Opera Joe interviews Nikola Printz singing
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Walnut Creek, Calif. (August 5, 2023) — With two weeks remaining in the rehearsal period, Festival Opera today announced a major and unforeseen cast change in the company’s new production of Georges Bizet’s iconic opera, Carmen: acclaimed Bay Area mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz will now assume the title role replacing previously announced artist and rising star, Taylor Raven, who has withdrawn due to illness. Today I also wish to announce - and am truly grateful - that an artist as fantastic as Nikola Printz is willing to step in last minute as our Carmen.
Nikola’s voice and stage presence will be an ideal fit in our updated setting of this legendary opera. I believe audiences will be gobsmacked by the display of talent on our stage.” ABOUT NIKOLA PRINTZ Known for their “sheer stylistic range...full-throated vocalism and raw emotional honesty” (San Francisco Classical Voice), artistically fluid mezzo Nikola Printz uses music to communicate who they are, and not just what they can do. That sense of personal conviction was evident in their recent Schwabacher Debut Recital at San Francisco Opera Center. The San Francisco Chronicle named the performance one of San Francisco’s Best of 2022, writing, “Listeners reveled in the beauty of Printz’s singing – their lustrously dark chest tones, their elegant phrasing... such commitment and tonal splendor.” Following three pandemic-era summers as a participant in the Merola Opera Program, Printz began their tenure as an Adler Fellow with San Francisco Opera in 2023. During SF Opera’s centennial season, Printz covered the role of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo in the Bay Area premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank’s El ultimo sueño de Frida y Diego, as well as singing Frida Image #2; sang various roles in Richard Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten; and performed Musetta in the company’s innovative Bohème Out of The Box. Recent performance highlights include the title roles in Carmen and Dido and Aeneas with Opera San José; L’italiana in Algeri with Opera Memphis; The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein with Pocket Opera; Freschi’s Ermelinda with Ars Minerva; Orfeo ed Eurydice with West Edge Opera; and The Rape of Lucretia with Green Mountain Opera Festival. Printz has also appeared as Elle in Poulenc’s monodrama, La Voix humaine; Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia; The Fox in Cunning Little Vixen; Olga in Eugene Onegin; Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro; and Aldonza in Man of La Mancha for Shreveport Opera. Printz’s first musical homes were in jazz and cabaret clubs, and they are well-versed in crossover styles of singing.
In addition to engagements at Yoshi’s Jazz Lounge and Club 1923, Printz also created the role of Velma Louise Cole in Boxcar Theater's immersive Speakeasy SF and joined San Francisco Symphony for their annual queer variety show, Holiday Gaiety. An accomplished aerialist, Printz has also developed and performed on spinning trapeze in both grand concert halls and smoky cabaret clubs.
Printz is currently performing in Opera Parallèle and the San Francisco Transgender District’s second annual Expansive: A Showcase of Transgender and Non-Binary Classical Artists, held this year at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater. For only the second time in the company’s 32-year history, Festival Opera presents Bizet’s Carmen, the composer’s final work for the Paris Opéra-Comique stage in 1875 prior to his tragically early death at age 36. The trailblazing work overflows with raw energy and enduring melodic inspiration, wrapped within a plot that is startling in its uncompromising realism. Today, Carmen remains at the very core of the opera repertory, one of the most often performed works in the world attracting the greatest singing artists of the day to interpret the title role, the ultimate femme fatale and tragic heroine of l’amour. As previously announced, an impressive roster of rising operatic stars has been assembled for Carmen including the welcome return of successful Festival Opera alumni, soprano Hope Briggs (Micaëla) and tenor Dane Suarez (Don José), and the company premier of “magnificent” baritone, Young Kwang Yoo* (Escamillo).