Artist Information

Ying Huang, Madame White Snake

Opera Boston debut

Chinese soprano Ying Huang has generated an extraordinary level of critical acclaim and popularity in a career that has already spanned many arenas, including opera and concert stages, television, recordings and motion pictures. 
Ms. Huang is consistently sought after on stages throughout the world for her portrayals of Mozart soprano roles.  Her performances as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Despina in Così fan tutte and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte have been seen in opera houses throughout North America, Asia, Europe and South America. Ms. Huang opened the current season singing the title role in a new production of Semele with Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, directed by acclaimed contemporary artist Zhang Huan, followed by performances of Pamina in The Magic Flute in Hong Kong and Beijing with Opera Hong Kong.

Other recent engagements include; Giannette in L’Elisir d’Amore, Amor in Orfeo, and Pamina in The Magic Flute with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Der Rosenkavalier with The Danish National Opera, the world premiere of Poet Li Bai with the Central City Opera, Nannetta in Verdi’s Falstaff, Sophie in Werther with the Michigan Opera Theatre with Andrea Bocelli and Denyce Graves, and Norina in Don Pasquale with Arizona Opera.  Her most notable achievement is her creation of the role of Du Liniang in Tan Dun’s Peony Pavilion.

In the concert hall, Ms. Huang has a distinguished career as an interpreter of the Mahler repertoire.  Her many appearances include Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Houston Symphony under Christoph Eschenbach; the Fourth Symphony with the Detroit Symphony under Neeme Järvi , and the Eighth Symphony with the Chicago Symphony, again under Maestro Eschenbach. With the Cologne Philharmonic, she has performed Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate, Debussy’s La Damoiselle Élue, and concerts of Mozart and Rossini.  She has made many special appearances, including a concert in Athens to commence festivities for the Olympics, and a gala concert with Andrea Bocelli for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. She was recently featured as soprano soloist in The Lord of the Rings: Six Movements for Orchestra and Chorus with the Montreal Symphony under Oscar-winning composer Howard Shore. Ms. Huang maintains an active career in Asia, singing many solo and orchestral performances throughout China, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. She has also toured with the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra in Chen Qigang’s Iris devoilee.

A graduate from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, she first came to the attention of the West when she captured second prize at the 19th Concours International de Chant de Paris.  In her native China, she is a special guest soloist at the Shanghai Opera House and is widely considered one of China’s pre-eminent cultural ambassadors and singers.

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Michael Maniaci, Xiao Qing

Opera Boston debut

Michael Maniaci has been praised for hisrare, thrilling voice and sensational stage presence. He made an acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, as well as a last-minute debut to critical acclaim at Teatro la Fenice in Venice performing the role of Armando d’Orville in the first modern-day production of Meyerbeer’s rarely performed opera Il crociato in Egitto.  In January 2009, he recorded a disc for Telarc which included Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilateand arias from Lucio Silla, La clemenza di Tito, and Idomeneo with Boston Baroque.

In the 2009 – 2010 season, Mr. Maniaci will debut at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu in L’arbore di Dianaas Amor.  He will also perform works of Handel and Vivaldi at the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele and a concert of Mozart arias with Boston Baroque. Subsequently, he will record a rare Leonardo Vincis opera with EMI/Virgin, which will be presented onstage at Opéra Lausanne and Théâtre de Champs-Elysees.

Recent seasons featured his return to Glimmerglass Opera as Orphée in the Gluck/Berlioz Orphée et Eurydice and made his debut as Atis in The Fortunes of King Croesusat Opera North (Leeds, England).  Other engagements in past seasons included Speranza in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Opera Atelier (Toronto), Santa Fe Opera as Lucio Cinna in Mozart’s Lucio Silla, Pittsburgh Opera, and Nireno in Francisco Negrin’s Giulio Cesare for the Royal Danish Opera. Mr. Maniaci sang with Glimmerglass Opera as Tirinto in Christopher Alden’s production of Handel’s Imeneo.  He took his highly acclaimed portrayal of Nerone in L’incoronazione di Poppea to Cleveland Opera and Chicago Opera Theater with Jane Glover.

Other recent engagements include:   New York City Opera as the Sandman in Hansel and Gretel, the Göttinger Handel Festspiele as Ulisse in Handel’s Deidamia, at Glimmerglass Opera as Medoro in Orlando conducted by Bernard Labadie, and as Narciso in Agrippina with Harry Bicket. He also appeared as Nerone in L’incoronazione di Poppea for Houston Grand Opera, Opera Atelier (Dora Mavor Moore Award Nomination for Best Operatic Performance of the Year in a Leading Role/Toronto, 2003), and at Wolf Trap Opera, where sang the title role of Xerxes.

