The Ghosts of Gatsby

Believing that opera should be theater grounded in climatic expression that delivers larger-than-life stories and music that harnesses the full athletic thrill of singing, Evan Mack has devoted much of his compositional life to opera and song.  His first major operatic composition, where he served as both composer and librettist, was Angel of the Amazon.  “Angel” premiered in May of 2011 by Encompass New Opera Theatre at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City and was subsequently released on CD worldwide by Albany Records.  Two years later, Fresno State Opera Theater premiered The Secret of Luca. This was the first of several collaborations with librettist Joshua McGuire.  In August 2016, their American grand opera Roscoe premiered at Seagle Music Colony to rave reviews.  Roscoe received its orchestral world premiere with the Albany Symphony starring Metropolitan Opera star Deborah Voigt.  In between the two large scale projects, Mack & McGuire found time to write the first ever opera for Twitter #IsOperaDead – an opera in 5 acts lasting one minute and forty seconds.

Their Christmas opera for children, Lucinda y las Flores de la Nochebuena is quickly becoming a holiday standard with yearly productions by San Francisco Opera, Opera in the Heights and Fresno State Opera, who commissioned the opera.  The one-act opera The Ghosts of Gatsby premiered by Samford Opera in Birmingham, AL in 2019 and won the National Opera Association’s Argento Chamber Opera Competition. Mack & McGuire’s latest, Yeltsin in Texas! premiered in 2020 by TCU and Opera in the Heights. It’s now in development to become a musical comedy!

Evan Mack has proven as deft at song writing as he is in opera.  His song A Little More Perfect is a setting of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s final paragraph of the Marriage Equality Decision by the Supreme Court in 2015.  Premiering at Seagle Music Colony in 2015, it has quickly become a favorite of many baritones including Michael Mayes, Daniel Okulich and Michael Miller to name a few.  The song had its professional premiere at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2016 and the orchestral premiere at the Fort Worth Opera Festival in 2017.  His new cycle If Only Lenny Were Here, which celebrates the life of Leonard Bernstein had its world premiere with the Schenectady Symphony in October of 2018.

JOSHUA McGUIRE has written librettos for The Secret of Luca, (based on the novel by Ignazio Silone) and Roscoe (based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize winner William Kennedy) with music by Evan Mack. In October 2016, Roscoe received a full performance by the Albany Symphony featuring soprano Deborah Voigt in the lead role of Veronica.  His collaboration with Mack also produced #isoperadead, the first-ever opera for Twitter, as well as Lucinda y Las Flores de la Nochebuena, a children's opera commissioned by the Fresno State Opera Theatre.  Since premiering in 2016, the opera has played for over 15,000 children, including annual performances by Opera in the Heights (Houston) and the San Francisco Opera Guild.  Mack & McGuire’s one-act opera The Ghosts of Gatsby, based on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, was commissioned and premiered by Samford University in 2018.  They are currently fulfilling a multi-company commission for a new comedy entitled Yeltsin in Texas!

In 2015, McGuire was commissioned to write a libretto for Washington National Opera's American Opera Initiative, and the resulting one-act opera, Alexandra, with music by David Clay Mettens, was premiered at the Kennedy Center.  He is also the author of The Secret of Music: a look at the listening life, a book of essays on music and mindfulness.  McGuire is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, and from the Susan Shames Feinstein Librettist Fellowship at the American Center for New Works Development.

McGuire currently teaches at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music.  He studied at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where he pursued Master’s work in both guitar and orchestral conducting, holding assistantships in both areas.  As an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University, he took the Bachelor of Music summa cum laude as well as High Honors in English Literature for his thesis on musical structures in the work of James Joyce.  He currently resides in Nashville with his wife, pianist and conductor Jennifer McGuire, their son Thomas, and a basset hound.

Employing his “impressive singing … well-supported tone and supple phrasing,” (Baltimore Sun) baritone Rob McGinness connects characters to ideas, and listeners to sounds. Often featured portraying opera’s “bad boy,” Rob’s operatic credits include the title roles in Eugene Onegin and Don Giovanni, as well as Marcello in La Bohème.

Committed to promoting and performing new works, Rob premiered roles in Frances Pollock’s award-winning opera Stinney, The Ghost Train by Paul Crabtree, and the lead role in Shining Brow, Daron Hagen’s opera about Frank Lloyd Wright. Rob’s own compositions include vocal, theatrical, and orchestral pieces premiered at IngenuityFest, Andy’s Summer Playhouse, and by the Windham Orchestra in Vermont.

As a featured soloist, Rob performed in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall and Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium. Other concert credits include Carmina Burana with Maryland Symphony Orchestra and Brahms Requiem with The Washington Chorus, for which the Washington Post praised his “warm baritone.”

Soprano Kayla Wilkens is delighted to return to Opera Las Vegas after appearing as Littler Zegler in Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up and as Teen Zelda in Evan Mack and Joshua Snyder’s The Ghosts of Gatsby. Most recently, she joined Vegas City Opera at Meow Wolf's Omega Mart in Prokofiev's The Love For Three Oranges and in Kings & Queens: Madness, Mayhem & Macabre, and as the soprano soloist in The Light of Hope Returning with Desert Singers Las Vegas. An enthusiastic supporter of developing new works, she appeared in the premiere and national tour of the musical We’ll Meet Again (Millie O’Brien), and opera premieres of Diary of a Madman (Sahfee), Vía Láctea (Peggy cover/featured soloist), Culture, Culture! (Page), and O Pioneers! (Marie Shabata). Other contemporary concert soloist credits include Stephen Paulus’ To Be Certain of the Dawn with the Lincoln Choral Artists, John Muehleisen’s Pietà with Abendmusik, and the premiere of Libby Larsen’s Moabit Sonnets with the Linfield Chamber Orchestra.

