MEET OUR 2023 JUDGES
VERA LÚCIA CALÁBRIA
Stage director, dramatic coach, and arts administrator, has over 30 years of experience in opera and classical music. Born in Brazil, she began at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich followed by San Francisco Opera as assistant to Jean-Pierre Ponnelle.
KEN BENSON
President of Ken Benson Artists, was for 25 years Division
Vice President at Columbia Artists Management.
ADRIANA ZABALA
is an accomplished mezzo soprano and associate
professor of voice at Yale University. A graduate of Louisiana State University and the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, she is also an alumna of the Santa Fe, Seattle and Wolf Trap Opera young artist programs, and the Mozarteum University in Salzburg.
Stage director, dramatic coach, and arts administrator VERA LÚCIA CALÁBRIA has over 30 years of experience in opera and classical music. Born in Brazil, she began at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich followed by San Francisco Opera as assistant to Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Productions staged for San Francisco Opera include Carmen, Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci, La forza del Destino, Der fliegende Holländer, and Falstaff. Other credits include Madama Butterfly in Strasbourg and Cologne, Manon in Vienna, Munich, and at the Metropolitan Opera, Parsifal in Barcelona, Falstaff in Chicago, Tosca in Montpellier, Tannhäuser in Honolulu, and Carmen in Zurich, Cologne, Chicago, and Tel Aviv.
As director and dramatic coach, she now divides her time between main stage productions and work with young singers. In the last years she directed La Finta Giardinera and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges/L’Heure Espagnole at UCLA; Der fliegende Holländer at Los Angeles Opera; Il Barbiere di Siviglia at San Francisco Opera Center; and Cavalleria/Pagliacci at San Francisco Opera; The Queen of Spades at the Teatro Real, Madrid (Spain); Idomeneo and Aida at Los Angeles Opera; Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Opera Indianapolis; La Canterina and Gigantes y Cabezudos at CSULA; L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Così fan tutte at CSU Fullerton; and Der Rosenkavalier at Israeli Opera; Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance and The Magic Flute at CSULA; Bluebeard’s Castle / L’Heure Espagnole, The Bear / La Navarraise, The Rape of Lucretia at Yale University, and Le Nozze di Figaro at the Shubert Theater for Yale University; Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and Le Nozze di Figaro at Rice University, and Roméo et Juliette at Utah Opera.
Vera Lúcia Calábria has also collaborated on several video productions with Brian Large (II Trittico, Andrea Chenier and Nabucco from Milan’s La Scala; Der fliegende Holländer from Bayreuth, Lear from Munich), and Derek Bailey (Aida and Madama Butterfly from La Scala).
Besides her work as stage director, she does private coachings and works with the studio of Kathleen Martin in Laguna Niguel. She has conducted master classes and workshops on Commedia dell’Arte in opera at CSULA, UC Santa Barbara, and UCLA among others. Her work as as dramatic coach on role and Lied interpretation took her to Israeli Opera’s and the Staatsoper Berlin’s Young Artist Program, to Pepperdine University’s Songfest, to the Wagner Theatre Program in New York, the Los Angeles Opera Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program and to the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and has her teaching Performance Techniques at CSU Fullerton.She is fluent in Portuguese, German, Spanish, Italian, French, and English.
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KEN BENSON, president of Ken Benson Artists, was for 25 years Division Vice President at Columbia Artists Management. Known for his knowledge of singing and vocal repertoire, he has developed and built the careers of some of the leading singers and stage directors of our time.
He regularly provides classes and consultations to music conservatories and young artist programs across the country, served as career consultant
to Washington Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, and is in great demand as an adjudicator of voice competitions.
He serves as a lecturer, interviewer, and writer on the subject of opera, and is a long-time regular panelist and host of Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, having interviewed such opera icons as Stephanie Blythe and Jonas Kaufmann, and has lectured on Wagner’s Ring Cycle on the stage of the Met
ADRIANA ZABALA is an accomplished mezzo soprano and associate professor of voice at Yale University. A graduate of Louisiana State University and the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, she is also an alumna of the Santa Fe, Seattle and Wolf Trap Opera young artist programs, and the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, where she was a Fullbright Scholar.
She has created roles in seven American operas, including the title roles in Sister Carrie and The Trial of Susan B. Anthony, and the role of Sister
James in Doubt, recently broadcast on PBS’ Great Performances. She has been a guest soloist with the Minnesota orchestra, the New Jersey
Symphony, the Jerusalem Symphony, and the Handel & Hayden Society. Recent engagements include the title role of Nadia Boulanger in the
chamber play, Nadia, and two world premiere recordings, Song Cycles of Dominick Argento, and Steal a Pencil for Me, with Opera Colorado.
She is a frequent national adjudicator, was formerly associate professor of voice at the University of Minnesota, and has given master classes for
the San Diego Opera’s young artist training program, the University of Wisconsin/Madison and the Janiec Opera Company at the Brevard Music
Center.