Join us for our As One Fundraiser & Preview, sponsored by Hydrate.
We open our season 2017/18 with this As One Fundraiser for our production: a thoughtful journey through questions of identity, empathy, compassion, and humanity with the Chicago premiere of “As One.” In this intimate show, a mezzo-soprano and baritone represent a single transgender protagonist, Hannah. As One takes us alongside as she seeks to resolve the discord between the truth of her own self and the world around her.
“This is a story that people can relate to whether they’re trans or not…I think we all grow and change and transition from one thing to another. And to confirm that you can unclog your world, being yourself instead of being this fabrication that everyone is telling yourself they’re supposed to be, that’s a very powerful thing.”
-Kimberly Reed (co-librettist, filmmaker)
$25 per person donation – ahead or at the door.*
Included in your entry donation:
One Drink at the bar (additional cash bar available)
Performances from Kaminsky, Campbell, Reed and more!
Help us make this incredible work a success!
*Please donate ahead to ensure your donation receipt letter, or request one by email following the event.
Cast
Jacquelyn Kress
Hannah After
Jacquelyn Kress
Hannah After
Jacquelyn Kress, mezzo-soprano, is a recent graduate of the Opera Institute at Boston University. With the OI, Ms. Kress was seen as Annio (La Clemenza di Tito), Kate (Owen Wingrave), Jean (Le Portrait de Manon), Mother Marie (Dialogues of the Carmelites), and Fidalma (Il Matrimonio Segreto). She has also performed with the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s outreach program as Tisbe in La Cenerentola. Other performances include Hansel and Gretel (Hansel), La vie parisienne (Métella), The Pirates of Penzance (Ruth),Trouble in Tahiti (Dinah), L’enfant et les sortileges (L’écureuil/La chatte), The Mikado (Katisha), Roméo et Juliette (Stephano), Cosi fan tutte (Dorabella). She has also been on the international stage: Salzburg, Austria as Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro, and Périgueux, France as the title role in Offenbach’s La Périchole. Ms. Kress has a BM from the University of Illinois, and a MM from Roosevelt University.
Productions with Chicago Fringe Opera
As One
Hannah Before (cover)
2017
Fringe’s Holiday House Party
Soloist
2015
Chicago Fringe Opera’s Lakeside Soiree
Soloist
2015
2014 Christmas Celebration
Soloist
2014
Jonathan Wilson
Hannah Before
Jonathan Wilson
Hannah Before
Jonathan Wilson is grateful to perform again with Chicago Fringe Opera in this meaningful production of Two Remain. Previously, Jonathan performed with CFO in the title role of their 2019 production of Woyzeck (Waits, Brennan) and as Hannah Before in their 2017 production of As One (Kaminsky, Campbell, Reed). Praised by the Chicago Classical Review for his “resounding and luxurious” voice, Jonathan is an enthusiast of contemporary opera with other recent roles including Robert Dziekański in I will fly like a bird (Plant, Wainwright), The Poet in When Adonis Calls (Borzoni, de los Santos, Dillard), and John Brooke in Little Women (Adamo). Later in 2022, Jonathan looks forward to performing in several productions with Lyric Opera Chorus, Grant Park Chorus, and Chicago Symphony Chorus. Outside of performing, Jonathan is passionate about math and science and their creative overlap with music and the arts to explore the intricacy, complexity, and beauty of the world. He holds degrees in physics, mathematics, and electromagnetics, and has worked as an RF electrical engineer and a lecturer of physics, astronomy, and Earth science.
Productions with Chicago Fringe Opera
Two Remain
Manfred
2022
Woyzeck
Woyzeck
2019
As One
Hannah Before
2017
Alexandra Enyart
Conductor
Alexandra Enyart
Conductor
Alex Enyart is an orchestra and opera conductor with a focus on new music. She had her international premiere with the Tomsk Philharmonic Orchestra in Russia in 2016, and has worked as an apprentice with the Louisville Orchestra and Kentucky Opera. She began focusing on contemporary opera with Thompson Street Opera Company in Louisville, KY where she also received her Masters in Orchestral Conducting. When the company moved to Chicago, she came with them and took the position of Music Director starting in the 2017-2018 season. Alex has also won the CODA conducting competition and as a result was invited to work with Anthony Maeillo. She has also had the privilege to work and study with Kimcherie Lloyd, Joe Mechavich, Harold Farberman, Teddy Abrams, and Donald Portnoy among many others.
