SAS Performing Arts presents a chat with Soprano Amy Johnson and Baritone Vernon Hartman hosted by Stephen Scovasso Founder and Artistic Director.

Cori Ellison has served as staff dramaturg at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and New York City Opera (1997-2010), as well as dramaturg on productions including Wagner’s Ring cycle at Washington National Opera, Opera Boston’s production of Shostakovich’s The Nose, and a triple bill of Offenbach operettas at the Bard Festival. Dedicated to nurturing young singers, Ellison teaches at the Julliard School, and has taught master classes at venues including University of Toronto, Mannes, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Boston University, and the University of Texas at Austin. She has led seminars for the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists Program, serves as a judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, and coaches singers privately. Ellison is part of the team that launched the Metropolitan Opera’s pioneering simultaneous translation system, Met Titles, and has authored opera supertitles for companies worldwide. She regularly appears as a commentator and quiz panelist on the Metropolitan Opera’s radio broadcasts. Stephen Scovasso is a musicologist, conductor, director and author. He has directed operas including, Carmen, Tosca, La Bohème, Don Giovanni, Gianni Schicchi, Cosi fan Tutte as well operetta's such as The Merry Widow and Die Fledermaus. He has also directed American Musical Theater pieces such as Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Bernstein’s Candide. In the dramatic theater, Stephen has directed Garcia Lorca’s La Casa del Bernarda Alba, Oscar Wilde’s Salome. In conjunction with SAS Performing Arts Company, he has produced and directed 6 full length virtual streams including Dracula: The Radio Play, Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream as well as many virtual concerts and holiday concerts. Stephen studied Operatic and Symphonic conducting under the tutelage of the late Vincent La Selva. Among the works he has conducted are Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 in D minor, Handel’s Messiah, Puccini’s Tosca, and Mozart's Don Giovanni. During his years at Arizona State University, he taught classes on the Baroque Style, Opera, American Musical Theater, and Stephen Sondheim. Mr. Scovasso has also published a treatise on Puccini's Il Trittico and the end of Italian Opera as well has been a guest on the Metropolitan Opera Quiz panel.

Claudia Catania, a proud alumna of Manhattan School of Music, considers herself a true Renaissance woman in the world of vocal music. She has been seen and heard on Broadway as Marie in the Tony-nominated The Most Happy Fella, and regionally as Lady Thiang in The King and I, Bloody Mary in South Pacific, Ida Strauss in Titanic, and with Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof, as well as in over 22 roles at the Metropolitan Opera, including premieres of Francesca da Rimini and Le Rossignol (where she danced as partner to the great Natalia Makarova), under the baton of her mentor James Levine. Isola Jones is an American mezzo-soprano opera who sang at the Metropolitan Opera for 16 seasons and has performed with many opera companies throughout the U.S. and abroad. She joined the Chicago Symphony Chorus and was the understudy for Yvonne Minton the Verdi Requiem in 1975. During the next two years, she sang in Der Fliegende Holländer in Chicago and in Porgy and Bess in Cleveland. She joined the Metropolitan Opera in 1977, first playing Olga in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. She sang at the Met for 16 seasons and more than 500 performances. In her first year at the Met, she sang the role of Maddalena in Rigoletto in a live telecast and she later sang in 10 Live from the Met telecasts.

SAS Performing Arts DIVO Chat - Artistic Director Stephen Scovasso sits down with Opera luminary Bass Baritone Ashraf Sewailam and discusses his career, his life in Egypt and how he came to be an international Bass Baritone.

Author and lecturer William Berger has written such books on music and operatic composers as: Wagner Without Fear (1998), Verdi With a Vengeance (2000), Puccini Without Excuses (2005), all published by Random House. He has also written opera libretti and articles on religion and architecture. He frequently gives lectures on operatic music and composers, and is also a radio commentator and has recently been a regular host for New York Public Radio's Overnight Music and WNYC radio. Since creation of the Metropolitan Opera Radio on Sirius in the Fall of 2006, he writes all the commentaries heard during entractes of historical broadcasts. Berger is currently often a co-host during live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. Founder and Artistic Director Stephen Scovasso sits down with William Berger in the first DIVO Chat of the year.Premiered May 23, 2022.

Internationally renowned soprano Aprile Millo sat down with Artistic Director Stephen Scovasso to talk about Opera, her career, and the state of the operatic art form. Originally aired in February 2022.

Maestro Eve Queler the founder and conductor emeritus of the Opera Orchestra of New York who has also led many productions in opera houses world wide, and Deborah Surdi former Executive Director of OONY, sit down with Artistic Director Stephen Scovasso to talk about Opera, her career, and the state of the operatic art form.

Luana DeVol was born in California. From 1984 to 1987, she was a principal soloist in the German opera ensembles, first in Aachen then in Mannheim, Germany. From 1987 she was a free-lance artist singing in virtually all the major opera houses of the World. Her debut at La Scala was made as Fidelio in the title role under the baton of Lorin Maazel. She also appeared at La Scala as the Dyer’s wife in Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten under the baton of Guiseppe Sinopoli. Her Bruennhilde in Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, for which she was awarded “Singer of the Year” award in Germany, was heard in many theaters, including the Bayreuth Festival, the Vienna State Opera, and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Her appearances included Elektra in Buenos Aires, and a concert performance of Goetterdaemmerung in Abu Dhabi. Most recently she has been appointed to the staff of the Institute for Young Dramatic Voices, where she will lead the Wagner Division. Grammy award winning KS Tichina Vaughn is an outstanding American mezzo-soprano, celebrated for her luxuriously rich voice as well as her electrifying stagecraft. She began her career as a member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and made her European debut as Mistress Quickly in Falstaff at Staatstheater Stuttgart where she was awarded the title Kammersängerin. From 1998 to 2006 Tichina Vaughn was a principal artist at the State Opera of Stuttgart and was awarded the title Kammersängerin for her successes in such roles as as Eboli ("Don Carlo"), Azucena ( "Il Trovatore"), Venus („Tannhauser“), Herodias ( "Salome"), Fricka ( "Die Walküre"), Waltraute ("Götterdämmerung ") and Erda (" Siegfried "and" Das Rheingold "). Her discography includes the Stuttgart Ring Cycle with appearances as Fricka in („Die Walküre“) and Waltraute in („Die Götterdämmerung“), which was filmed for the Euro Arts distributed DVD and recorded on the Naxos label. Since the 2010/11 season Tichina Vaughn is a principal artist at the Semper Opera Dresden, where she has been heard as Azucena ( "Il Trovatore"), Venus ("Tannhauser" ), Ulrica ( "Un Ballo in Maschera "), Ortrud ( "Lohengrin"), and Eboli ( "Don Carlo"). Tichina is also on the faculty of the Opera Program Berlin and lends her talents in concert appearances with SAS Performing Arts Company