Richard Fracker
Associate Professor of Voice (Tenor)
Phone: (517) 353-4489
E-mail: fracker@msu.edu
Prior to joining the MSU faculty in September 2003, Fracker performed regularly in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world, including ten seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera (MET). Known for his versatility both vocally and dramatically, he enthusiastically explores both traditional and contemporary repertoires ranging from Britten and Beethoven, to Verdi and Philip Glass.
Some of Fracker's MET performances include: appearances in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, The Gambler, Turandot, Moses und Aron, and Die Frau ohne Schatten, and the leading tenor role in Philip Glass' The Voyage. He has appeared several times in Texaco’s “Live from the MET” national radio broadcasts.
Recent international credits include performing with three other Metropolitan Opera singers in gala performances of arias, duets and quartets in Guangzhou, China. Fracker also performed four gala concerts in Norway.
Career highlights include world debuts of Philip Glass’s Hydrogen Jukebox and Orphee, as well as Fracker’s Carnegie Hall debut as the tenor lead in Glass’s demanding Civil Wars. He has performed leading tenor roles in Spain, Italy, and Iceland, and with companies throughout the United States. Fracker has participated in the prestigious Spoleto Festival (Italy) and the Saito Kinen Festival (Japan) and has worked with such illustrious conductors as James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, Carlos Kleiber, Nello Santi, Valery Gergiev, and Marco Armeliato.
Melanie Helton
Associate Professor of Voice (Soprano)
Phone: (517) 353-9126
E-mail: heltonm@msu.edu
She has been hailed by The New York Times for her "dark soprano that warms the ear." She made her international debut as Marietta/Marie in Korngold's Die Tote Stadt at the Brisbane (Australia) Biennial. Her successes include Lucrezia Borgia at the Caramoor International Music Festival, Aida with Opera Carolina, as well as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Caramoor, Opera Carolina, and Lake George Opera Festival. Other engagements included Alice Ford opposite the Falstaff of Sherrill Milnes at the New York City Opera, Maddalena in Andréa Chénier, Elsa in Lohengrin, Foreign Princess in Rusalka, and Leonora in Il Trovatore for Seattle Opera, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni for New York City Opera, and the title role in Norma for Teatro de Colon, Bogotà. In addition, she has sung leading roles with the San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and Washington Opera.
A favorite of American composers, she originated roles in Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place and Hugo Weisgall’s The Gardens of Adonis. Helton appeared to rave reviews as the Fairy Godmother in Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon with Caramoor.
Fall 2005 brought the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s song cycle “and flowers pick themselves” (commissioned for her by the MSU Sesquicentennial Foundation) with the MSU Symphony Orchestra. She subsequently recorded the cycle plus 14 songs with piano, with the original orchestral team and the composer at the piano. That recording, "and flowers pick themselves" is available on Blue Griffin Recording.
April 2007 brought her first appearance in the title role of Turandot, also with the MSU Symphony Orchestra. An active concert soloist, in 2006-07 she was heard with the Lansing Symphony in excerpts from Idomeneo and Mozart’s C minor Mass and with the Ann Arbor Symphony in Verdi’s Requiem and excerpts from La Traviata. Next season she will return to the Ashland Symphony for La Traviata excerpts, as well as recitals in Milwaukee and Lansing.
As a stage director, Helton has helmed the American premiere of Francisco Conti’s Don Quixote in Sierra Morena, as well as the world premiere of Donizetti’s long-lost French opera, Elisabeth. Most recently, she directed the university premiere of Daniel Catan’s Florencia en el Amazonas, with the composer in attendance for the performances. She has taught acting and coached at La Fabbrica, an opera workshop in Vicchio, Italy, at Rising Star Singers in Rising Sun, Indiana, and at the Tyrolean Opera Program in Maurach am Achensee, Austria. She made her debut as a librettist with the world premiere at MSU of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, music by William Witham.
