For the week of July 2 - 8, 2003

Paula Rasmussen

"Diva" mezzo soprano
performs in Sun Valley

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By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

Sun Valley Opera presents its season finale at 8 p.m. Sunday, July 6, at the Presbyterian Church of the Big Wood in Ketchum. Tickets are available at Chapter One bookstore in Ketchum, or on the concert line at 726-2220.

"Great Songs from Opera and Broadway" features four guest artists: mezzo-soprano Paula Rasmussen, tenor Mathew Lord, soprano Jill Blalock and pianist Vivian Liu.

Paula Rasmussen. Courtesy photo

Equally recognized for her performances in orchestral music and opera, Rasmussen has worked with companies such as Opera National de Paris, Opera der Stadt Köln, Glyndebourne Festival, Grand Theatre de Geneva, the Los Angeles Opera, the Dallas Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony.

She also appeared in Rossini’s "Il Viaggio a Reims" for the New York City Opera and reprised the role at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona in March.

In April she appeared as Carmen in "Carmen" for the New York City Opera.

"I have been singing 13 years, was first based in LA. and then in 1995 began traveling in earnest," she said recently by phone from her home. "I began going internationally in 1996. My career is now 50 percent in Europe."

As in many industries, it’s a small world. Rasmussen and her husband, baritone singer, Donald Sherrill, now live in Dallas, where he and Lord have started a theater. Lord is married to Blalock, who attended the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program in 1990 with Rasmussen at the beginnings of their careers.

"Mathew and I had the same manager in New York. Donald met them through me.

"It should be fun to be together in Sun Valley. As much as you’d think we’d see each other living in the same town and working on the same thing, we’re all so busy."

Rasmussen and Sherrill preformed in 2001 for the debut Sun Valley Opera concert.

Lord, also a Merola Program alumnus, performs with the San Francisco Opera, and other operas throughout the country.

As well, he has appeared with Glimmerglass Opera, the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, Canadian Opera Company, Lyric Opera of Chicago in "Sweeney Todd" with Bette Midler, Berkshire Opera Company; San Francisco Opera Center's Western Opera Theater, the Detroit Symphony, the Juilliard Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall and with the Santa Fe Symphony. Lord was a member of the prestigious Juilliard Opera Center for two consecutive seasons.

Blalock has performed with the San Francisco Opera’s Western Opera Theatre. She toured Japan for six weeks singing the role of Tuptim in "The King and I," a role she has repeated with Augusta Opera and Houston's Theatre Under the Stars.

Blalock recently toured France and Spain as Violetta in "La Traviata." She is also known for her renditions of Broadway showstoppers and has performed a night of musical theatre highlights with the Delaware Symphony, the Lubbock Symphony, and the Rhode Island Symphony.

The singers will be accompanied by Liu, who has performed around the world from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Taiwan Concert Hall and the Rachmaninoff Hall in Moscow to the Mozart Conservatory in Salzburg.

 

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