala. He also débuted with Opera on the James and Dayton Opera, and made a triumphant return to Opera Birmingham as Nemorino, a favorite role.

He also has appeared in principal and featured roles with San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Orchestra of New York, Mississippi Opera, Anchorage Opera, Bel Canto at Caramoor, Opera Theatre of Connecticut, Connecticut Grand Opera & Orchestra, Opera Providence, and the Sanibel Music Festival. Future opera appearances include débuts as Don Ottavio, Tamino, and Fenton.

Mr. Ossenfort attended the prestigious Tanglewood Music Center where he participated in the Phyllis Curtin Seminars and performed numerous leading roles under the direction and nurturing tutelage of Maestro Seiji Ozawa.

His ever increasing discography includes the world premiere recordings of An Angel Oratorio and Music of the Titanic for EMI. His latest CD of Kurt Weill’s Eternal Road with Maestro Gerard Schwarz and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, is soon to be released by Naxos American Classics.

Francesco Milioto, Conductor

Francesco Milioto is excited to begin the 2007/2008 season with two new positions, Music Director of the Skokie Valley Symphony and Principal Conductor of the Highland Park Strings. Mr. Milioto will lead the SVSO in concerts featuring symphonies by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Brahms as well as Mascagni’s powerful opera Cavalleria Rusticana. Following three years as assistant conductor he will now lead the HPS, as principal conductor, in works by Mahler, Beethoven, Schumann, Corelli, and Bach. Mr. Milioto will also collaborate with clarinetist David Shifrin on Mozart’s clarinet concerto for an HPS benefit concert in Bennett-Gordon recital hall at Ravinia.

This past summer has included a wide variety of opportunities for Mr. Milioto. In his 4th year as a pianist/assistant conductor at the Ravinia Festival he played for Lynn Harrell, Sir James Galway, and assisted James Conlon on a production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Mr. Milioto also made his debut at Music by the Lake as an assistant for Romberg’s The New Moon. Following five successful seasons as Music Director of the Summer Opera he returned to the Chicago Cultural Center to lead two performances of the rarely heard one-act comedy Il Signor Bruschino by Rossini, accompanied by the New Millennium Orchestra.

Mr. Milioto will return to Opera Elgin for a third time, as Music Director for Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore. For this production he will lead the New Millennium Orchestra, an ensemble he co-founded in 2005. He will also make his debut at Opera on the James conducting a concert performance of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette.

The New Millennium Orchestra will begin the season with two concerts in Preston Bradley Hall, the first featuring music by Vivaldi, Corelli, and Bach, and the other focused on chamber music. Mr. Milioto has enjoyed much successful collaboration with the NMO both as a pianist, and conductor of concert and operatic repertoire.

Mr. Milioto is looking forward to continuing the Opera Theater Workshop for Teens with Chicago Opera Theater and After School Matters. He is also eager to begin touring his school show “Not Just Figaro!” in collaboration with Urban Gateways.

Craig Fields is currently artistic director for the new Opera on the James and for the Duluth Festival Opera in Duluth, Minnesota. During the 1980’s he performed as a leading international baritone in opera theatres around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Mannheim, Freiburg, Kassel, Zürich, Geneva and Berlin, to name a few. In 1989, he joined the staff at Opera Roanoke where he served as resident stage director, general director and artistic director until 2005. He also served as professor of voice at Virginia Tech’s School of the Arts from 1987-03. He has produced and stage directed over forty professional opera productions since 1989. Before 1989, his singing career included eight years in European opera houses singing Don Giovanni, Germont, Count Almaviva, Amonasro, Escamillo, Papageno, Malatesta, Eugen Onegin, Sweeney Todd and Rossini’s Barber of Seville, performed more than 125 times. He has sung with José Carreras, Margaret Price, Cesare Siepi, Simon Estes, Francisco Araiza, and Hildegard Behrens.

He studied acting and stage directing at Chapman University and, after receiving his Master’s degree in vocal performance at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, he completed post-graduate studies at the International Opera Studio of Zürich, the San Francisco Opera Merola Program, Mannes College of Music and Dartmouth College. He has received grants from the National Opera Institute and, two separate awards from the Martha B. Rockefeller Fund for advanced opera studies, and he has studied with renowned opera stage director, Wesley Balk. He has been a guest artist at Virginia Opera, Mobile Opera, North Star Opera of St. Paul, the Minnesota Fringe Festival, University of Minnesota-Duluth, Shenandoah University-Conservatory of Music, and Indiana University’s School of Music.

His productions have received critical acclaim in the national press. Opera News said of his 1993 staging of The Barber of Seville that his "fresh perspective on Rossini's opera was like turning Peter Sellars loose on Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather III, even shedding new light on relationships between characters." Critics have described his work as “innovative”, “sensitive”, “audacious”, “different”, “captivating”, “weirdly visionary” and “sumptuously beautiful.”

He now resides with his wife, Mandy, and two sons, Chris and Robert, in Minneapolis where he has directed Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris for North Star Opera, The Cemetery Club for Grand Marais Playhouse and Soundtrack for the Common Man for the Minneapolis Fringe Festival of 2005. For this coming season, he will be staging Pagliacci and Madama Butterfly.