The soprano earned a Bachelor of Music degree with honors from Indiana University, and a Master's in Music with honors from the University of Houston. Her students have been accepted to graduate programs at Indiana University, New England Conservatory, Peabody Conservatory, Westminster Choir College, University of Michigan, and Rice University, as well as in apprentice programs with the Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and Central City Opera. Her students have won prizes in the Metropolitan Opera regional auditions, the Shreveport “Singer of the World” competition, the Connecticut Grand Opera Competition, the Opera Columbus competition, and the NATSAA national competition.
Harlan Jennings
Associate Professor of Voice (Baritone)
Phone: (517) 353-9115
E-mail: jenning3@msu.edu
He received a Bachelor of Music at Washburn University, a Master of Music from the University of Kansas, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.
Jennings has appeared with the Cincinnati Opera, the Michigan Opera Theatre, the St. Louis Municipal Opera, the Starlight Theatre of Kansas City, Opera Grand Rapids, the Toledo Opera, the Lyric Opera of Northern Michigan, the Opera Company of Mid-Michigan, the Northern Indiana Opera Association, and the Kalamazoo Symphony Opera.
His forty-odd roles in opera and musical theatre include Sharpless in "Madame Butterfly," Count Almaviva in "The Marriage of Figaro," Dr. Malatesta in "Don Pasquale," Sergeant Belcore in "The Elixir of Love," Guglielmo in "Cosi fan tutte," Mack-the-Knife in "Threepenny Opera," and the title role in "Don Giovanni." Jennings has sung with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, the Midland Symphony, the Kalamazoo Symphony, the Toledo Chamber Ensemble, and the Toledo Symphony. A versatile performer, he has appeared frequently in recital, oratorio, and on Public Television in the "Artistry of . . ." series. A frequent guest lecturer at regional and national conferences, Jennings is the author of a number of articles concerning opera in the American West.
Anne Nispel
Visiting Assistant Professor of Voice (Soprano)
Phone: (517) 432-0870
E-mail: nispel@msu.edu
Anne Nispel is visiting assistant professor of voice (soprano) at the Michigan State University College of Music.
In a review of her New York recital debut several years ago, "The New York Times" stated: "Ms. Nispel has... a clear, attractive timbre, ample power and a good command of languages. She also has a fine sense of style... She sang with... crisp articulation and careful shading. [Her singing] had a charged, dramatic quality, and the soprano brought a silky sensuousness to... Poulenc's Courte Paille."
Since her highly acclaimed debut, Nispel has achieved national prominence in opera, concert and recital. She has performed over thirty leading roles with opera companies throughout the United States, including Kentucky Opera, Virginia Opera. Mississippi Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Portland Opera, Kansas City Lyric Opera, Cleveland Opera, Opera Company of Mid-Michigan, Chattanooga Opera, Dayton Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and Toledo Opera, among others.
Dubbed the "quintessential soubrette" by the Virginia Press, Nispel is noted for her interpretations of Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, and Adele in Die Fledermaus.
Equally at home on the concert stage, Nispel has debuted at Carnegie Hall as the soprano soloist in the Faure Requiem. She has appeared as guest soloist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Pennsylvania Festival Orchestra, Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Recently she made her Canadian debut in a series of concerts at Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec. Nispel, in conjunction with baritone Harlan Jennings, recently released a CD of American Art Songs entitled, "Crosslights of American Song."
Jane Bunnell
Professor of Voice (Mezzo-Soprano)
Area(s):
Vocal Arts
106 Music Practice Building
East Lansing, MI 48824
jbunnell@msu.edu
(517) 432-0051
About:
Mezzo-soprano Jane Bunnell joined the faculty at MSU's College of Music in August 2015 as professor of voice. She has enjoyed an illustrious international career for almost 30 years. She has an especially long association with the Metropolitan Opera where she has sung 30 roles in more than 350 performances, including new productions of Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Otello, Les Troyens, Faustand Romo et Juliette and the Metropolitan Opera Premieres of Brittens A Midsummer Nights Dream and Wolf-Ferraris Sly. She has also recorded with the Met for Sony/BMG and has toured to Europe and Japan.