Mr. Maniaci made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2002 with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.  Other orchestral engagements have included appearances with Tafelmusik, the New Holland Baroque Orchestra, a tour with Academie Baroque de Montréal throughout Canada and Germany, and performed in concert throughout Asia with the Shanghai Opera Orchestra, singing works by Handel, Mozart and Monteverdi.

Mr. Maniaci trained at the Juilliard School and Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.  He is a winner of the 2002 Richard Tucker Study Grant and took First Place honors in the 1999 Houston Grand Opera Competition.

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Dong-Jian Gong, Abbot Fa Hai

Opera Boston debut

Recently Mr. Gong performed the role of Philip II in Verdi's Don Carlo with Hawaii Opera Theatre. Other recent engagements include performances of Timur in Turandot with Opera Hong Kong, the leading role in Cong Su's World in Mercury Light with the Berliner Festspiele, the role of the Emperor in Tan Dun's Tea at the New Zealand International Arts Festival, and Zhuang Zhou in Qu Xiao-song's Cleaving the Coffin with the Zeitgenössische Oper Berlin.

Opera highlights include Colline in La bohème with the Vienna Staatsoper; Ramfis in Aida with the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Seattle Opera, and Oper der Stadt Köln; Procida in I vespri Siciliani with Opéra de Nice; Zaccaria in Nabucco with the Opera de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and Vancouver Opera; the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos with Opéra de Lyon; Philip II in Don Carlos with Kentucky Opera; Giorgio in I puritani with Opera Malaga; Sparafucile in Rigoletto with the Bilbao Opera; and Timur in Turandot with Opera Company of Philadelphia. He has also performed the Bonze in Madama Butterfly with the Dallas Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, and Cincinnati Opera; Colline in La bohème with New York City Opera; Nourabad in Les Pechêurs de perles with Calgary Opera; and Oroveso in Norma with Opera Memphis.

A fan and advocate of new opera, Dong-Jian Gong appeared as Han Xizai in the world premiere of Guo Wenjing's Night Banquet with the Hong Kong Arts Festival, and in the summer of 2002 was in the U.S. premiere at the Lincoln Center Festival. He went on to reprise the role at the Beijing Music Festival and in performances in Paris, Perth, and Berlin. He performed the role of Lahoan in the world premiere of Qu Xiao-song's Life on a String with the Kunsten Festival des Arts in Brussels, and also in Paris, Lisbon, at the Edinburgh Festival, and with Zeitgenossiche Opera in Berlin. Mr. Gong has also made a specialty of the role of Kublai Khan in Tan Dun's Marco Polo and can be heard on the Sony Classics recording of the piece. He was in productions of the opera in Munich, Amsterdam, Turin, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and London.

Mr. Gong's orchestral engagements have included the Mozart Requiem with the Teatro Municipal in Santiago, Dvorák's Stabat Mater with the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, Bruch's Odysseus with the American Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. He has performed the Verdi Requiem in Madrid with Michel Plasson and with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

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Peter Tantsits, Xu Xian

Opera Boston debut

Consistently praised for his incisive performances, Peter Tantsits is emerging as an expressive young singing actor making a distinctive name for himself on the operatic stage and in contemporary music circles. He took on the demanding role of Syme in an auspicious debut at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala last season for the Italian premiere of Lorin Maazel’s Orwellian opera 1984. He has performed with a number of orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony, Das Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the American Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre du festival Lyrique-en-mer under conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Leonard Slatkin, Kristjan Järvi, Leon Botstein, Emmanuelle Haïm and Philip Walsh. He returns to the New York Philharmonic this season to perform the White Minister in the anticipated New York premiere of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre under the baton of newly appointed music director Alan Gilbert. Future engagements also include debuts with the Münchner Philharmoniker and the London Symphony Orchestra at Barbican. Mr. Tantsits’s interesting and varied repertoire includes the roles of Pellerin in Dallapiccola’s Volo di notte, Harlekin in Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Gonzalve in Ravel’s L’heure espagnole, Kudrjàš in Janacek’s Kàt’a Kabanovà, and Kassandra in Xenakis’s Oresteia as well as the more standard Edmondo in Manon Lescaut, Pong in Turandot, Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor and various roles in Les contes d’Hoff mann and Salome. He won acclaim in the Middle East for his portrayal of Tony in West Side Story in Dubai and has performed Candide at Vienna’s Konzerthaus in his Austrian debut and at Die Glocke for the 2009 Musikfest Bremen. He also holds a strong interest in music of 18th century France, appearing as Tacmas in Rameau’s Les Indes galantes, the title role in Platée and in Charpentier’s Actéon for the Aldeburgh Festival. Mr. Tantsits has given recitals in venues such as the Snape Maltings in Suffolk, the Rachmaninoff Hall in Moscow, the Teatro Ocampo in Morelia and the Centrepoint Theatre in Dubai. Recent concert performances include works such as Birtwistle’s Ring a Dumb Carillon, Galina Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No. 5, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. Mr. Tantsits is widely noted for his performances of George III in Peter Maxwell Davies’s epic Eight Songs for a Mad King with the International Contemporary Ensemble. He was invited twice to the Festival Internacional de Musica Contemporánea in Morelia and has collaborated with the ensemble on works by composers such as Berio, Birtwistle, Gubaidulina, Kagel, Ligeti, Nono, Rihm, Ustvolskaya, and Xenakis. He is scheduled to premiere two new large-scale works written for him and the ensemble by composers Georges Aperghis and David Lang. Originally trained as a violinist, Mr. Tantsits holds degress from the Oberlin Conservatory and Yale University.

