Apprentice Artist Program Staff

Dugg McDonough, Co-Director of the James M. Collier Apprentice Artist Program

Now in his 18th season as Co-Director of the program and his 21st season with the Company, Dugg is largely responsible for the success of DMMO’s James M. Collier Apprentice Artist Program. Formerly the Producer and Director of Opera Theater at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music in Philadelphia, he has completed his seventh year as Artistic Director of LSU Opera at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. At LSU in 2008-2009, Dugg provided stage direction for Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, and L'Opera Lagniappe programs featuring the complete Gianni Schicchi, highlights from Verdi's Falstaff, and selections entitled "Great Opera Sextets". In the spring of 2007, he mounted the first new production in over 20 years of Carlisle Floyd’s Willie Stark (an event which produced the first commercial DVD of the opera). Dugg is active as a professional stage director and has worked with such companies as New York City Opera, The Santa Fe Opera, San Diego Opera, Greater Miami Opera (now Florida Grand Opera), and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.  In the winter of 2004, Dugg traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, where he staged a new production of Tristan und Isolde that produced both an acclaimed CD recording and a PBS documentary.  Recently, he directed new, fully-staged productions of Madama Butterfly and Turandot for the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Gulf Coast Premiere of Gluck’s L’ile de Merlin ou le Monde Renversé for the New Orleans Opera Association/Music at Madewood. Dugg is also a librettist, and his new American opera, Ordinary People, was given its world premiere staged reading by the Maryland Opera Studio in 2008. In the fall of 2006, Dugg became the first recipient of the Mary Barrett Fruehan Professorship in Opera at Louisiana State University.

David Neely, Co-Director of the James M. Collier Apprentice Artist Program; Assistant Conductor for Tosca and Der Freischütz

David returns for his seventh summer with the Company, his fifth as Co-Director of the Apprentice Artist Program. Currently Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of Kansas, he has also been on the faculty of the University of Texas. Employed as a coach and conductor for 11 years in Germany, he has conducted productions with opera companies in Bonn; Dortmund; Saarbrücken; Halle, Kaiserslautern; Bielefeld; Coburg; St. Gallen; Kuala Lumpur, Maylaysia and has been a guest conductor with Sarasota Opera for the past four seasons. He has led concerts with the Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg (Bregenz), the Dortmunder Philharmoniker, the Bochumer Symphoniker, and the KU and University of Texas Symphony Orchestras. He holds degrees in Piano Performance and Orchestral Conducting from Indiana University, where he was a student of Bryan Balkwill, Thomas Balkner and Leonard Hokanson. Further studies include conducting at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati under Gerhard Samuel.

Linda Ade Brand, Stage Director in the Apprentice Artist Program
2009 marks Linda's twelfth summer with DMMO. Linda directs a wide range of productions from opera to Shakespeare, musical comedy to period plays. She has directed for the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Nashville Opera Association, American Heartland Theatre, Coterie Theatre, Des Moines Metro Opera, and the Springfield Regional Opera. A devotee of contemporary opera, she has had the pleasure of serving as assistant director for Carlisle Floyd as he staged Susannah for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and of directing the second productions of Susa's The Wise Women and Adamo's Little Women for the Civic Opera of Kansas. Recent credits include A Christmas Carol for the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Transformations for Voices of Change in Dallas, and Charlotte's Web for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City.

Richard Cordova, Assistant Conductor for Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Musical Coach

Richard made his professional debut in 1977 conducting the Scandinavian Premiere of Bernstein's Candide in Bergen, Norway, and has subsequently conducted productions for Oper der Stadt Bonn, Opera North (New Hampshire), Sarasota Opera, Opera Company of Boston, Long Beach Opera, Berkshire Opera, Florida Grand Opera and Baltimore Opera. As an accompanist and coach, he has collaborated with such artists as Martina Arroyo, Frederica von Stade, Renato Bruson, Florence Quivar and Julia Migenes, and has worked in this capacity for such organizations as the Istanbul Opera, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Tulsa Opera, New Orleans Opera, New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Dallas Opera, Chautauqua Opera, the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and Florida Grand Opera. Mr. Cordova has also served on the music staff of the Manhattan School of Music and Westminster Choir College. For the past fifteen years, he has toured internationally with various productions of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, conducting the work on four continents. He currently holds the title of Program and Music Director for the Studio Artists with the Sarasota Opera.