She has sung with the Saito Kinen Festival, and with the opera companies of Toulouse, Vienna, Cologne and Schwetzingen and with such American opera companies as Houston Grand Opera, San Diego Opera, Minnesota Opera, Florida Grand Opera and New York City Opera. She has collaborated with such notable conductors as James Levine, Valery Gergiev, Seiji Ozawa, Andrew Davis and Robert Shaw, and has appeared in concert with the Boston Symphony, Lincoln Centers Mostly Mozart Festival, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, and the Minnesota Orchestra. Ms. Bunnell was on the faculty of New York University for nine years and on the faculty at DePaul University School of Music from 2006 to 2015.
Marc Embree
Associate Professor of Voice (Bass-Baritone)
Area(s):
Vocal Arts
106 Music Practice Building
East Lansing, MI 48824
membree@msu.edu
(517) 884-9407
About:
Marc Embree is an associate professor of voice at MSU's College of Music. A respected singing actor, Embree was a principal singer with the New York City Opera for several seasons and has performed throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada and Europe. He has sung with many regional houses including Edmonton, New Orleans, St. Louis, Houston, Sarasota, Omaha, Kansas City and Virginia. His extensive repertoire boasts such roles as Wotan, Iago, Conte d'Almaviva, Don Giovanni, Scarpia, the Four Villains in Les contes d'Hoffman.
Embree received critical acclaim for his performance of Frank Marraunt in the Berlin Ludwigshafen production of Kurt Weill's Street Scene; filmed for television, it has been released on DVD and broadcast in Europe, Japan, Mexico and on the BRAVO Channel in the United States. Recent highlights include live television broadcasts of Wozzeck (Doctor) and Das Rheingold (Fasolt) from the Bellas Artes in Mexico City; Horace Tabor in The Ballad of Baby Doe with the Augusta Opera and Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse with the Nashville Opera and Hindemith's Das Nusch-Nuschi at Avery Fisher Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra. His recordings include Carlos Chavez's The Visitors, Kurka's The Good Soldier Schweik, and the recently released Lincoln Center Production of Rain by composer Richard Owen.
Peter Lightfoot
Associate Professor of Voice (Baritone)
Area(s):
Vocal Arts
105 Music Practice Building
East Lansing, MI 48824
pwlight@msu.edu
(517) 432-7109
About:
Peter Lightfoot has captivated critics and audiences alike with what Opera News has called his “vocal brilliance” and what Opera called his “beautifully placed and clearly focused voice."
In 2014, Lightfoot was awarded The American Prize, Chicago Oratorio Prize and became a finalist for The American Prize in Art Song. His CD of Sea Chanties, Folksongs, Ballads, Spirituals and Cherokee Songs, entitled "An American Tapestry" that he recorded with pianist Deborah Moriarty, was released in 2014 and can be heard on Blue Griffin Records. The recording will be featured in the Fall 2014 editions of Fanfare Magazine. In the Fall of 2013 he traveled to Beijing, China, to perform and conduct a master class at the Peking Conservatory of Music.
Lightfoot has performed Falstaff in Verdi’s Falstaff in Cagli and Mercatello, Italy, and his performance of Marbuel at the Wexford Festival in the opera The Devil and Kate can be seen on DVD. He has sung Britten’s War Requiem with the Thornton Chamber Orchestra and the combined University of Southern California choirs. Lightfoot has also performed the Mozart Requiem under the baton of Sir John Rutter at Carnegie Hall.
He has sung the title role in Macbeth with the Shreveport Opera; Tonio in Il Pagliacci with the Spier Festival in Cape Town, South Africa; and the title role in the world premiere of Ethan Frome by John Beall at West Virginia University and for PBS. He returned to the Shreveport Opera as Crown in Porgy and Bess and appeared with the Mississippi Opera as Scarpia in Tosca.
He has sung the roles of Crown in Porgy and Bess with the Colorado Symphony with Marin Alsop conducting and returned there to sing Gershwin’s New Moon under her direction; he also performed Porgy and Bess with the Columbus Symphony and appeared with the North Carolina Symphony, where he sang the Verdi Requiem. He performed the role of Sun in the world premiere of The Shattered Mirror by Michael Udow in Ann Arbor with subsequent performances in Orlando, Florida. He has also sung Porgy and Bess with the Detroit Symphony, the Nashville Symphony, and the Augusta Symphony.