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Zhou Long, Composer

Zhou Long is recognized internationally for creating a unique body of music that brings together the aesthetic concepts and musical elements of East and West. Deeply grounded in the spectrum of his Chinese heritage, particularly its philosophical, and spiritual ideals, he is a pioneer in combining the idiomatic sounds and techniques of ancient Chinese musical traditions with contemporary Western ensembles and compositional forms.

In 2003 the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded Zhou Long its Academy Award in Music, recognizing lifetime achievement. The citation reads: “Unlike many composers of today working between cultures, Zhou Long has found a plausible, rigorous, and legitimate way of consolidating compositional methods and techniques that allow him to express brilliantly both his experiences as a composer of Western music and his considerable knowledge of his native China. In [his music], Zhou Long displays a stunning (quasi-tactile) orchestral imagination that dramatically demonstrates his skill of embedding elements of the two cultures in a consistent, seamless, and original musical language.”

In April 2006, Bell Drum Towers, commissioned by the House of World Cultures for the Ensemble Modern, was premiered in Berlin and will be performed in Beijing in October 2006. Recent orchestral premieres, include The Enlightened, commissioned and premiered in September 2005 by the Kansas City Symphony, led by music director Michael Stern; and Concerto for Taiko and Timpani commissioned and premiered in May 2005 by the Honolulu Symphony, conducted by music director Sam Wong. In July 2004, The Immortal, commissioned by the BBC World Service for the BBC Proms, was premiered by the BBC Symphony, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, and was released on recording by Warner Classics. In May 2003, The Rhyme of Taigu, commissioned with funds from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, was premiered by the Singapore Symphony, conducted by Lan Shui, and was subsequently recorded by BIS records. Recent chamber works include his string quartet Harmony, commissioned by the Cork Festival and premiered by the Vanbrugh Quartet in July 2002. In November 2002, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players premiered The Five Elements (flute/piccolo, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and cello), which was commissioned with funds from the Fromm Foundation. A version of The Five Elements for Chinese and Western instruments (dizi, erhu, pipa, clarinet, cello and percussion), commissioned by Wesleyan University, was premiered in November 2002 by the Wesleyan Chamber Ensemble and Music from China.

During the 2006-07 season, Zhou Long participated in a year-long residency with the Westfield (NJ) Symphony Orchestra as part of Music Alive VII, sponsored by Meet the Composer and the American Symphony Orchestra League. Zhou Long is currently Visiting Professor of Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music. In May 2002, he was Music Alive! Composer-in-Residence of the Seattle Symphony's “Silk Road Project” Festival with Yo-Yo Ma, supported by the American Symphony Orchestra League and Meet the Composer.

Zhou Long has received fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, as well as recording grants from the Mary Flagler Cary Trust and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. His awards include Masterprize (Two Poems from Tang with a performance by the London Symphony and recordings for BBC and EMI), and the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts, as well as winning the Barlow International Competition (Tian Ling with a performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic), the Fifth International Competition in d'Avray, France (Dhyana), the Ensemblia Competition in Mönchengladbach, Germany (Ding), and many top prizes from Chinese national competitions. He has been the recipient of commissions from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Among the ensembles who have commissioned works from him, are the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (Out of Tang Court), the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra (Poems from Tang), the Tokyo Philharmonic (The Future of Fire), the New Music Consort (The Ineffable), the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble (Soul and Tian Ling), the Peabody Trio (Spirit of Chimes), the Kronos, Shanghai, Ciompi, and Chester string quartets (Poems from Tang), and the vocal ensemble Chanticleer (Words of the Sun). In September 2000, his evening-length work Rites of Chimes, for solo cello and Chinese instruments, was premiered at the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., by Yo-Yo Ma and Music from China.

