Don't Be Afraid! It's Just Opera!

Presents:

Don't Be Afraid! It's Just Opera!

Acclaimed, two-time Emmy-winning mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzman performs her award-winning show and reveals the universal appeal of opera for all ages. With this friendly diva as a guide, the audience will discover just how entertaining and moving this beautiful music can be. Guzmán breaks through stereotypes and preconceptions in a funny, accessible, and hands-on performance. In this high-energy, informative, multi-lingual, and interactive program, she performs excerpts from some of opera's greatest works: Puccini, Rossini, Bizet, and a dash of Mozart.

    Singer, Suzanna Guzmán

Suzanna Guzmán- mezzo-soprano, TV/radio host, and principal soloist with orchestras and opera houses around the world, fresh from a sold-out run of Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre’s critically acclaimed production of In The Heights in the role of Abuela Claudia, Guzmán reached international attention for the title role in Bizet’s Carmen (Fire-breathing, singing actress, devastatingly sexy," TIME magazine). She is a champion of premiere works, creating for the Kennedy Center Menotti’s Goya (The Duchess), Daniel Catan’s Florencia en el Amazonas (Paula), the Industry Opera’s Hopscotch (Lucha), and Eric Whitacre’s Gift of the Magi (Shelia), to name a few.

Honors include two-time L.A. Area Emmy Award winner (2019 & 2021) for Co-Host of Los Angeles County Holiday Celebration, PBS/SoCal (Ken Shapiro, dir.), a Grammy nod for the 2006 Best Classical Recording with the Southwest Chamber Music; Helen Hayes Award Best Actress nod for Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors directed by Giancarlo Menotti. Host of the KCET weekly TV series Open Call (Bohdan Zachary, dir.), she is a 2022–23 Los Angeles Opera Legacy Ambassador, holds an Honorary Doctor of Music from Occidental College, and received the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Nederlanders for service to the Arts and Community. Future engagements include a world premiere of Nick Benavides’s Carvana de Mujeres for Opera America in NYC.

More info? Visit www.suzannaguzman.com

Pianist, Lucas Nogara

Pianist Lucas Nogara has been gaining major recognition on the operatic and art song stage as a collaborator and opera coach. A recent graduate of Indiana University, Lucas holds a master's of music and a performance diploma in collaborative piano, both under the mentorship of Kevin Murphy. His projects included collaborations with IU Opera Theatre in the productions of Parsifal, La Bohème, La Rondine, and The Barber of Seville. He has also served as a pianist, rehearsing and performing in Carol Vaness’ renowned opera workshop.

He began working as a collaborative pianist, mostly with singers, as an undergraduate at the State University of Sao Paulo - Unesp. After college, he joined the São Pedro Theatre Opera Studio, playing song recitals and opera rehearsals and performances. He also worked on opera productions in his country, among them Faust and Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas at the Manaus Opera Festival; A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Makropulos Affair at São Pedro Theatre; and Roméo et Juliette with São Paulo Opera Company.

In 2018, he was invited to play Don Giovanni for the Tel Aviv Summer Opera Festival, to which he will return in the summer of 2022. In 2021, he was invited as a fellow at the prestigious Ravinia Steans Music Institute to collaborate with the program for singers, to which he will also return this upcoming summer. Most recently, he performed at the last edition of the Concours Musical International de Montréal.