It maybe a few years before two local up and coming opera vocalists make it to New York’s Metropolitan Opera, but over the weekend the Met came to them on the stage of Bellevue’s Meydenbauer Theatre.
The thrill was just the same to sing with one of the famed opera company’s leading tenors, Eduardo Villa, said Lake Forest Park resident and baritone Danny Oakden.
“It was an amazing experience,” Oakden said. “Singing the role of Tonio in ‘Pagliacci’ was a dream of mine but to perform the role on stage next to Eduardo Villa just made it that much more memorable.”
Oakden performed the role of the spurned and sinister Tonio to Villa’s cuckolded husband, Canio, for the final Aug. 30 performance of Lyric Opera Northwest production of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci.”
For the second half of Lyric’s double bill, Pietro Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rusticana,” Villa performed the lead role of Turridu, with Oakden in the role of Alfio, joined by Mill Creek soprano Boyoon Choi in the role of Lola for the Aug. 28 evening opening. Choi reprised the role of Lola the following evening.
A friend of Lyric Opera Northwest’s founders and co-directors, Pamela Casella and Craig Heath Nim, Villa was invited to reprise the roles of Canio and Turridu here in the Puget Sound after performing them on the Metropolitan stage in New York in April. Villa has recently received critical praise for his lead role in the Met’s production of “Otello” in February of this year.
“He is a true superstar in the field and I learned so much about stage presence just by watching and singing along side him,” Oakden said.
Oakden, a before and after school teacher at Parkwood Elementary in Shoreline, earned a BA in music with emphasis in vocal performance from Whitworth College and has since appeared with Seattle Opera, Tacoma Opera and Kitsap Opera, Vocal Arts Northwest and Seattle Symphony, and other Northwest arts organizations. His previous work with Lyric Opera Northwest and Bellevue Opera includes the father in “Hansel and Gretel,” Escamillo in “Carmen,” Sharpless in “Madama Butterfly,” and Germont in “La Traviata.”
Mill Creek’s Choi began her musical training in piano, and later moved to voice. She graduated from Seattle University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and is currently a gradute student finishing a joint degree in law and business. She has previously performed in “Mikado” with the former Bellevue Gilbert &Sullivan Society, “The Count of Luxembourg,” “The Pearls of the Orient,” “La Traviata” and “La Bohéme” with Bellevue Opera. Her role as Lola is her fourth appearance with Lyric Opera Northwest, previously holding roles in “Madame Butterfly,” “La Traviata” and “Hansel and Gretel.”
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