Summer Opera at Sands Point Preserve – An Evening in Two Mansions

Summer opera returns to Sands Point Preserve on July 30 when the acclaimed North Shore Music Festival performs “Madama Butterfly.”

Presented by the Sands Point Preserve Conservancy, Giacomo Puccini’s heartrending music conveys the tragic love story of Cio-Cio-San, a beautiful geisha known as Madama Butterfly, and U.S. Navy Lt. B. F. Pinkerton, stationed in Japan.

The evening spans two of the Preserve’s Gatsby-era mansions. Cocktails, a light buffet and dessert will be served at 6 p.m. at Hempstead House – and in the rose garden, weather permitting – followed by a 90-minute performance in Castle Gould’s Great Hall, providing a unique experience for opera goers.

“Opera was first conceived of as entertainment for the royal courts,” said Daniel Klein, North Shore Music Festival’s executive director. “So what better way to experience that, than inside of the great hall of a castle?”

“The venue is ideal for the intimate moments of opera,” added Klein. “Opera remains one of the few forms of art that is at once intensely intimate and grandiose. The Great Hall at Castle Gould is a perfect size to allow the sound of the orchestra and voices sound, and yet no one will be so far away that the moments of beauty and heartbreak will be lost to the hall.”

“Madama Butterfly” is "heartbreaking, beautiful, tragic, joyful,” Klein said. “People talk quite a bit these days about authentic experiences. Seeing an opera up close and personal is one of the most authentic experiences that once can have.”

Opera at the Preserve provides the chance to hear outstanding young singers in close proximity, Klein noted.

“The instruments, the singers are all live, acoustic and the sound and the music that they create is there for that one moment and then gone,” he pointed out. “You will be in a room with dozens of immensely talented and hardworking artists and hearing them work together. I have a hard time understanding how someone could experience it and not be moved to tears and changed from it."

This year’s cast features Na Li Youm, a lyric soprano, in the title role. A graduate of Mannes School of Music, Youm continued her training at the Academy of Vocal Arts, and has sung Cio-Cio-San with Amore Opera in 2014, Bel Cantanti Opera in 2013 and New Rochelle Opera in 2012. Tenor Theodore Chletsos performs Pinkerton. Having received his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Voice from Carnegie Mellon University School of Music, Chletsos went on to pursue graduate studies at University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory and has performed in tours of Madama Butterfly, La Bohème, and Rigoletto. He made his Carnegie Hall and New York City Opera debut in Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra.

Klein, a bass-baritone, returns to the stage as Sharpless, the American Consulate stationed in Nagasaki.

“Puccini often has a character in his operas that he identifies with as himself, in this case Sharpless is that role,” Klein said. “He is the backbone and heart of the story, the observer of what is going on, and in a sense we see the story through his eyes, he warns Pinkerton to be careful and he is the one who reminds him of that later. It has been a very compelling acting challenge as well as singing, as much of the time he is on stage he isn’t singing, but instead acting as the foil to the other characters."

Ben Spierman directs the production, and Anthony LaGruth conducts the 28-piece orchestra. The cast also features Kathleen Shelton as Suzuki, Emma Bonanno as Kate Pinkerton, Anthony Webb as Goro, Isaiah Musik-Ayala as The Bronze, Mark Khuri-Yakub as The Imperial Commissioner, Mario Arevelo as The Official Registrar, Hannah Spierman as Cio-Cio-San’s mother, Marie Masters Webb as Cio-Cio-San’s aunt and Sharon Cheng as Cio-Cio-San’s cousin.

The performers have sung on stages across the world, yet some have local roots as well. Klein has performed in Brazil, Israel and beyond, but also has ties to Great Neck and is a soloist with St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Port Washington. This year’s chorus features Maggie Golder from Port Washington, Chris and Kevin Katzmann from Manhasset, and Zach Lee from Great Neck.

That local connection is meaningful to the arts community.

"Until six years ago, Nassau County hadn’t had anyone producing opera at this level in decades," Klein said. "The partnership of the North Shore Music Festival and The Sands Point Preserve Conservancy has made that happen again."

Tickets for this all-inclusive evening are $100 for Sands Point Preserve Conservancy members, $110 for non-members.

Also at the Preserve: The White Party, a benefit for education programs on August 18. October brings the Village Day Fall Festival and the second annual Haunted Halloween Mansion with a Masked Gala on October 21. Tiger-Fried Productions will present a site-specific version of Agatha Christie’s murder mystery “And Then There Were None” in Hempstead House in November.

To purchase tickets or a 12-month membership, visit SandsPointPreserve.org, call 516-571-7901 or visit the Gate House at 127 Middle Neck Road, Sands Point, NY, 11050. Open daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The Sands Point Preserve Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with the mission to protect and preserve the 216-acre waterfront grounds and historic mansions and to provide a range of cultural events in Hempstead House and Castle Gould and educational programs for families and schools in the Phil Dejana Learning Center and Outdoor Classroom.