Mimi: Rachel Cobb
Musetta: Penelope Shumate
Marcello: Michael Mayes
Rodolpho:
Daniel Holmes
Schaunard: Raymond Ayers
Colline: Branch Fields
Artistic Director: Craig Fields
RACHEL COBB
Mimi / La Bohème
American soprano Rachel Cobb has earned critical acclaim in the United States and Europe as a total performer with incredible dramatic intensity. Hailed as "fiercely dramatic" (The London Times), having presented "one of the best impersonations I have seen" (Opera Magazine), and possessing a "pure soprano [with] charm and fragility" (Classical Voice), and "real vocal thrust" (Opera News).
Rachel Cobb's pure soprano has the charm and fragility requisite for the role of Mimì. The cleanly articulated line in ‘Mi chiamano Mimì,’ the beautifully floated high notes in the final scene—all testified to an artist in full command of her craft. —Classical Voice
Notable roles in her repertoire include Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Nedda in Pagliacci, Marguerite in Faust, Micaëla in Carmen, and Countess in Le nozze di Figaro. Ms. Cobb was a first prize winner of the Farwell Award in Chicago, a 2007 Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation International Vocal Competition Grant Winner, and a two-time finalist in the highly esteemed Loren L. Zachary Competition.
Recent engagements include appearances as Miss Jessel in Glyndebourne's production of The Turn of the Screw, as Mimì in Opera Pacific's production of La Bohème - for which she was named Most Promising Young Artist, as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Madison Opera and the Westfield Symphony, as Pallade Athena in Gluck's Paride ed Elena with Will Crutchfield conducting at The Caramoor Festival, as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, and as Beauty in Giannini's Beauty and the Beast with Baltimore Opera, and Kitty Hart in the Opera Pacific production of Dead Man Walking.
Rachel has also achieved success on the concert stage in recent appearances with the Fairbanks Symphony in performances of the Verdi Requiem, and in Washington D.C. in November with Strauss' Four Last Songs.
Opera on the James welcomes Rachel Cobb to our spring production of La Boheme.
