Jazmine Saunders still remembers her first role with Finger Lakes Opera. In 2021, the soprano appeared as a supernumerary — opera lingo for “extra” — in the local production of Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.”
It didn’t matter that she neither sang nor spoke in the show. Being around professional artists preparing for and performing an operatic classic was thrilling.
“At the time, I was just dying to be in an opera production,” Saunders said. “More than anything, I wanted to see artists sing this work. I wanted to see the rehearsal process. I wanted to see the production process.”
It was, as the saying goes, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
In the four years since Saunders’s first collaboration with her hometown opera company, she graduated from both the Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School. And just weeks ago, in May, Saunders made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera at age 25, appearing as Barbarina in “The Marriage of Figaro.”
But this summer, she’s back home performing once again with FLO. In August, Saunders takes the stage as Gilda in Verdi’s tragedy “Rigoletto,” singing an aria that has become her trademark for auditions.
“In singing [‘Caro nome che il mio cor’] and in immersing myself with the story behind it, I became so deeply connected with the character,” Saunders said. “This young woman who is raised by a single parent and is living this sheltered life [but] sees joy and light in her situation. I like to think of her as a light in the darkness of the story.”
FLO’s summer programming officially kicked off with a Juneteenth celebration at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church featuring Saunders and others; it continues with a production of French composer Joseph Bologne’s little-known “The Anonymous Lover” on July 20, featuring Eastman alum Joshua Pierce Rhodes.
“Rigoletto,” (August 7 and 10) meanwhile, finds Saunders paired with Eastman voice professor Joshua Conyers, who appeared in FLO’s premiere of new opera “Two Corners” in 2024.
This year’s productions arrive after promotions within the company, including a new artistic director and a new head of music. Elizabeth Long, FLO’s executive director, believes the appointments will help FLO’s thrive in its mission of community engagement — hence the events like Juneteenth.
“When I say it is more important than the performances in the hall, I mean that in a sense of balance,” she said. “I believe community engagement is as important as the performances we offer.”
It’s also FLO’s first season on its new stage: the Robert F. Panara Theatre at Rochester Institute of Technology, following previous productions at Monroe Community College and in Canandaigua. Founder Gerard Floriano initially started up the company in 2012 at SUNY Geneseo and helped grow it into a home for emerging talent. He stepped away after the 2024 season.
Long says there would be no FLO without Floriano. So, the company has opted not to replace him, but to elevate Stephanie Havey, who has several years of experience stage directing FLO’s productions and leading its Young Artist Program. She will now sit at the helm as artistic director.
Havey said artist development remains a key motivator for her work.
“That’s really a joy of mine. That’s what attracted me to working with our young artist program in the first place,” she said. “That’s something that Finger Lakes Opera has always been really good at, is finding new talent and helping to foster that talent. That’s something we’re trying to expand.”
Case in point: Saunders, whom Havey was “charmed” by even in her small “Barber of Seville” role.
“I’ve been following her career all the way to the top,” Havey said. “We had the perfect role for her this season, and we thought, what a great opportunity to bring her back home.”
Havey works in tandem with Brock Tjosvold, one of FLO’s past young artists who has risen to its head of music. Tjosvold, an Eastman vocal-coaching professor, said while Havey focuses on costumes, wigs, lighting, staging and big-picture elements of the productions, he can manage schedules to ensure pianists and vocalists thrive at FLO’s community events.
And, of course, he finalizes what ends up being heard on stage — and how it sounds. Part of the gig is making decisions about, for example, Bologne’s 18th-century French opera that hasn’t been performed frequently in the intervening centuries.
“In opera and classical music, there’s this expectation that we have to bring it to life, and I think sometimes we can lose that with these works that have lived on through tradition for hundreds of years,” he said. “[Interpreting the work] benefits our art form as a whole because it reminds us that performers always have to be the ones that bring it to life.”
Notably, those performers include the dozen in this year’s Young Artist Program, half of whom have a local connection.
Perhaps the most potent homecoming, though, is that of Saunders, who first educated herself by watching full operas on YouTube, “Rigoletto” included. To inhabit Gilda in front of her friends and family feels like manifesting a dream.
“It quickly became a goal of mine to sing this role in its entirety,” Saunders said. “Now that I’m able to do that and to do it in my hometown, it means a lot to me.”
Patrick Hosken is CITY’s arts reporter. He can be reached at patrick@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2024.
