Peruvian & Mexican American Soprano Vanessa Becerra begins the 21/22 season with a role/house debut at Intermountain Opera Bozeman for Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rosina), a return to Washington National Opera for Sankaram’s Rise (Alicia Hernández), part of the world premiere tetralogy Written in Stone, and debuts with Austin Opera for Fidelio (Marzelline) and Opera Parallèle for La Belle et la Bête (Belle). In Concert, she will debut with Minnesota Opera for Opera in the Outfield and return to Fort Worth Opera for Entre Amigos.

Romanian baritone Eugene Brancoveanu won the Tony Award for his portrayal as Marcello in Baz Luhrmann’s production of Puccini’s La Bohème on Broadway. He also was an Adler Fellow with San Francisco Opera and is currently in his 3rd year as resident at Opera San Jose. La Belle et la Bête marks the 7th collaboration for him and Opera Parallèle.His vast operatic repertoire has taken him all over the world in leading roles in the lyric as well as dramatic repertoire. His European roots introduced him early to the German Lieder culture. He has been the featured artist in many prestigious recital festivals, such as the Schwabacher recital series and the young masters series. As a champion of new and modern music he has recently recorded the title role in Shostakovich’s Orango under the baton of E P Salonen, directed by Peter Sellars and has been published by Deutsche Grammophon.

Franco-American mezzo-soprano Sophie Delphis’ operatic roles include: Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Giunone (La Calisto), Carmen and Mercédès (Carmen), Flora (La Traviata), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Marla Maples (The Drumf and the Rhinegold, premiere), Cenerentola  and Tisbe (La Cenerentola), Concepción (L’heure espagnole), Hansel, (Hansel and Gretel) and Elle (La voix humaine). An avid recitalist, Sophie regularly produces programs for musical and cultural organizations in the United States and China. Recent and upcoming works include: Ravel’s Chansons madécasses and Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten and Messiaen’s Harawi. Along with classical repertoire, she enjoys collaborating with composers, improvisers and theater artists on new works. She is a soloist on the Grammy Award-nominated Naxos recording of Milhaud’s Oresteia trilogy. She currently resides in New York City, where she is pursuing a doctoral degree in voice performance at the Graduate Center CUNY.

Jean Cocteau was an enormously influential French artist and writer known as one of the major figures of Dada and Surrealism. With an oeuvre that spanned painting, novels, poetry, plays, and films, Cocteau established himself as a leading creative force in Paris. A regular member of the avant-garde, he maintained long-term friendships with artists such as Pablo Picasso, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, and Man Ray. “The job of the poet (a job which can’t be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have become invisible due to the glue of habit, in an unusual position which strikes the soul and gives them a tragic force,” he once mused. Born on July 5, 1889 in Maisons-Laffitte, France, the self-taught Cocteau would regularly draw his friends and acquaintances in a distinctive, fluid style informed by his interests in Cubism, psychoanalysis, and Catholicism. “Poets don’t draw,” he once quipped about his artworks. “They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.” Among his best-known works is the novel Les Enfants Terribles (1929) and his critically acclaimed films le Sang d’un poète (Blood of a Poet) (1930), La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) (1946), and Orphée (Orpheus) (1949). Cocteau died on October 11, 1963 at the age of 74 in Milly-la-Foret, France. Today, his works are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, among others.

Conductor, Nicole Paiement is widely acclaimed for her interpretations of contemporary operas. As Founder and Artistic Director of Opera Parallèle (OP) in San Francisco, Mo. Paiement has conducted many new productions, commissions and world premieres including Laura Kaminsky’s Today it Rains; John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby; Blanchard’s Champion; Dove’s Flight; Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness; Osvaldo Goljov’s Ainadamar and John Rea’s reorchestration of Wozzeck. Most recently Paiement conducted OP’s new film production Everest – A Graphic Novel Opera by Joby Talbot, a work she originally premiered on stage at The Dallas Opera. An active guest conductor, Mo. Paiement made her debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2019 with Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and at Opéra de Montréal with the Canadian premiere of Benjamin’s Written on Skin in 2020. Other guest conducting engagements have brought her to Fort Worth Symphony, Atlanta Opera, Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Monterey Jazz Festival, and the Hollywood Bowl. Upcoming engagements include a concert performance with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in January 2022, followed by her UK premiere in November 2022 at the English National Opera. Paiement will return to London in June 2023 to conduct Talbot’s Everest with the BBC Symphony at the Barbican Center. Mo. Paiement will also return to the Dallas Opera, where she is Principal Guest Conductor in April 2022 and to Opéra de Montréal in 2023. In addition to being a leader in contemporary opera, Paiement is also a specialist in early 20th Century French music and regularly conducts music from the Baroque and Classical repertoire.

As Creative Director and Stage Director for Opera Parallèle, Brian Staufenbiel has directed and spearheaded the conceptual designs of the company’s productions since its founding in 2010. Specializing in multimedia, immersive, and interdisciplinary productions, he actively works across a wide range of artistic disciplines collaborating with film and media designers, choreographers and dancers, circus and fabric artists, and designer fabricators. His progressive approach to stagecraft has garnered critical acclaim for many of the company’s productions, including Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Glass’ Orphée and Les Enfant Terribles, Golijov’s Ainadamar, Berg’s Wozzeck, Davies’ The Lighthouse, Blanchard’s Champion and Dove’s Flight. Mr. Staufenbiel ‘s recent productions include Elektra with Minnesota Opera, a new film of Dove’s Flight with Seattle Opera, and productions for the online festival season of the Sun Valley Music Festival. His 2016 production of Das Rheingold with Minnesota Opera was named a Star Tribune Classical Music pick of the decade and was reprised at Arizona Opera and at L’Opéra de Montréal. Upcoming projects include the creation of a new work for Fort Worth Opera, and directing a documentary about the life of Frederica Von Stade with Paper Wings Films.

Jacques Desjardins served as the General Manager of Opera Parallèle from 2004 until 2013 when he became the company’s first Artistic Administrator. As a composer, Desjardins was responsible for the re-orchestration of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby performed by OP at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and at the Aspen Music Festival in 2012. He has received commissions from BluePrint, the Sherbrooke Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal, the Arthur-LeBlanc Quartet, the Québec Youth Orchestras Association, and the Musica Nova Ensemble.  Desjardins is on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he teaches Conducting, Music Theory, and Musicianship. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree (DMA) in Composition at the University of Michigan.

Erin Neff is delighted to be back working with Opera Parallèle. She has worked with OP as both singer and assistant director. She has been singing in the San Francisco Opera Chorus for the last 26 seasons. Neff has an active private voice studio as well as teaching voice in academia, most recently at Urban High School and San Francisco State University. She does collaborative work with visual artists making multi-media installations in galleries, museums, and public spaces. As a stage director, she has worked with many Bay Area companies including the San Francisco Opera Center in 2017.

Jamie K. Fuller is a freelance stage manager of opera, theater, dance, and events. Originally from Henry, IL, Jamie earned her MFA in Stage Management from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Favorite stage management credits include Elektra (Minnesota Opera), Peter and the Starcatcher (Illinois Shakespeare Festival), and The Nutcracker (Champaign-Urbana Ballet). www.jamiekfuller.com