Zhou Long was born into an artistic family and began piano lessons at an early age. During the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to a rural state farm, where the bleak landscape with roaring winds and ferocious wild fires made a profound and lasting impression. He resumed his musical training in 1973, studying composition, music theory, and conducting, as well as Chinese traditional music. In 1977, he enrolled in the first composition class at the reopened Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Following graduation in 1983, he was appointed composer-in-residence with the National Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra of China. He came to the United States in 1985 under a fellowship to attend Columbia University, where he studied with Chou Wen-Chung, Mario Davidovsky, and George Edwards, receiving a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1993. After more than a decade as music director of Music from China in New York City, he received ASCAP's prestigious Adventurous Programming Award in 1999.

Zhou Long's works have been recorded on Warner Classics, BIS, EMI, CRI, Teldec (1999 Grammy Award), Cala, Delos, Avant, and China Record Corporation. In 2004 BIS released Rhymes, orchestral music performed by the Shanghai Quartet and the Singapore Symphony conducted by Lan Shui; Cala released The Book of Songs, works for voice and instruments with soprano Lan Rao; and Delos released Tales from the Cave, featuring his chamber music for Chinese traditional and Western instruments. Zhou Long is published exclusively by Oxford University Press.

Cerise Lim Jacobs, Creator and Librettist

Cerise Lim Jacobs was born in colonial Singapore into a traditional Chinese family. She grew up at the confluence of many disparate influences stemming from Singapore’s multicultural environment. When she was sixteen, her family emigrated to Australia to escape the turbulence created by the end of the Vietnam war and the bankruptcy of the British Empire. She dropped out of school at the age of nineteen to follow her heart and began a sojourn that took her from Melbourne, Australia, to Oxford, England, East Lansing, Michigan, Vancouver, Canada, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania until she finally settled in Boston, Massachusetts.

Cerise is a lifelong student of living creatively and imaginatively as a means of achieving success across many disciplines. In her meanderings, she has pursued an eclectic array of interests ranging from ancient Chinese porcelains at the Ashmoleum Museum to modern British theater. She graduated, summa cum laude, in English with a specialty in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. She was a trial partner at Goodwin Procter LLP, one of the largest law firms in New England, where she specialized in criminal defense and patent litigation. She also served for five years as a federal prosecutor at the US Attorney’s Office in Boston as part of her commitment to public service. Cerise garnered much of her theater skills in the hurly burly of the courtroom where she learnt to capture the hearts and minds of her juries.

Cerise is now retired. Since she resigned her law partnership, she has returned to her major passions in life – food, art and music.

Gil Rose, Conductor

Music Director for Opera Boston

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Robert Woodruff, Stage Director

Robert Woodruff has directed over 50 theatrical productions, at Lincoln Center, The New York Shakespeare Festival, The Guthrie Theater, the Mark Taper Forum and the Goodman Theatre.  Most recent works include Racine’s Britannicus at the A.R.T. (2007 Elliot Norton Award for Best Director/Production) and Appomattox, an opera by Philip Glass.  He premiered Sam Shepard’s Buried Child (Pulitzer Prize), True West, and Curse of the Starving Class.

Woodruff was Artistic Director of the A.R.T. until June 2007, where he produced 35 productions with artists from 12 countries.  His work there included the world premieres of Rinde Eckert's Orpheus X (runner-up for this year’s Pulitzer Prize), also presented at the Edinburgh International Festival and the Hong Kong Arts Festival and Highway Ulysses, a music theatre contemporary rendering of The Odyssey; as well as Philip Glass's opera A Sound of a Voice, which was also presented in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles. 

Mr. Woodruff’s work has been seen at The Sydney Arts Festival (In The Belly of the Beast), The Spoleto Festival Charleston (Pioneer – a music theatre work with Paul Dresher) The Jerusalem Festival (Jude Suss) The Next Wave Festival (L’Historie du Soldat) and The Olympic Arts Festival Los Angeles (Comedy of Errors).    His work with Philip Glass includes Madrigal Opera at the Mark Taper Forum and Sound of a Voice two one act operas with libretto by David Henry Hwang which premiered at The American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge. Mr. Woodruff was Artistic Director at ART from 2002 through 2007 where he helped produce thirty five productions with artists from twelve countries.  He currently serves on the faculty of the Yale School of Drama.