Bach Society goes to the opera

St. Andrew’s Bach Society is opening its 2015 summer concert series with a greatest-hits trip to the opera.

The group, host of the popular summertime classical music concert series that marks its 27th season, is bringing four vocalists to the stage Sunday to perform some of opera’s perennial favorites.

This isn’t the first time the group has delved into opera. In 2013, it performed the concert version of Henry Purcell’s Baroque opera “Dido and Aeneas.”

The concert Sunday moves into opera’s mature — and, arguably, more accessible — age with works from solos, trios and quartets from works by Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini and Bernstein.

“The whole point of this was to get four singers together to do ... the big hits” from operas including Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly”; Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte”; Verdi’s “Rigoletto”; and Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” said Bach Society Director Ben Nisbet.

“The music goes from Mozart all the way to Bernstein, which I think is really cool because it will give people a broad spectrum of styles,” Nisbet said. “But the important thing is that it’s all very fun.”

Sunday’s concert is the first of five the organization will host this summer.

The season is being dedicated to the Bach Society’s founder, the Rev. Dr. Charles O. Ingram, who started the group in 1988 and was a big opera fan. Ingram died last year.

“It’s grown every year,” Nisbet said. “I think it’s grown artistically. It certainly has grown in terms of financial success. And I think it’s grown in esteem in the community as well.

“It’s kind of destination programming here.”

He said the vocalists performing all have Tucson ties, and each has earned at least one degree from the University of Arizona.

• Soprano Erika Burkhart sings with Tucson Chamber Artists, which will officially change its name to True Concord Voices & Orchestra on July 1.

• Mezzo-soprano

• Kaitlyn Bertenshaw

• , who now lives in Boston, has performed a number of operas with companies in Florida and New England.
• Tucson-based tenor

• Stephen Charles Warner

• , who Nisbet described as the “baby of the group,” made his professional debut with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in its holiday concerts. That’s what brought him to Nisbet’s attention. (Nisbet has played violin with the orchestra for years.)
• Baritone

• Greg Guenther

• , who also hails from Tucson and holds the distinction of having won the UA Concerto Competition that landed him a spot on the President’s Concert as a soloist in 2011.

The Bach Society season features a monthly concert through September.

Nisbet said the season is anchored by its “Brandenburg Fest” on Aug. 30, featuring Nisbet with fellow violinists Lauren Roth and Ellen Chamberlain; trumpeter Conrad Jones; horn players Johanna Lundy and Victor Valenzuela; harpsichordist Guy Whatley; and flutists Viviana Cumplido and Sasha Lipay. They will join the St. Andrew’s Bach Society Chamber Orchestra to perform four of Brandenburg’s concertos in a single afternoon.

“Everybody knows the Brandenburg concertos, but I’m not sure they know how unique it is to hear them one after another,” Nisbet said. “It’s difficult to put the Brandenburg on because each piece has a particularly different soloist.”