The Most Happy Fella - Cast and Crew Bios

Nicolas Aliaga (Pasquale) has been living in San Francisco for nine years, following his graduation from Tufts University in Boston. In that time, Mr. Aliaga has had the opportunity to perform for many Bay Area companies. For Pocket Opera, he has performed the roles of Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, Calchas in La Belle Helene, Luther/ Crespel/Schlemil in The Tales of Hoffmann, Marquis D’Obigny in La Traviata, Papageno in A Mini Magic Flute, Gazella in Lucrezia Borgia, Zuniga in Carmen, and Zaretski in Eugene Onegin. Mr. Aliaga also directed and performed in four one-act operas for Pocket Opera: Bizet’s Doctor Miracle (Mayor of Padua), Offenbach’s The Cat Who Became a Woman (Dig-Dig), Mozart’s Bastien and Bastienne (Colas), and Schubert’s The Wedding Roast (The Hunter). He was recently seen performing for Opera San Jose in the roles of Wagner in Faust and The Gypsy in Il Trovatore and for The Jarvis Conservatory, in the role of Frasquito in Luis Alonso. He again performed the role of Figaro in Sonoma City Opera’s production of Le Nozze di Figaro and for Townsend Opera, the roles of Maxmillian in Candide and Luis in Christopher Columbus. Mr. Aliaga was privileged enough to sing the role of The Amigo in Oakland Opera Theatre’s original piece Asi Que Pasen Cinco Anos, an opera based on a work by Federico Garcia Lorca. For Oakland Lyric Opera, he sang the roles of Spinelloccio in Gianni Schicchi and Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas and was seen as Samuel in The Lamplighters’ The Pirates of Penzance. Other companies for whom he has sung include Berkeley Opera (in three of their recently produced, critically acclaimed productions), Boston Publick Theater, Bear Valley Music Festival, and West Marin Music Festival. A former SFUSD school teacher, Mr. Aliaga is now pursuing his singing career full-time.

George Arana (Giuseppe) was last with the Cinnabar Opera Theater as Bardolph in Falstaff. Prior to that,he playd the Padre in Man of La Mancha,Pierrot in The Emperor of Atlantis,and numerous roles in The Good Soldier Schweik. George has also appeared in numerous productions with Pocket Opera, including La Perichole,Bluebeard,Stiffelio,and the Princess of Trebizond;With Berkeley Opera he performed the role of Bardolph, as well as Tinca in Il Tabarro and Carlson in Of Mice and Men;he also perfomed the role of Dr Caius in Falstaff for the Vallejo Symphony;and with West Bay Opera as Guillot in Manon. He has participated in master classes with Wesley Balk,Warren Jones,Florence Quivar and Maestro David Jones, and was the winner of the 1992 NATS Singing Festival in the Art Song division.

Dennis Drury (Max) has performed with Cinnabar Theater, Sonoma City Opera, and Sebastopol's Main Street Theater. He currently sings tenor with Cinnabar Chamber Singers, Love Choir, and Mary's Idea.

Miguel Evangelista (Herman) is happy to be back for his sixth production with Cinnabar Theater. He is a veteran performer of numerous Bay Area opera companies, including North Bay Opera, San Francisco Lyric Opera, Pocket Opera, Sonoma City Opera, Livermore Valley Opera and Solo Opera. Miguel most recently appeared last March as Basilio and Don Curzio in Cinnabar’s production of The Marriage of Figaro. Favorite roles he has performed include Canio (I Pagliacci), Goro (Madama Butterfly), Spoletta (Tosca), Kaspar (Amahl and the Night Visitors), Panatellas (La Perichole), King Bobeche (Bluebeard), Beadle Bamford (Sweeney Todd), Sancho Panza and Padre Perez (Man of La Mancha), The Minstrel (Once Upon a Mattress) and Frederic (The Pirates of Penzance.) As a concert soloist, Miguel has been featured at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael. His soloist credits include Gounod’s and Berlioz’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Thompson’s Scenes From the Holy Infancy.

Michael Fontaine (the Doctor) has directed or appeared in well over one hundred productions with a variety of professional, educational and other performing arts organizations in the North Bay and beyond, including nearly two dozen at Cinnabar Theater. He holds an MFA in Directing from UC Davis, is Director of Education for the Santa Rosa Symphony, and is currently pursuing his doctorate in Organization and Leadership at the University of San Francisco.

