NEC Opera: Monteverdi "L'incoronazione di Poppea"

Wednesday/Friday cast:
Dani Jingdan Zhang: Poppea
Melissa Pereyra: Ottavia
Yejin Jang: Drusilla
Shanti Fowler-Puja: Damigella /Pallade
Spencer Bailen: Arnalta
Sydney Pexton: Amor
Rena Maduro: Virtu / Littore
Isis Bermúdez Rivera: Fortuna
Ricky Lee Owens, Jr.: Nerone
Qinglin Liu: Ottone
Jingyao Zhou: Seneca
Suowei Wu: Lucano / Ist Soldier
Kialiang Wei: 2nd Soldier
Mirah Johnston: Valletto
Carlos Arcos: Liberto
Sara Zerilli, Yunxi Ye, Xingchi Dong: Famigliari

Thursday/Saturday cast:
Sohyun Cho: Poppea
Lara Süer: Ottavia
Alexis Reese: Drusilla
Zeyu Song: Damigella /Pallade
Brianna Davies: Arnalta
Sydney Pexton: Amor
Rena Maduro: Virtu / Littore
Isis Bermúdez Rivera: Fortuna
Dongchen Xu: Nerone
Jiasen Zhao: Ottone
Zhanqi Wang: Seneca
Yuan Du: Lucano / Ist Soldier
Kialiang Wei: 2nd Soldier
Sua Lee: Valletto
Carlos Arcos: Liberto
Sara Zerilli, Yunxi Ye, Xingchi Dong: Famigliari

Tim Ribchester has established a presence on four continents as conductor, harpsichordist, vocal coach and pianist. Formerly faculty of the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and a guest coach at Cape Town Opera, he has been engaged as the baroque specialist on music staff at the Berlin State Opera since 2021 and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin since 2023, assisting René Jacobs (Il Giustino), Christopher Moulds (Dido and Aeneas), Alessandro De Marchi (St Matthew Passion), Ottavio Dantone (Le Cinesi), Christophe Rousset (Orfeo ed Euridice), and Sir Simon Rattle (Hippolyte et Aricie, Idomeneo), who invited him to Munich in 2023 to record the continuo and recitatives of Idomeneo with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Other recent engagements include Theodora at Theater an der Wien, as assistant conductor to Bejun Mehta and principal harpsichord with La Folia Barockorchester in 2023; conducting a 2022 concert of Handel and Vivaldi in Athens with Armonia Atenea; and the workshopping of his orchestration of L’incoronazione di Poppea at the 2022 Trentino Music Festival, where for seven seasons he was the director of Baroque repertoire (Rinaldo, Alcina, Dido and Aeneas, Brandenburg concerti). Devoted to the training of emerging opera singers, Tim Ribchester has served as 2024 Music Director of the Lyric Opera Studio Weimar, and as a coach and consultant for the Premiere Opera Vocal Arts Institute in New York City; NYIOP auditions; and Viñas and Vincerò international competitions. The Lyric Opera of Chicago has twice commissioned his orchestrations of L’incoronazione di Poppea scenes, and in 2019 he pioneered baroque repertoire training with the Cape Town Opera Studio with a concert of Handel Italian duets. In 2025 he joins the Salzburg Camerata for the 250 year anniversary performance of Mozart’s Il re pastore.He resides in Berlin where he established his vocal coaching studio in 2015.