Lightfoot has also been heard with the New York City Opera as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly; with the Greater Miami Opera as Michele in Il Tabarro; as Scarpia in Tosca with L’Opéra de Nice; as the High Priest in Samson et Dalila with Hawaii Opera Theater; in Philip Glass's Ahknaten with Houston Grand Opera and with the New York City Opera; with the New York City Opera National Touring Company as Scarpia and also as the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro, and in the American premiere of Marc Neikrug’s Los Alamos at the Aspen Festival; he sung with the Opera Orchestra of New York, Wolf Trap Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Piedmont Opera Theatre, Mexico City Opera, Kentucky Opera, Knoxville Opera, Virginia Opera, American Opera Center, Pennsylvania Opera Theater, Opera Delaware, and Arkansas Opera Theater. He has also been heard on National Public Radio performing Lee Hoiby’s I Have a Dream, honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and on PBS as Leonce in William Grant Still’s A Bayou Legend.
His orchestral engagements have included performances of Walton's Belshazzar’s Feast with the West Virginia Symphony and the Greensboro Symphony in North Carolina; a concert performance of Porgy and Bess in Caracas, Venezuela, under the direction of Carl St. Clair. He has also appeared in various works with the Stockholm Philharmonic, the Amsterdam Radio Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Sacramento Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, and the Tucson, Long Beach, Fresno, Pacific, and Kalamazoo Symphonies.
He was an artist-in-residence with the Bay View Music Festival for 11 seasons in Michigan where he performed Ravel’s Don Quichotte and Brahms' Vier Ernste Gesange. He has also performed a group of Schubert lieder with the Thornton Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Carl St. Clair. Lightfoot performed Mahler’s Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen for NPR and a full solo recital and benefit duet recital as part of the Bay View Music Festival.
Lightfoot was born in New York and holds degrees from the Juilliard School and Tufts University. He is a winner of a National Opera Institute Grant and the institute's Bronze Medal for performance, a Sullivan Foundation grant, a Harp Grant, the Boston Opera Competition first place prize, and was a finalist in the Luciano Pavarotti Competition. He has served as an associate professor of voice at West Virginia University and was named a Benedum Distinguished Scholar at WVU for the year 2000-2001. From 2003-2008 he was an associate professor at the Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California. Presently he is associate professor of voice at the College of Music at Michigan State University.
Elden Little
Instructor, vocal coach
Area(s):
Vocal Arts
401 Music Practice Building
East Lansing, MI 48824
coachelden@yahoo.com
(517) 355-7666
About:
Elden Little has worked as a pianist/coach in operatic productions that range from baroque operas to contemporary works by composers such as Jonathan Dove, Carlise Floyd, Philip Glass, Jake Heggie, and Andre Previn. While at Austin Lyric Opera, he worked as a pianist/coach, music administrator, orchestra manager, and orchestra librarian. Additional collaborations include Des Moines Metro Opera, where he has been a member of the music staff, Opera Birmingham, Kentucky Opera, and San Antonio Opera.
He has accompanied numerous singers, most notably internationally acclaimed soprano Gilda Cruz-Romo, in recitals in Texas and Guadalajara, Mexico. He went on several tours with the Austin-based choral ensemble Conspirare, and can be heard as a featured soloist on their recording "Through the Green Fuse," available on the Clarion label. He has accompanied the master classes of Mattiwilda Dobbs, Ezio Flagello, Denyce Graves, Brenda Harris, Marilyn Horne, Catherine Malfitano, Elizabeth Mannion, Samuel Ramey, Martial Singher, David Small, Pamela South, Gerard Souzay, and Todd Thomas.
His educational training includes a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara in piano performance, and Master's and Doctorate degrees in applied piano from the University of Texas at Austin. His collaborative piano studies were with noted accompanists Eugene Bossart, David Garvey, and Gwendolyn Koldofsky.