 

 

Tara Generalovich (Rosabella) has been performing in the Bay Area since 2000 when she moved to San Francisco to acquire her Masters degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Among her area credits are: Theresa 2 from Thomson’s 4 Saints in 3 Acts, Konstanze from Mozart's Entführung aus dem Serail, Countess from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Savitri from Holst's Savitri, Antonia from Offenbach's Les contes d’Hoffman, Sandrina from Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera. She has performed with local companies such as San Francisco Lyric Opera, Oakland Opera Theater, BASOTI, & The California Music Festival. Outside of opera she has performed as a soloist in UC Berkeley’s Choral performances of Stravinsky’s Svadebka and Haydn’s Mass in the Time of War. Tara also enjoyed premiering new compositions in a UC Berkeley Seminar Class Concert, Words and Music with guest composition instructor William Bolcom. Before the Bay Area, she appeared as Mimi in Puccini’s La Boheme and Thisbe in Rossini’s Cenerentola with San Diego Opera’s Young Artist Program. And in Pittsburgh, PA; Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and The First Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Carnegie Mellon University where received her BFA in 1999. Vocal study never ends and currently under the tutelage of Jane Randolph, she continues this quest for knowledge. Tara's wonderful parents and sister live back on the East Coast and she marvels at their constant love and support. She is so happy to premiere here at Cinnabar as Rosabella.

Barbara Heroux (Stage Director) is pleased to return to Cinnabar, where she has previously directed The Barber of Seville and Gilbert and Sullivan a la Carte. Currently Artistic Director of San Francisco’s Lamplighters Music Theatre, she has directed most of the G&S repertoire over the past fifteen years, including the Princess Ida that won Best Production and Best Director awards at the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Buxton, England in 1995. On stage, she has played roles ranging from G&S heroines such as Josephine (H.M.S. Pinafore), Rose Maybud and Mad Margaret (Ruddygore), Elsie and Phoebe (The Yeomen of the Guard), Patience (Patience), Casilda and Gianetta (The Gondoliers) to Rosalinda (Die Fledermaus), Donna Lucia (Where’s Charley?), and Dolly Levi (Hello, Dolly!). She has also directed and performed with other Bay Area companies including Berkeley Opera, West Bay Opera, Livermore Valley Opera, 42nd Street Moon, San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Palo Alto Players, and Peninsula Civic Light Opera/Broadway by the Bay. Barbara has won four Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards – one as a performer, one as a director, and two as a writer – and lives in San Francisco with her husband, Cinnabarbarian baritone Bill Neely, and Sammy the Wonder-Dog.

Joe Kinyon (Joe) Last seen as Emile de Becque in Saratoga Drama Group's production of South Pacific, baritone Joe Kinyon has performed leading roles with various opera companies in the Bay Area including: Opera San Jose, Berkeley Opera, Livermore Valley Opera and Sonoma City Opera. Among the roles credited to his name are: Valentin from Gounod’s Faust with both Berkeley Opera and Livermore Valley Opera, the title role of Berkeley Opera's Spring production of Eugene Onegin, Escamillo in LVO's rendition of Carmen (a role he previously performed with Berkeley Opera) and Count Almaviva in Sonoma City Opera's interpretation of The Marriage of Figaro. Other engagements include the roles of De Bretigny in Manon and Prince Yamadori in Madame Butterfly with Opera San Jose. Additional local companies he has performed with are Lyric Theater Company, Diablo Light Opera, Contra Costa Musical Theater, Playhouse West, 42nd Street Moon and the Theater of the Blue Rose. Mr. Kinyon has also performed with The Opera Institute of California in San Jose, and as a soloist with First Church of Christ Scientist in Walnut Creek. He is a Bay Area native.

Elly Lichenstein (Marie) began working with Cinnabar in 1975 when, after a short career as principal cellist with Belgium’s Antwerp Chamber Orchestra, she joined the Cinnabar Opera Theater. Studying voice with Marvin Klebe, Cinnabar’s founder, drama with Fred Curchack and Richard Blake, and movement with Ann Woodhead, she sang at least fifty roles with the company until she retired in 1999. She became General Manager of the Theater in 1979 and assumed her present role as Executive Director in 1997. In 1999, upon the death of founding Artistic Director Marvin Klebe, Elly assumed the head of Cinnabar’s opera program, for which she has directed Falstaff, Dido and Aeneas, La Boheme, The Medium, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Spanish Hour, Madama Butterfly, La Traviata (chosen Best Musical Production of 2004 by the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle) and The Marriage of Figaro. An accomplished actress, Elly was last seen as Meta Wolff in the world premiere of John O’Keefe’s Crystal Night (now known as Times Like These) and as Rebecca in the world premiere of O’Keefe’s Queer Theory. She’s pleased to return to the musical stage.

