Hansel & Gretel

Versatile mezzo-soprano Sara Henry has charmed audiences around the world, singing leading and supporting roles in more than 50 different operas. She has previously appeared with Prelude Opera in The Billy Goats Gruff, Little Red Riding Hood, The Magic Flute, and Operapalooza. Highlights of her career have included the roles of Semiramide (Semiramide), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Orfeo (Orfeo ed Euridice), Carmen (Carmen) Diana (La Calisto), Adalgisa (Norma), and Giovanna Seymour (Anna Bolena), as well as a host of Handelian heroes, including the title roles in Xerxes, Ariodante, and Giulio Cesare. In addition to singing, she is known for writing and producing witty English language adaptations of classic operatic repertoire. 

Alana Trimmier is a full lyric soprano and was classically trained at Florida State University’s School of Music and has lived in Manhattan for over 15 years. Most recently, Alana has performed the roles of Amelia (Un Ballo in Maschera) and Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus) with New York Opera Forum and self-produced her solo recital of the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss at the National Opera Center. Ms. Trimmier studies voice with Carmen Elisa Cancél and is incredibly excited to perform in this production with Prelude Opera. 

Of Ms. Gilbert’s Zerbinetta in Utopia Opera’s production of Ariadne auf Naxos, James Jorden of the New York Observer wrote: “Stealing the show was Halley Gilbert as Zerbinetta, flinging out crystalline trills, arpeggios, staccati and roulades…Ms. Gilbert’s frankness…made the text sound like it could have been written yesterday.” She has performed multiple leading roles including Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Cunegonde (Candide), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Violetta (La Traviata), Nanetta (Falstaff), Ännchen (Der Freischütz) and Birdie (Regina). Other roles include Ms. Wordsworth (Albert Herring), Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflӧte), Chlorinda (Cenerentola) and Frasquita (Carmen). Ms. Gilbert has been a featured soloist with the Great Music in a Great Space Concert Series, Musica Sacra, Greenwich Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Pensacola Symphony Orchestra, Lake Placid Sinfonietta, and Bronx Arts Ensemble among others. She recieved first prize in both Opera Idol NYC and the Jenny Lind Competition for Sopranos and was a Regional Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

Joanie Brittingham is a soprano, actor and writer. Praised for “dramatic versatility” (Opera News), “meltingly beautiful” interpretations (Forbes), “lovely soprano” and “lucid diction” (New York Times), “captivating stage presence” (New York Classical Review), and “full-bodied voice” (Tulsa World), all while demonstrating “strength and resistance” (Opera Wire) throughout “outstanding solo work” (New York Concert Review), Brittingham has performed at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, and Symphony Space and with Riverside Theatre, the New Ohio Theatre, Fresh Squeezed Opera, New Amsterdam Opera, Chelsea Opera, the New Works Festival with OPERA America, American Lyric Theatre, and VHRP Live, among others. Brittingham is the author of Practicing for Singers and has contributed to many classical music textbooks. Brittingham’s writing has been described as “breathless comedy” and having “real wit” (New York Classical Review). Their writing has been included in Black Cat Tales and Eternal Haunted Summer. Brittingham is the librettist for the opera Serial Killers and the City, which premiered with Experiments in Opera, and will be a part of New Wave Opera's Night of the Living Opera. 

Brian J. Alvarado’s ‘liquid baritone of great charm,’ ‘precise patter elocution,’ and ‘highly attractive legato’ (Parterre Box) has featured recently as both Falke in La Chauve-Souris and the Baritone in The Four Note Opera (Festival d’art vocal de Montréal; Orchestre Classique de Montréal), Silvio in Pagliacci (New Rochelle Opera), Angelotti in Tosca (Opera Vermont), Eugene Johnson in Blind Injustice (Opera Theatre of the Rockies), Tom in Un ballo in maschera (Opera Project Columbus), and Mountararat in Iolanthe and Simone/Filiberto in Gianni Schicchi/Il Signor Bruschino (Bronx Opera). He has portrayed an ‘appropriately sardonic Leporello' (Indie Opera Podcast) with Bronx Opera, Long

Island Lyric Opera, Lighthouse Opera, and Amore Opera. Other roles include Papageno and Sprecher (Die Zauberflöte), Dandini (La cenerentola), Schaunard (La bohéme), Betto (Gianni Schicchi), Frank (Die Fledermaus), Mercutio (Roméo et Juliette), and the title roles in Venus and Adonis, The Sorcerer, and Sweeney Todd. Solo concert work includes Handel's Messiah, Bach’s BWV 147, Keiser's Markuspassion, Haydn’s Nicolaimesse, Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore and Missa Brevis in G Major, Schubert's Mass in G, and Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass. The Bronx native has appeared chorally at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and National Sawdust, among many others. He is excited to return to Prelude Opera, where he has previously appeared as The Wolf/Woodsman in Little Red Riding Hood, and Osmin in The Billy Goats Gruff.

As noted by Broadwayworld.com of her Amneris in Regina Opera's Aida: Erica has a "velvety mezzo" and "the demanding role held no terrors for her." While ravishing the lush complexity of Verdi, Erica equally enjoys the lighter yet complex humor of Gilbert & Sullivan and is also an accomplished professional choral artist in the tri-state NY area. Erica has made notable appearances as the title role of Bizet's Carmen, Marcellina in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, and both Alma & Cecilia March in Adamo's Little Women. Accompanying these experiences, she has also enjoyed portraying 3rd Lady in Mozart's The Magic Flute and Madame de Croissy in Poulenc's Les Dialogues des Carmélites. After making her way to New York City, Erica grounded herself in the rich choral scene while establishing her solo career with such roles as Azucena in Verdi's Il Trovatore with New Rochelle Opera, Amneris in Verdi's Aida with Regina Opera, and her Gilbert & Sullivan debut as Katisha in The Mikado with Bronx Opera. Equally at home in the concert setting, Erica is a professional concert soloist, reveling in the classic alto solos of Mozart's Requiem, Vivaldi's Gloria, Verdi's Requiem, Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, and Handel's Messiah.