Productions with Chicago Fringe Opera
As One
Conductor
2017
Amy Hutchison
Director
Amy Hutchison
Director
Amy Hutchison has championed American opera throughout her career. Her production of Missy Mazzoli’s Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt for Chicago Fringe Opera was hailed as “imaginative” and “striking… contemporary music theater.” She has directed William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge for Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Washington National Opera and Portland Opera. Her collaboration with Ricky Ian Gordon and Stacey Tappan, Once I Was: Songs by Ricky Ian Gordon, was staged at the Chicago Cultural Center and recorded on the Blue Griffin label. Hutchison’s production of William Grant Still’s epic masterwork Troubled Island for South Shore Opera Company was named the number one classical music event of 2013 by Andrew Patner in the Chicago Sun-Times. Hutchison has also directed: Joelle Lamarre’s The Violet Hour: the Life of Leontyne Price; Jonathan Stinson’s The March: A Civil Rights Opera Project and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Dream Lovers and African Romances for South Shore Opera Company. Other local productions include Leo Fall’s Madame Pompadour (Chicago Folks Operetta), Dido and Aeneas and The Telephone (Elgin Opera), Brigadoon (Music By the Lake), Faust (DuPage Opera), and Ned Rorem’s Our Town (DePaul Opera Theatre). Productions nationwide include Carmen (Kansas City, Milwaukee, Columbus), Turandot (Orlando), Don Pasquale (Indianapolis), La Traviata (Costa Mesa), Il Matrimonio Segreto (Boston), and Help, Help, the Globolinks! (Madison).
Ms. Hutchison has served on the directing staffs of Lyric Opera of Chicago and Houston Grand Opera. She has staged the Maurice Sendak production of Hänsel und Gretel for Opernhaus Zürich, The Juilliard School (televised for PBS: Live from Lincoln Center) and for the Canadian, San Diego, Indianapolis, and Baltimore opera companies. As Associate Director, Hutchison has staged Porgy and Bess throughout the United States and globally, including Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, L’Opéra National de Paris, Teatro La Fenice, and opera houses in Düsseldorf, Lucca and Tokyo.
Ms. Hutchison is a member of the faculty of The Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, where she teaches Opera Workshop to Voice Performance majors.
Upcoming projects include: AS ONE for Chicago Fringe Opera, THE POET for South Shore Opera Company of Chicago, and A Donizetti double bill of IL PIGMALIONE and RITA for Chicago Opera Theatre.
Productions with Chicago Fringe Opera
As One
Director
2017
Song from the Uproar
Director
2016
Jonathan Zeng
Emcee, Tenor
Jonathan Zeng
Emcee, Tenor
Accomplished in Musical Theater, Opera, Oratorio and Concert repertoire, Jonathan Zeng has performed throughout the United States with companies such as Cincinnati Opera, Central City Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Memphis, and Utah Festival Opera. This season, Jonathan performs as soloist in the American premiere of John Joubert’s Five Songs of Incarnation and Bonaventura Somma’s Missa Pro Defunctis with the William Ferris Chorale in Chicago and on tour as Frederic in Pirates of Penzance with Cincinnati Opera Outbound. An avid proponent for arts education, Jonathan serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Preparatory Department at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and maintains a private voice studio. He has experience teaching elementary and middle school general music, middle school choir, and music directing theater productions at the high school level. Jonathan received a BA in Music Education from Western IL University and an MM in vocal performance from the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. Jonathan also writes and records his own music.
Productions with Chicago Fringe Opera
Sounds of Pride 2020
Soloist
2020
Sounds of Pride
Soloist
2019
Love Wounds
Narcissus
2019
Dynamic Donuts: A Fundraiser for Love Wounds
Soloist
2019
The Long Christmas Dinner
Charles
2018
Fringe at the Taproom
Soloist
2018
The Great God Pan
Clarke and Meyrick Cover
2018
Song from the Uproar
Ensemble
2016
The Turn of the Screw
Miles
2015
Chicago Fringe Opera’s Lakeside Soiree
Soloist
2015
Voices in the Dark, Jazz & Trouble in Tahiti
Tenor, Jazz Trio
2015
Supported by The MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture at The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, & the Illinois Arts Council Agency. Chicago Fringe Opera is an Opera America Partner.