Robert Matteucci (Jake) has appeared in many productions around Sonoma County as well as the Bay Area with the San Francisco Lamplighters. Robert is proud to be returning to the Cinnabar after almost twenty years hiatus; his last appearance was Man of La Mancha with Elly and Marvin. Robert has also been involved with the Santa Rosa Junior College and Summer Repertory Theatre. Performances there include The Music Man, Cabaret, Sleuth, The Crucible, Tommy, Pippin and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Robert has also been the Musical Director for productions of Annie and Scrooge the Musical. With the Lamplighters, Robert has performed with the chorus for the majority of the Gilbert and Sullivan repetoire including Yeoman of the Guard thrice, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Mikado twice and Princess Ida at the Buxton International G&S Festival. Other opera credits include, La Finta Giardiniera, The Elixir of Love and Cosi fan tutti. Robert will be debuting in Oh, Mr. Sousa beginning in late Fall 2005.

James Pfeiffer (Al the Postman) made his Cinnabar debut as the Innkeeper in The Cunning Little Vixen. He has appeared in numerous productions since then, taking the roles of Bonzo and Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, the Innkeeper in The Moon, the Marquis d’Obigny in La Traviata and Antonio in The Marriage of Figaro this past Spring. He is a regular performer with the Cinnabar Chamber Singers. In his “other” life, James is a farrier, shoeing horses in Sonoma and Marin Counties.

Sarah Beth Riess (Country Girl) recently received her Bachelors of Music from UC Santa Barbara and has returned to her native Sonoma County to regroup and gain perfomance experience before plunging into grad school. Her recent roles include Tessa in The Gondoliers and Soviet Wong in the premiere of Red Azalea. Sarah Beth is happy to join the cast of Most Happy Fella for her first show with Cinnabar Theater.

Cary Ann Rosko (Cleo) is pleased to be making her debut with Cinnabar Theater. Recent appearances include roles in Berkeley Opera's Macbeth (Second Witch), Faust (Siebel) and Eugene Onegin (Olga). Other roles include Tisbe (La Cenerentola), Tessa (The Gondoliers), Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), Myrtale (Thaïs), Mrs. Nolan (The Medium), Idamante (Idomeneo), Miss Todd (The Old Maid and the Thief) and Nancy (Albert Herring). Ms. Rosko has also been active behind the scenes this season as assistant director of Berkeley Opera's production of Il Trittico. She has performed widely on both coasts, recently creating the role of Clare Lynott in the New York premiere of the opera The Last of Manhattan. As a soloist and a member of the Boston Lyric Opera Chorus, she has had the pleasure of collaborating with such artists as Frederica von Stade, Martin Isepp, Mignon Dunn, William Vendice, Edward Sayegh, Leon Major, Stephen Lord and D’Anna Fortunato. An avid recitalist, she has performed and premiered numerous contemporary works in concert, including appearances at the San Francisco Community Music Center and Jordan Hall with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Ms. Rosko has also enjoyed entertaining both children and adults with the Martinez Opera Outreach Program. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and her Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston.

Damian Sagastume (Stage Manager) is typically an actor, most recently playing the title role in SSU's production of Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile, but the Theatre gods continue to make him a Stage Manager at Cinnabar, debuting his mediocre managerial skills with The First Annual Hip-Hop Festival las February. He also spent the summer working with Cinnabar's Summer Theater Camp, where he spent most of his time scaring the snot out of the kids with his ghost stories, all of which just happen to be completely true, and all of which happen to take place in Sonoma County. He is married and is expecting his first child on Valentine's Day of next year.

Alex Shafer (Clem) returned to the stage several years ago after a short hiatus (17 years), to once again foist himself upon otherwise innocent and unsuspecting audiences. Since then he has been seen in such roles as Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner, Mr. Paravicini in The Mousetrap, Samuel Chase of Mary land in 1776, and most recently, as Michael Flaherty in Cinnabar’s production of Playboy of the Western World. When not acting in plays, he sings in Gilbert and Sullivan productions with the Lamplighters in San Francisco . Alex grew up in Connecticut, began acting in plays at Union College in Schenectady NY, and moved to the Bay Area in 1981. By day he is a self-employed gardener, and the humble servant of Hermes, his Cairn Terrier.

