BERKSHIRE OPERA FESTIVAL

Amanda Batista  is a Puerto Rican-Cuban-American soprano who this season begins her first year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera.  She will make her house debut there as the High Priestess in Aida in spring 2023.  This past summer, Ms. Batista was a young artist in the Merola Opera Program, where she sang the title role in Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, and Salud in de Falla’s La Vida Breve on the Schwabacher Summer Concert. Ms. Batista is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she was a recipient of the Kovner Fellowship.

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Ryan Capozzo, a first-year member of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, received a Master of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music, where he was awarded the Phyllis Curtin Career Entry Prize, and was heard with Yale Opera as Arcadio in Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas and as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte in the spring opera showcase. A native of Huntington, NY, he is the 2022 second-place winner in the Southeast Region of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. During the 2022-23 Lyric Opera of Chicago season, Mr. Capozzo will appear as Remendado in Carmen.

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Yazid Gray has been described as having "a baritone voice of fine quality and warmth" by onStage Pittsburgh. Mr. Gray recently finished a summer as a young artist with The Glimmerglass Festival, where he sang Le Dancaïre in Carmen, Baloo in the world premiere of Sankaram and Rourke’s The Jungle Book, and covered the role of Cedric/Matteo in the world premiere of Rossini and Ludwig’s Tenor Overboard. In 2022-23, Mr. Gray debuts with Intermountain Opera Bozeman as Homecoming Soldier in Dye and Redler’s The Falling and the Rising, Madison Opera as Sam in Trouble in Tahiti, and the New Mexico Philharmonic in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

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Francesco Barfoed is a Danish pianist, born and raised in Copenhagen. He has twice won the YCA International Auditions – in 2020 with mezzo-soprano Megan Moore and in 2022 with baritone Joseph Parrish. Ms. Moore and Mr. Barfoed also won first prize in the Copenhagen Lied-Duo Competition, and toured in the 2021-22 season with their recital, I SEE LIGHT. In 2022, Mr. Barfoed participated in Renée Fleming’s SongStudio at Carnegie Hall, co-arranged and performed a two-piano version of The Rake’s Progress, won the Vocal Arts Honors Recital at Juilliard, performed alongside New York Festival of Song’s Steven Blier as a Schwab Rising Star at Caramoor, and was an opera coaching fellow at Aspen Music Festival.