CAST BIOGRAPHIES
Soprano Solange Sior has performed with many organizations in the Midwest and in Canada, including Lyric Opera of Chicago, Florentine Opera Company, Light Opera Works, Lincoln Opera, Chamber Opera Chicago, Chicago Concertante, New Music Chicago, New Millennium Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Elgin Choral Union, and Youth and Music Canada. At the prestigious Shaker Mountain Music Festival she performed 3 years in a row and sang the lead roles of Marguerite, Suor Angelica, and Manon. She sang Mimi in La Bohème at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy. She has also performed the roles of Madama Butterfly, Violetta, Musetta, Pamina, Fiordiligi, Monica, and the title role in Rose-Marie and The Incomplete Education by Chabrier.
Soprano Tetyana Torzhevska made her opera debut in 1989 at the State Opera Studio in Kiev in the role of Parasya in Mussorgsky’s “Sorochintsy Fair”. In 1991 Tetyana was invited to sing as a soloist with the Ukrainian Separate Model Orchestra. She performed with them in France, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and won First Prize on International Festival “Golden Lyre” in Poland (1993). In 1993 she was invited to sing title role in Iolanta by Tchaikovsky at the Kiev State Opera. Her powerful and flexible soprano spinto allows her to sing a wide ranging repertoire from lyric coloratura as Violetta from La Traviata to such dramatic role as Tosca. Her operatic repertoire also includes the roles of Tatiana (Eugene Onegin), Lisa (Queen of Spades), Zemfira (Aleko), Marguerite (Faust), Leonora (Il Trovatore), Leonora (La Forza del Destino).
Tenor Simon Kyung Lee solo debut came about during a 1994 production of La Bohème. Simon has made a tremendous impression in such roles as Radames in Aïda, Manrico in Il Trovatore, The Duke in Rigoletto, Ismaele in Nabucco, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Luigi in Il Tabarro, Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, Don Jose in Carmen and his signature role, Calaf in Turandot. Mr. Lee has sung with Utah Festival Opera, Chamber Opera of Chicago, Opera Carolina, Kansas City Puccini Festival, Sunstate Opera and others. I. From 2011-2016 he has performed over 100 performances in 8 Opera productions with Teatro Lirico D'Europa in US and Europe.
Franco Martorana’s stage debut was as Camille in The Merry Widow for Chicago’s Lincoln Opera. While with Lincoln Opera, Franco journeyed to Germany with the company for performances of La Bohème, Madama Butterfly and La Traviata. In 1997, he performed the roles of Alfredo in La Traviata and Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana for Zwei-Groschen-Oper in Humbach, Germany. In recent seasons, Franco has appeared in Bellissima Opera’s productions of La Traviata and Madama Butterfly and as Michele in The Saint of Bleecker Street in Chamber Opera of Chicago’s Menotti Gala.