Nina Shuman (Music Director/Conductor) holds a BA from Bennington College and an MM from Dominican College. She served as Assistant Conductor for Marin Civic Light Opera and was awarded scholarships and a grant from the Marin Educational Foundation to study orchestral conducting with Murray Sidlin at the Aspen Music Festival. As Music Director and Conductor for Cinnabar Theater she has led productions of Menotti’s The Consul and The Medium, Susa’s Transformations, Puccini’s The Girl of the Golden West and Madama Butterfly, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, Kurka’s The Good Soldier Schweik, Bernstein’s Candide, Ullmann’s The Emperor of Atlantis, Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Poulenc’s Breasts of Tiresias, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Verdi's Falstaff and La Traviata, Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Ravel’s The Spanish Hour, Carl Orff’s The Moon, and Lee Hoiby’s Something New for the Zoo, as well as numerous chamber concerts, opera galas and children’s presentations. She has guest conducted for Boise Opera, Lamplighters, Sonoma City Opera, Berkeley Opera, North Bay Lyric Opera, Sonoma State University, the Marin Chamber Orchestra, the Dominican Orchestra, the Antelope Valley Orchestra, the San Francisco and Winifred Baker Chorales, the St. Francis Yacht Club Men’s Chorus, and the Mayflower Community Chorus, and also served as stage director and conductor for the Dominican College Opera Workshop. Ms. Shuman currently serves as Artistic Director for the Cinnabar Choral Ensembles.

Elizabeth Smith (Costumer) is a local costumer who currently works at Sonoma State University in the theater Arts Department. Her job there is to oversee the rental of costume to other schools and community theaters. Her past achievements include Something New for the Zoo, Laughing Wild and Cabaret for Cinnabar. In addition to working with Cinnabar and SSU she has worked with Sonoma City Opera, Santa Rosa Players and Sonoma County Repertory Theater. Recently she opened her own costume shop in Santa Rosa and couldn’t be happier.

Jonathan Smucker (Ciccio) graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2004, having earned a BM, MM, and Postgraduate Diploma in Voice Performance. At the Conservatory, he appeared as Albert in Albert Herring, Acis in Acis and Galatea, Jupiter in Semele, Nero in The Coronation of Poppea, Tenor Soloist in the "Sing-it-Yourself" Messiah, and Evangelist in Bach's Johannespassion, earning a special award for the latter. Recent Bay Area credits include Tom Rakewell in The Rake's Progress and Dan White in White Darkness with Oakland Opera Theater, Malcolm in Macbeth and Liverotto in Lucrezia Borgia with Pocket Opera, and the four servants in Les Contes d'Hoffmann as a guest artist with the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute. Previous credits include Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola, Belfiore in La Finta Giardiniera, and Don Basilio in Le Nozze di Figaro with BASOTI; Tanzmeister in Ariadne auf Naxos with San Francisco Lyric Opera; and appearances with Bear Valley Music Festival and Isny-OperaFestival, Isny, Germany. This fall he sings Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance for the San Francisco Opera Guild's Opera a la Carte. He is a student of Jane Randolph.

Stephen Walsh (Tony Esposito) has performed opera and musical theater throughout the Western United States. A versatile performer, his style spans from jazz to opera. In the early1980's Mr. Walsh's jazz vocal quartet Dusty Rose performed throughout the Pacific Northwest. He has been a member of the Gala Singers, a Bay Area vocal quintet specializing in Broadway and tight harmony since early 1990. An accomplished choral singer, Mr. Walsh has participated in the Europa Cantat, an international choral festival in Namur Belgium, and been on numerous American and European choral tours with choirs including the Portland Symphonic Choir, the Portland State Chamber Choir the Oregon Vocal Arts Ensemble and the St. Mary's Cathedral Choir from San Francisco. He has also sung with the San Francisco Choral Artists and the San Francisco Opera Chorus. His performance credits include the title roles in Candide and Gianni Schicchi, and roles in numerous other musicals and operas including The Secret Marriage, Rusalka, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, Into the Woods, Camelot, West Side Story, Oklahoma and Romeo and Juliet. By far his favorite role, excluding of course Tony in The Most Happy Fella, was with his "equally gifted" twin brother Kevin (his words!) where they shared the twin lead roles in The Boys From Syracuse in 1983 in Portland. As a soloist, he has performed with the Diablo Valley Ballet and sung the Fauré Requiem under the direction of Michael Morgan with the Oakland East Bay Symphony and the Oakland Symphonic Choir. This is Mr. Walsh's first performance at Cinnabar Theater. Mr. Walsh has been a featured soloist in recordings for OCP Productions in Oregon and can been heard in recordings with the San Francisco Choral Artists and on the Clarity Recordings label as a soloist in Igor Stravinsky's Les Noces with the Redwood Symphony and the Oakland Symphonic Choir. Mr. Walsh has been the Cantor at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco since 1993.

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