ASU music professor, students and alumni perform in professional opera

David Radamés Toro, interim artistic director of ASU opera and assistant professor in the School of Music, Dance and Theatre, part of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, will make his main-stage debut this month with Arizona Opera as stage director in the premiere of “Zorro.”

“Zorro” runs Saturday, Sept. 27, and Sunday, Sept. 28, in Phoenix and Oct. 4 in Tucson.

In addition, two current music theater and opera students and three alumni will join members of the opera cast.

Cael Szabados, undergraduate student double-majoring in music learning and teaching and voice performance, is playing the part of the young revolutionary Juan Pablo, and David McKelvey, undergraduate student studying supply chain management and minoring in voice performance, is a member of the chorus. Music theater and opera alumni Mauricio Perusquia ('20 MM in opera) is playing the role of Zazueta.

Members of the “Zorro” chorus include the following School of Music, Dance and Theatre alumni: Cassandra Cardenas ('10 BM), Katherine Chacon ('17 DMA), Jennifer Chavez ('21 MM), Jennifer Couldry ('16 DMA), Shaul Leket-Mor ('24 MM), Elizabeth Leyva ('19 DMA), Vassily Makavos ('15 MM), Lorin Phillips ('22 MM), Melissa Solomon ('08 BM), Jeffery Stevens ('97 DMA) and Logan Talarico ('20 BM).

“It is important that ASU Opera students get experiences outside of the university so they understand how professional companies and opera festivals work,” said Toro. “The mission of our opera program is to prepare the next generation of singers for the expectations of the professional world. We are grateful to Arizona Opera for including our students in their shows and providing them with valuable career-building experiences.”

“Zorro,” a co-production with Opera San José, Kentucky Opera and Arizona Opera, premiered at Fort Worth Opera in 2022 and has been performed at Opera Southwest and Opera Santa Barbara. When Opera San José decided to create their own verismo-style production, Katie Preissner, who was the managing director of artistic production at the time, suggested Toro. She had worked with him in 2022 at Opera Colorado’s “The Shining” and was familiar with his character-based directing style and new works experience.

Composer Hector Armienta, who wrote the libretto and the score, will be in attendance opening night. Armienta’s San José organization, Opera Cultura, focuses on operatic works by Latinos, especially Latino Americans. The bilingual production is performed in Spanish and English.

“Zorro” takes place in Colonial California under Spanish imperial rule in the Pueblo de Los Angeles in Alta California. Diego de la Vega, “Zorro,” returns from Spain and discovers that Los Angeles became an oppressive city since the new mayor, a former friend, implemented a caste system. Zorro is forced to choose between the power that he was born into as a young man of Spanish nobility or the righteous power of the poor and enslaved.

Toro’s interest in opera began when his piano teacher took him to see operas at the Colorado Opera Festival in Colorado Springs, including a concert version of Mussorgsky's opera “Boris Godunov” and Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” among others. He auditioned for the Opera Festival chorus when he was a junior in high school and performed in the chorus of “Carmen.”As a graduate student at Ohio State University, Toro became involved with the theater department where he trained extensively in the theater schools of Tadashi Suzuki’s actor training, Anne Bogart’s "Viewpoints" and mime. This training included extensive physical theater training and devising small works, which led to his interest in directing for both spoken theater and opera.

Toro has directed both professional opera and university-level opera.

As an opera professional, Toro enjoys collaborating with the cast and artistic teams, utilizing their past performance and life experience to realize a unique storytelling experience. For students, their ASU performances act as a practicum to experiment and apply the lessons from their acting and movement classes and voice lessons to live performance. He encourages students, as the next generation of musical and dramatic artists, to try new things and push the boundaries in opera while in college to share out into the world. 

“Before the start of every ASU production, I remind the students that I will hold them to professional standards, knowing that they are learning what those standards are,” said Toro. “I want students to have some idea of what is expected of them when they go into a professional or young artist rehearsal room.”

Toro also co-teaches an opera audition training class where students learn what is expected for a professional opera audition, which is very different from a music theater or a theater audition.

“It is important for me, personally and as an educator, to remain connected to the professional world so I can provide students insight as to what to expect in this vastly changing industry, which I can pass on to my students,” he said. “I also want to instill a belief in these future music makers that opera is about sharing and commenting on life — it is about earnest storytelling and communication. Opera is more than just beautiful singing; it is a living, communicative art of the people that entertains, shows the human experience and comments on how the universe works.”