Summer Opera 2027

Soprano Christina Bell is in demand across North America for Concert, Opera, and Oratorio.  She recently made her debut with Toronto City Opera in the title role of Susannah and sang the role of Paquette in Candide with the North York Concert Orchestra.  A graduate from University of Toronto with a Diploma in Operatic Performance, Christina sang the roles of Mrs. Baggett in Footsteps in Campbell House, Lady with a Cake Box in Dominick Argentos’ Postcard from Morocco, Lady Billows in Brittens’ Albert Herring, Donatella in Encouters, as well as being a part of Last Days, a new production with Tim Albery and David Fallis.  

Over the years Christina has attended the Mainstage/Ensemble Programs at Opera on the Avalon, The Centre for Opera Studies in Italy, Halifax Summer Opera Festival, St. Andrews Summer Opera Workshop.  Other recent operatic performances include Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito, Liliana in Miracle Flight 571 with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Portia in Le marchand de Venise, Cousin Hebe from Gilbert & Sullivans’ HMS Pinafore, Mrs.Grose in The Turn of the Screw, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Helena in Brittens’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Christina has been a member of the Canadian Opera Company Chorus since 2015 and when she is not on a stage, she can be found exploring her passion for arts administration and management.  She is the Opera & Public Events Administrator at the University of Toronto and in 2023 took on the role of the Company Manager for the Banff Centre: Opera in the 21st Century & Interplay Programs.

Hailed by the New York Times for his “robust singing” and Opera News for his “exquisite vocal beauty,” Grammy Award winning Canadian baritone Elliot Madore has established himself as an international artist in demand at the leading opera houses and orchestras of the world. The 2022 – 2023 season sees Mr. Madore’s return to the Los Angeles Philharmonic to sing Ramón in a semi-staged production of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West, as well as his much anticipated debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra to sing Messiah under the direction of music director Gustavo Gimeno. Mr. Madore also sings the baritone soloist in Carmina Burana in a special co-presentation by the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Ballet, as well as with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä, the New World Symphony Orchestra conducted by Patrick Dupré Quigley, and the Oregon Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leo Hussain. Mr. Madore also makes his debut with the Kalamazoo Symphony in Brahms’ Requiem. This season Mr. Madore also continues his position as a performing Associate Professor of Voice with the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music faculty.

Highlights of previous seasons at the Metropolitan Opera include performances of Mercutio in a new production of Roméo et Juliette which was broadcast live in HD and as Figaro in The Barber of Seville. Mr. Madore made his European operatic debut at the Glyndebourne Festival singing Ramiro in L’heure espagnole and Le chat and L’horloge comtoise in a new production of L’enfant et les sortilèges, and returned to the company later to sing the title role in Don Giovanni. He has also been seen in a return to Dutch National Opera for the European debut of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West as Ramón and as the title role in Don Giovanni with Opera Philadelphia, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and with the Tanglewood Festival, and as Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos with the Bayerische Staatsoper, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, and with the Tanglewood Festival. 
 

Lauded for her “supple, pliant” voice and “considerable emotional range” (Opera Canada), Hungarian-Canadian mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó is widely recognized for her refined musicianship and compelling stage presence. In the 2025/26 season, she made her Manitoba Opera debut as Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro, and returned to both Tafelmusik and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for Handel’s Messiah. She also premiered two works by composer Jeffrey Ryan: Seven Scenes with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Mother/Land with the Vancouver Bach Choir.

Further recent concert highlights include Handel’s Messiah with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Houston Symphony, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Cleveland Orchestra and Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Music of the Baroque, and Mozart’s Requiem with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

A graduate of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, Szabó performs regularly across Canada and Europe. She made her debuts at Dutch National Opera and the Royal Opera House in George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence, later recorded for a Grammy-nominated album. She is Assistant Professor of Voice and Opera at the University of British Columbia and recently appointed Chair of Voice at the Glenn Gould School.

Described as a “scintillating player,” pianist and Coach, Tina Chang, is currently on the music staff at Vancouver Opera, and has been involved with international organizations such as Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland, Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, soundSCAPE New Music Festival in Italy. Locally, she works with organizations such as Chor Leoni, Arts Club Theatre, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Sound the Alarm Music Theatre, and Vancouver Bach Choir.  She maintains her own private studio, and has been on the adjunct faculty at the University of British Columbia, and Dalhousie University. Find out more about Tina at www.TinaChangPiano.ca. 

