2024-2025 Season

It’s a tale as old as time. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy uses an elixir to help her fall in love with him, et voilà, comedy ensues. Donizetti’s tuneful music will have you humming long after the show is done.

“Fearless” and “charming”, “warm,” “shimmering,” Ms. Zhou made her debut with Nashville Opera as a Mary Ragland Emerging Artist, singing Countess Ceprano, the Page, and covering Gilda in Rigoletto Noir in 2022. In 2021, she made a tour-de-force role debut as Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte at Pacific Lutheran University. Ms. Zhou also made a splashy company debut with Opera Columbus in 2021 as Musetta in La Bohème.

Despite lockdowns, Ms. Zhou remained active during the 2020 season, singing Kenzie in Seattle Opera’s filmed production of Earth to Kenzie, the Voice in Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus Eurydice with Dacha Theater, and was featured in virtual recitals with Wear Yellow Proudly, and Capitol Arts Workshop.

Hailed by the New York Times for his “robust voice, agility and confidence,” Robert McPherson has performed for major opera houses and symphonies all over the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, Polish National Opera, Israeli Opera, and the Seattle Symphony. He also won a grammy for his performance of Andres in Alban Berg’s Wozzeck with the Houston Symphony.

As a Seattle native, McPherson’s self-written and produced comic show The Drunken Tenor debuted at special request of Seattle Opera BRAVO! and after multiple performances with the Seattle Fringe Festival, he won Best of Fringe.

Described as “powerful … , and at home in the dramatic repertoire.” “Definitely a contralto to watch”!, Rachelle Moss is a versatile artist who has portrayed Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte with Eugene Opera, Bianca in The Rape of Lucretia with Tacoma Opera, Meg Page in Verdi’s Falstaff, and Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia with Puget Sound Concert Opera, the Mistress of Novices in Suor Angelica with St. Petersburg Opera, and La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica at Lyric Opera Northwest, Julia Child in Bon Appetit for Seattle Opera Guild, Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd with the University of North Texas. She has as the Alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Federal Way Symphony, and as the Alto soloist in Mozart’s Coronation Mass with Kansas City Kansas Community Chorus.

Mike Heitmann has performed for Seattle Opera, Tacoma Opera, Inland Northwest Opera, Puget Sound Concert Opera and Northwest Opera in the Schools, Etc...., FBN Productions, and Opera on Tap - Seattle.

In addition to his solo engagements, Mr. Heitmann's passion is adapting and producing operas for modern audiences. He condenses them to around an hour, writes a modern English libretto, and sets them in situations to reach today's audiences. His produced adaptations include Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, La boheme, Carmen, The Real Housewives of Sparta, Cendrillon and The Prince's Matchmaker, and The Elixir of Love.

Pianist Luke Raffanti has been a frequent piano performer around Seattle since moving here in 2017, frequently performing house concerts, retirement homes, and benefit concerts. In 2018, he earned the top prize in the Chopin Northwest solo piano competition, and in 2019 was featured both as an accompanist and piano soloist on Classical KING FM.

He has enjoyed collaborating with opera companies in the area: Seattle Opera, Seattle Modern Opera Company, Northwest Opera in the Schools, etc… He also teaches roughly 40 students of all ages at Cascade Piano Studio in Ravenna, and is the collaborative pianist and organist at Richmond Beach Congregational United Church of Christ in Shoreline.