Athena Mertes, Soprano, is one of the Valley’s most celebrated sopranos, whose opera and concert credits include Marie (The Daughter of the Regiment), Mimi (La Bohème), Musetta (La Bohème), Despina (Cosi Fan Tutte), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Lucy (The Telephone), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Gianetta (L’Elisir d’Amore), Morgana (Alcina), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Abigail (The Crucible), Nella (Gianni Schicchi), Waldvogel (Siegfried) and soprano soloist in Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, Brahms Requiem, Mozart Requiem, Beethoven's 9th and Honegger’s King David. She has performed as a guest soloist with the Burbank Philharmonic, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Henderson Symphony, Opera Las Vegas, Vegas City Opera, Lexington Opera Outreach and the Southern Nevada Musical Arts Society. Some of her recent credits include Sylvia in the World Premiere of Behold the Man, Zelda in the West Coast Premiere of Ghosts of Gatsby and Alice B. Toklas in the West Coast premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek’s 27 with Opera Las Vegas and she portrayed Mimi in Vegas City Opera’s La BoDead.

She is also the Chorus Master of the Opera Las Vegas Youth Chorus and the Director of Choirs at Thurman White Academy of the Performing Arts where she has 400 students. In 2020, she received the Teacher of the Year Award from Magnet Schools of America and is also a National Board-Certified Teacher. In March of 2024, her Choir was  featured at the American Choral Directors Association Regional Conference in Pasadena, California and in April of 2024, her contemporary a cappella group was featured at the National Magnet Schools of America Conference in New York City.

Kimberly Gratland James, Mezzo-Soprano, is thrilled to return to Opera Las Vegas for another modern opera premiere. She was previously seen in The Ghosts of Gatsby and 27. Ms. James’ tone has been described as powerful, well-rounded, deep, and rich,” and rich by critics and audience members. Her performances are also noted for musicality and convincing dramatic portrayals.

Recent concert and chamber music performances include: Mahler’s 2nd Symphony (UNLV Symphony Orchestra), Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and orchestral songs by Ethel Smyth (Great Falls Symphony), Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Idaho Falls Symphony) Ravel’s Chansons madécasses, & Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle. She performs as the alto soloist in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass at the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt in  Summer 2023.

James currently serves as the Acting Associate Director of the University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Music and Associate Professor of Music. She earned advanced degrees from Rice University and Indiana University.

Praised for conducting with "steady acumen and considerable aplomb" and "awesome control” (Opera Today), Joshua Horsch is an extremely versatile operatic and symphonic conductor.  A two-time winner of the American Prize in Opera Conducting, Joshua serves as Music Director and Principal Conductor of Opera Las Vegas. Joshua’s recent and upcoming conducting engagements include appearances with Washington National Opera, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Des Moines Metro Opera, Opera Orlando, Opera Idaho, Opera Baltimore, Greensboro Opera, Mobile Opera, Pacific Opera Project, and Tri-Cities Opera.  With a diverse repertoire of over sixty operas and a broad spectrum of orchestral and choral works, Joshua has recently held positions as a conductor and pianist/coach on the music staff of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Austin Opera, Detroit Opera, Florida Grand Opera, North Carolina Opera, Opera Saratoga, Pensacola Opera, the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Newport Music Festival. Joshua studied conducting and piano at the University of Colorado Boulder, the Pennsylvania State University, and Ithaca College.

Daz Weller (Director) moved from Australia to Las Vegas in 2010 and is the Executive Artstic Director of Vegas Theatre Company (VTC, formerly Cockroach Theatre Company).Daz graduated with a BA in Acting from the Queensland University of Technology in 1998 and has worked extensively with most of Australia’s major theatre companies including the Sydney Theatre Company, Company B Belvoir, Griffin Theatre Company, The Bell Shakespeare Company, Queensland Theatre Company, Theatre of Image, Melbourne Theatre Company, and The State Theatre Company of South Australia. His US directing credits include Macbeth, Good Kids and The Crucible at Nevada Conservatory Theatre (NCT); Spinning Into Butter, Seven Deadly Sins, The Father, and Gianni Schicchi at VTC; Piff the Magic Dragon Show at the Flamingo; Small Space Festival at Emergency Arts; The Motown Show at The Venetian Resort and Casino; and Spiegelworld’s Vegas Nocturne at the Cosmopolitan’s Rose.Rabbit.Lie. Since moving to Las Vegas, he has for VTC in The Christians, and Love Love Love; for NCT in The Hound of the Baskervilles, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Pippin; A Public Fit in The Beauty Queen of Leenane; Las Vegas Little Theatre in Doubt; and Las Vegas Shakespeare Company in The Wizard of Oz, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Daz has twice received the Valley Theatre Award as Best Director for The Father, and Lynn Nottage’s Sweat.