Perri Lo is a pianist and vocal coach, working in opera, chamber music, and dance.  She is passionate about intertwining these art forms, coming from a formal opera repetiteur training and working with professional dance companies and schools since 2010.  Perri is currently a staff pianist at Ballet BC and Arts Umbrella Dance Company.  Most recently, she produced her first dance and art song collaboration, Quartet, featuring baritone Luka Kawabata and dancers of Ballet BC, in support of Banff Centre’s Opera in the 21^st Century Program.

Since her role as apprentice coach with the Vancouver Opera’s Yulanda M. Faris Young Artist Program (‘18-19), Perri has music directed productions with Indie Opera West companies such as ReNaissance Opera, of both traditional and contemporary repertoire.  One of her most valuable experiences was touring across B.C. with  Vancouver Opera and Pacific Opera Victoria’s co-production of Flight of the Hummingbird (2020), a new children’s opera about climate change.

When she is not performing with singers and instrumentalists, Perri serves as B.C.’s Provincial Coordinator for Opera InReach, an artists’ collective providing accessible, innovative, and diverse opera education and mentorship for youths across Canada.

She is grateful to be creating and working on the unceded and ancestral homelands of xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Spencer Kryzanowski is a passionate crossover artist working as a conductor, music director, répétiteur, and vocal coach in both musical theatre and opera.

Spencer is the assistant conductor and pianist for Edmonton Opera; a staff member in the University of Toronto Opera department; resident music director for Good Mess Opera Theatre; and resident music director for Pop Goes the Opera in Edmonton, Alberta. On top of these regular positions, Spencer maintains a busy freelance schedule.

As a conductor and music director, Spencer has worked on numerous opera and musical theatre productions across Canada. His recent opera credits include Wagner’s Die Walküre (Edmonton Opera), Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle (Edmonton Opera), Strauss Jr's Die Fledermaus (Edmonton Opera), Puccini's Il tabarro (Pop Goes the Opera), Massenet's Cendrillon (UofT Opera), Hank and Gremlin (Good Mess Opera), and La bohème (Mercury Opera). Spencer's recent musical theatre credits include Newsies, Mean Girls: The Musical, and Beauty and the Beast with Bravo Academy.

Spencer's recent répétiteur credits include Guerrero's El huésped del sevillano with Toronto Operetta Theatre, Nino Rota's Il cappello di paglia di Firenze, and a comedic triple-bill of Hindemith's Hin und zurück, Offenbach's Monsieur Choufleuri, and Douglas Moore's Gallantry. Other credits include Humperdink's Hänsel und Gretel with Berlin Opera Academy; Copland's The Tender Land; Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia; Puccini’s Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi; and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Spencer had the pleasure of workshopping Melancholia, an opera based on the Lars von Trier film, by Mikael Karlsson and Royce Vavrek in 2023 for the Royal Swedish Opera. Additionally, Spencer assisted as a répétiteur and vocal coach in a workshop of Indians on Vacation by Ian Cusson and Royce Vavrek in 2024 as part of a collaboration with Against the Grain Theatre and Edmonton Opera.

Toronto-based conductor and educator Sandra Horst is celebrated for her “superb direction” (La Scena), professionalism, and musical integrity throughout her thirty-year career. Recent conducting engagements include Orphée+ with Edmonton Opera, Florence, the Lady with the Lamp with Voicebox: Opera in Concert, and the premiere of Cusson and Vavrek’s Indians on Vacation at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Since 1998, she has served as the Price Family Chorus Master at the Canadian Opera Company, amassing a repertoire of over seventy operas to date. In past seasons, she has worked with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Boston Lyric Opera, Juilliard Opera Centre, the Chautauqua Institution, and made her mainstage conducting debut at the Canadian Opera Company with Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims in 2002. Next season, she looks forward to conducting the COC Ensemble Studio's performance of Rossini's Barber of Seville. In 2022, Horst joined Tapestry Opera’s groundbreaking Women in Musical Leadership program as an industry mentor and was appointed to the board of the Association for Opera in Canada in 2024. 

Amanda is an Italian-Canadian choreographer, performer and director based on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, whose work spans opera and theatre across Canada and the U.S. Amanda has worked with companies like Detroit Opera, Theatre Replacement, Toronto City Opera, the Cultch, Pacific Opera Victoria, Arts Club Theatre Company, Bard on the Beach, Banff Centre for the Arts, ItsaZoo Productions, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Gateway Theatre, Opera Kelowna, Neworld Theatre, Electric Company, Vancouver Opera, Axis Theatre, the Glimmerglass Festival, Edmonton Opera, Urban Ink, Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra and the Firehall Arts Centre. She is a graduate of Studio 58, a Jessie award nominee, and was the Miriam Bennett Artist-in-Residence at the Arts Club for the 2024/2025 season.  
For more information visit www.amandatestini.com.