Songs of Heroines by Guest Artist Alyssa Bowlby

In a program that highlights musical “Heroines,” soprano Alyssa Bowlby will describe as well as sing each of her selections from Mozart, Verdi, Beethoven and others, in an HSU Guest Artist recital at Fulkerson Hall on Thursday, May 13.

Her examples come from three operas by Verdi (including La Traviata) and two by Mozart (The Magic Flute and Abduction from the Seraglio.) She finds more heroines in Puccini’s La Boheme, Beethoven’s Fidelio, the Doll’s Song from Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman, as well in works by Schubert and Massenet.

Not all the examples are from grand opera. Bowlby also performs a song from Candide, the operetta by Leonard Bernstein first performed in 1956, and “ I Could Have Danced All Night” from the Lerner and Loewe musical, My Fair Lady. She will talk for a few minutes about each selection and how it relates to her theme.

Alyssa Bowlby is based in New York City, where she appears frequently with the Mimesis Ensemble. She has sung with Project Opera of Manhattan, Brooklyn Repertory Opera, the Garden State Opera, and Empire Opera of New York.

After being hailed by a Houston newspaper as “delightfully charming and touching” in her role of Musetta in the Houston Opera in the Heights production of La Boheme, she was invited to perform in five more operas there in the next three years. Later this year she will play Abigail Williams in the English language opera of Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, with the Empire Opera.

Alyssa Bowlby earned her BA and Phil Beta Kappa key at Haverford College, and her Masters from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. The Baltimore Sun called her singing “fearless” and “intense.” In 2007 she sang and was interviewed on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

For her Humboldt State recital, she will be accompanied by HSU pianist John Chernoff.

Soprano Alyssa Bowlby appears in a Guest Artist Series recital on Thursday May 13 at 8 pm in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets: $8/$3 students and seniors from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. An HSU Department of Music production.

Media: Humboldt State Now, Arcata Eye