Mike Nyby to sing first Scarpia with Opera Ithaca

Mike Nyby

Canadian Mike Nyby will be making his role debut as the evil police chief Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca with Opera Ithaca. Nyby will be replacing fellow barihunk Zachary James, who had to withdraw for personal reasons. Nyby has previously performed with the company as Demetrio in Kristin Hevner Wyatt's Il Sogno and as Falke in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus.

Jake Stamatis (Photo: Joshua Bernard)

The cast also includes barihunk Jake Stamatis as Angelotti, Megan Nielsen as Floria Tosca and Paola Buffagni as Mario Cavaradossi. The semi-staged production will be performed at the Community School of Music & Arts in Ithaca on February 16th and at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn on February 18th. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.

This is Nyby's fourth Puccini role, have previously performed Pinellino in Gianni Schicchi and both Schaunard and Marcello in La bohème. This is a homecoming of sorts for Nyby, who graduated from Ithaca College with a Bachelor of Music.

Introducing bass-barihunk Jake Stamatis in Hydrogen Jukebox

Jake Stamatis in Trouble in Tahiti (left)

A reader alerted us to the fact that we've never posted bass-barihunk Jake Stamatis, who is opening next week in Philip Glass' Hydrogen Jukebox with Tri-Cities Opera in Binghamton, New York. He'll be joined in the cast by Stacey Geyer, Abigail Smith, Mary Beth Nelson, Jordan Schreiner and Scott Purcell.

Stamatis is a native of Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania and received his Bachelors Degree in Vocal Performance at Susquehanna University and his Masters Degree in Opera at Binghamton University. He is currently an artist-in-residence at Tri-Cities Opera where he's also sining the Marquese d’Obingy in Verdi's La traviata and Don Iñigo Gomez in Ravel's L’Heure Espagnol. He recently appeared with Opera Ithaca as Abdul in Kamala Sankaram's Thumbprint.

Other roles in his repertory include Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Frosch in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus, Taddeo in Rossini's L’Italiana in Algeri, Sam in Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti and and Anthony in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

Performances of Hydrogen Jukebox are on April 21, 23, 28 and 30 with performances at Savoca Hibbitt Hall in Binghamton. Tickets and additional information is available online.

This is also our first post highlighting Tri-Cities Opera, with our only mention of the company being Brandon Coleman singing Mephistopheles in their production of Gounod's Faust.