Lisa Hasson, Chorus Master for Tosca, Der Freischütz and Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Elden Little, Rehearsal Pianist for Der Freischütz and Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Musical Coach

Returning for his fourth summer with Des Moines Metro Opera, pianist Elden Little works for the Austin Lyric Opera as Pianist/Coach and Assistant Chorus Master. While with the Austin Lyric, he has played for conductors Guido Ajmone-Marsan, Peter Bay, Richard Buckley, Cristoph Campestrini,  Ward Holmquist, Cal Stewart Kellogg, Karen Keltner, Joseph Mechavich, Andreas Mitisek, and Robert Tweten. Recently he has served as rehearsal pianist for Opera Birmingham's productions of The Barber of Seville and La traviata. His operatic repertoire ranges from baroque operas to operas of the twenty-first century. Additionally he has performed a wide range of repertoire with numerous singers, most notably Donnie Ray Albert, Heather Buck, Gilda Cruz-Romo, Joseph Evans, Eugenie Grunewald, Brenda Harris, Mary Jane Johnson, Marie Plette, Cindy Sadler and David Small. He received a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara in piano performance, and masters and doctorate degrees in applied piano from the University of Texas at Austin.

Yasuko Oura, Rehearsal Pianist for Tosca and Der Freischütz; Musical Coach

Yasuko Oura has received national recognition as a virtuoso collaborative pianist, with concert appearances in Japan, Prague, and throughout the United States, including such notable venues as Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, and Carnegie’s Weill Hall. Also known as a noted vocal coach and repetiteur, she has worked with such distinguished conductors as Harry Bicket, Jane Glover, and John DeMain. Highlights of Ms. Oura's 2009-2009 season include return engagements at Madison Opera for Madama Butterfly and at Fort Worth Opera for Carmen, as well as her debut with the Florentine Opera for Semele. Past seasons include performances with singers such as Susanne Mentzer, Susanna Phillips and DAvid Cangelosi. She has served as music director of Intimate Opera, as an assistant music director for Light Opera Works, DuPage Opera Theater, Opera Moda, and da Corneto Opera. She currently resides in Chicago, where she is on the faculty of Roosevelt University. Ms. Oura has received fellowships to San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program, Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Opera Theater Center and Music Academy of the West. She holds degrees from Oberlin College and from the Juilliard School, where she was a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow.

A. Scott Parry, Assistant Stage Director for Der Freischütz

Scott returns to DMMO for his third season as a stage director within the Apprentice Artist Program and as Assistant Director for Der Freischütz. In 2003, he was the AD for DMMO’s production of The Crucible with the composer in attendance. A graduate of Indiana University with advanced degrees in Opera Stage Direction, he most recently directed La Cenerentola for Florida Grand Opera, Evita for Amherst College, and is a Resident Stage Director at New York City Opera. Scott has also been engaged by Chautauqua Opera, Opera Pacific, Dallas Opera, and Boston Lyric Opera to name only a few. As a composer, his theatre song cycle On the Impracticality… was recently premiered in NYC at Singer’s Forum.  As a librettist, his adaptation of Beaumarchais’ La mère coupable is currently being set to music.

Christine Seitz, Assistant Stage Director for Tosca

Christine Seitz was the founding Opera Director for the Pine Mountain Music Festival in Michigan, where she was Stage Director and Production Manager for festival productions from 1992 through 2002. Christine joined the faculty as Director of MU’s Show-Me Opera at the University of Missouri in the fall of 2008, and she presented a production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute in the newly renovated Missouri Theatre in downtown Columbia. Previously, she was Director of the UNLV Opera Theatre in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she presented productions of Alcina, La bohème, Albert Herring, The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, and Die Fledermaus.  She has also directed a student outreach production of Il barbiere di Siviglia for the Florentine Opera, as well as productions for Luther College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre and two productions for the Grand Opera House in Oshkosh, WI. Christine is also an established dramatic soprano, singing operatic roles throughout the United States and in Europe ranging from Brünnhilde to Lady Billows. She has performed with companies such as the Florentine Opera, Dallas Opera, Madison Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, Central City Opera, Wuppertaler Bühnen and Stadttheatre Bern.