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May 18th

GIACOMO PUCCINI'S

Le Villi

“Non ti scordar di me"

In collaboration with Coro-Dante and the Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts

Music by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Ferdinando Fontana

In Italian with English subtitles

Le Villi is a haunting tale of love, betrayal, and supernatural revenge set deep in the enchanted Black Forest. When the devoted Anna is abandoned by her fiancé Roberto, who falls prey to temptation in a distant city, her heart breaks—and she dies. But death is not the end. She joins the Villi, vengeful spirits of betrayed women, who rise at night to destroy the men who wronged them. As Roberto returns, tormented and desperate, the forest awakens. Anna’s ghost waits, and the dance of death begins. Puccini’s lush orchestration, sweeping arias, and driving, dance-inspired rhythms summon both ecstasy and terror.

A word
from the Conductor

"We are thrilled to present Puccini’s Le Villi, a very special, yet rarely heard work, for the first time in New England. Le Villi is Puccini’s first opera as well as his first great success as a composer. It is a true gem of the repertoire with some of the most passionate and expressive melodies in all of Italian opera. The orchestration is exquisite. Our three award-winning soloists, Stephanie Pfundt, Robert Kleinertz and Asatur Baljyan, are some of the most exciting emerging stars."

        ~ Nathaniel Meyer

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Performance Info

Sunday, May 18th

7pm start time

Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts

41 Hampshire St, Cambridge​

Tickets $20 purchasable at the door. 

Cast

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Robert Kleinertz
Roberto

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Stephanie Pfundt
Anna

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Asatur Baljyan
Guglielmo

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Nathaniel Meyer
Conductor

Robert Kleinertz

Robert Kleinertz is an up-and-coming tenor from Hopewell Junction, NY. Currently pursuing his master’s in opera performance at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, he recently made a role debut at Lincoln Center as Tebaldo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Teatro Nuovo. Mr. Kleinertz’s recent roles with Boston Conservatory Opera include Ferrando in Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte, Lysander in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Tenor in Petterson’s Voir Dire. He has sung as a soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Northern Dutchess Symphony Orchestra, and as the tenor soloist in Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Western New York Chamber Orchestra. Up next, Mr. Kleinertz will be performing with the Janiec Opera Company as Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. He currently resides in Boston with his cat Beef, who helps him prepare for all his roles.

Stephanie Pfundt

Stephanie Pfundt is a soprano, chamber musician, lyricist, and composer. Funding her musical education through work as a deckhand on a commercial fishing boats with her family in Alaska, she has garnered competition recognition as 1st place winner of the 2024 Seattle Opera Guild Competition, as well as numerous prizes in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, and as a quarterfinalist in the 2023 Elizabeth Connell Prize. Past roles include Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte with and Ma Zegner in Mazzoli’s Proving Up with Boston University Opera Institute, Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro and Johanna in Sweeney Todd at Pacific Lutheran University, and Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte with the German Vocal Arts Institute. As a chamber musician, Ms. Pfundt was named the 2022 Ted Stevens Young Alaskan Artist and was the 2nd place winner of the Northwest NATS Artist Award. She is currently composing her first chamber opera. 

Asatur Baljyan

Asatur Balyan has performed in concerts throughout Europe, including Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Russia, as well as in Dubai, India, Israel, and Armenia. He made his debut at the Armenian Opera House as Tatul in Almast where he later performed the title role in Rachmaninoff's Aleko. Other notable performances include Count Danilo in The Merry Widow in Tel Aviv, Israel. Mr. Balyan is the recipient of the First Prize from the Armenian President for Opera Singing, winner of the Annual Music Games in Wittenberg, Germany, and was honored as Best Artist of the Year in Chelyabinsk, Russia. He began his musical studies at the Komitas State Conservatory in Yerevan, Armenia, before furthering his education at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv, Israel, and the Lotte Lehmann Academy in Berlin/Perleberg, Germany. Mr. Balyan currently serves as Music Director and Conductor at St. James Armenian Church in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Nathaniel Meyer

Conductor Nathaniel Meyer has been hailed as a “talented and charismatic–a new, dynamic Leonard Bernstein”, for his electrifying performances of rarely heard works of classical music, brought to life with haunting virtuosity.  Boston Globe critic emeritus Richard Dyer describes:

 

“the musical imagination and the physical gifts of a born conductor. He led…with power, passion and pertinence…The audience and the orchestra burst into applause and cheers.”

 

Meyer was the 1st prize winner at the LaGuardia Conducting Competition, and has gone on to conduct across Europe and the Americas. As the Music Director of the Du Bois Orchestra, he gave the premieres of long-lost works by African-American composers such as Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, and others. His journey includes studies at top institutions like Yale, where he was the recipient of the Wrexham Prize in Music, to masterclasses and apprenticeships with leading European conductors, and accolades as an award-winning trumpet soloist. He has performed in the United States, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, in venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, Smetana Hall in Prague, and the Sala São Paulo in Brazil. He has been an assistant for recording projects with the London Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as with the Orchestra of the Americas.

 

Meyer recently conducted the Hungarian National Symphony Orchestra, the Bucharest Symphony, the Paris Mozart Orchestra, and the Prague Philharmonia. He has also conducted the Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach and the Brandenburger Symphoniker (Germany), the Camerata Antonio Soler (Spain), the Bacau Philharmonic Orchestra (Romania), and across the United States, with orchestras ranging from the East Coast, to the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. 

Chorus

In collaboration

with Coro-Dante
 



Soprano
Claire Burreson 
Ericka Fox 

Mezzo
Chihiro Asano 
Sara Eakman 

 

Tenor
Kartik Ayysola 
Leo Balkovetz 

 

Bass
Nathan Halbur 
Marcus Schenck 

Orchestra

Flute

Grace Helmke

April Showers

 

Oboe

Sachiko Murata

Mia Fasanello 

 

Clarinet

Steve Umans

Iseliana Mendez

 

Bassoon

Bohdan Shevchenko

Brenda Herrera 

 

Horn

Yeonjo Oh

Hannah Messenger

 

Trumpet 

Reynolds Martin 

George Goodwin

 

Trombone

Aaron Buede 

Roger Hecht

Matthew Visconti

 

Violin I

Fiona Wood, concertmaster

Ari Umans, assistant concertmaster

Demi Fang

Francis Nimick

Matt Lamb

Enchi Chang

Richard Clark

Sarah McGuire 

 

Violin II

Christina Junga

Yoko Nakatani

Brandon Enriquez

Toshi Motoyama

Ryan Urato

Jennifer Winiarski

Shu-hong Lin

 

Viola

Raymond Dineen

Mary Hecht

Chris Palmer

Nicole Micheroni

 

Cello

Seth MacLeod

Miles Edwards

Iverson Eliopoulos

Bass

Brett Sawka

 

Timpani/Percussion

Jeremy Lang 

Eric Cortell

Ryan Chao

© 2025 New Opera Company of Boston

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