Mexican-born conductor Roberto Kalb has served as Music Director of Detroit Opera since 2022. He conducted Detroit Opera’s performances of The Cunning Little Vixen in May 2024 and two concerts featuring the Detroit Opera Orchestra and Resident Artists in the fall of 2023. He conducted Yuval Sharon’s new production of La bohème at Detroit Opera in 2022. Additional 2023–24 season performances for Roberto included house debuts at Santa Fe Opera (L’elisir d’amore) and Atlanta Opera (Rigoletto), concerts with the Kansas City Symphony and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci at Lyric Opera of Kansas City. Season highlights in 2022–23 included performances at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, San Diego Opera, and San Francisco Opera.   In 2019, Roberto concluded a five-year tenure as resident conductor and head of music at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL), where he led the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Awakenings (2022); he also conducted OTSL’s critically acclaimed run of Rigoletto (2019) in collaboration with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Roberto has also conducted at companies including Opéra Orchestra National Montpellier, Florida Grand Opera, Kentucky Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Maine, and Tulsa Opera.   He has conducted performances with the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México, Orquesta Carlos Chavez in Mexico City, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Palm Beach Symphony, and the Orquestra Sinfonica da USP in São Paulo, Brazil.    Roberto holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and in 2021 was awarded the prestigious Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. He is married to soprano Mané Galoyan.   Photo credit: Simon Pauly

Soprano Christine Goerke has appeared in many of the most prestigious opera houses of the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Royal Opera House, Paris Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro Real in Madrid, and the Saito Kinen Festival. She has sung much of the great soprano repertoire, beginning with the Mozart and Handel heroines and now moving into dramatic R. Strauss and Wagner roles. She has also appeared with many leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Radio Vara, the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms, and both the Hallè Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival. Christine's recording of Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra won the 2003 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Recording and Best Choral Performance. Her close association with Robert Shaw yielded several recordings, which include of Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, and the GRAMMY-nominated recording of Dvořák's Stabat Mater. Other recordings include the title role in Iphigenie en Tauride for Telarc and Britten’s War Requiem, which won the 1999 GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance. Christine is the Associate Artistic Director of Detroit Opera (formerly Michigan Opera Theatre). She was the recipient of the 2001 Richard Tucker Award, the 2015 Musical America Vocalist of the Year Award, and the 2017 Opera News Award.

Rod Gilfry is a two-time Grammy nominee, singer and actor who performs in operas, musicals, recitals and cabaret world-wide. He appears on over 30 recordings. An important part of his 75-role repertoire are the 13 leading roles he has created in new operas. Recent performance highlights include a role debut as Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca at the Houston Grand Opera, Claudius in Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Bavarian State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, and Owen Hart in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at the Metropolitan Opera. In the summer of 2019, he began a tour of Kevin Puts’ The Brightness of Light with soprano Renée Fleming at the Tanglewood Festival, which they later performed with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, the Colorado Symphony, the Naples Philharmonic, the Dallas Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Los Angeles Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Aspen Festival, and the Oregon Symphony. Several more performances with leading orchestras will be announced soon. In the 2023/24 season Rod appears as Claudius in Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Bayerische Staatsoper and Opera Australia in Sydney, Owen Hart in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at the Metropolitan Opera, Henrik in Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence at the San Francisco Opera, and Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte on tour in Japan with the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy. In concert, he appears in a gala concert with Renée Fleming and the Fort Worth Symphony, in concert with soprano Sumi Jo at the Yaamava Theater in California, a gala performance with the Detroit Opera, as the title role in Sweeney Todd with the Virginia Symphony, as the baritone soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, and in Handel’s Messiah with the Nashville Symphony. Recent appearances include the Marquis de la Force in Houston Grand Opera’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, Robert McNamara in the world premiere of Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Rift at the Washington National Opera, the premiere of David Lang's solo opera the loser at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Los Angeles Opera, as Walt Whitman in the premiere of Matthew Aucoin's Crossing in Boston, Brooklyn and Los Angeles; as Mr. Potter in the premiere of Jake Heggie's It's a Wonderful Life at the Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Opera. Mr. Gilfry was born and raised in Southern California where he earned advanced degrees from Cal State Fullerton and the University of Southern California. He was a member of the Frankfurt Opera ensemble from 1987 to 1989 and the Zurich Opera ensemble from 1989 to 1994. He was an Associate Professor of Vocal Arts at the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles for nearly 15 years, but he recently retired to make more time for performing.

Arturo Chacón-Cruz, a native of Sonora, Mexico, is considered one of the top operatic tenors of his generation. He has sung over 60 leading roles in 30 countries, including The Duke in Rigoletto (Houston, Verona, Mexico City, Napoli, Budapest, Hamburg, Strasbourg, Aix en Provence, San Francisco, Verona, Brussels, Los Angeles, Florence), Rodolfo in La bohème (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Miami, Munich, Stockholm, Graz, Cologne, Hamburg, etc.), and Alfredo in La traviata (Seville, Munich, Valencia, Moscow, Rome, Barcelona, Padova, Mexico City, Washington D.C., Detroit, Los Angeles, Verona, Oman). He has an extensive discography, including an album of mariachi music, a Christmas album, and a solo recording of Mexican music. Film appearances include Sofia Coppola’s La traviata and Woody Allen’s Gianni Schicchi. Chacón-Cruz is fluent in in Spanish, English, Italian, and French and also speaks German, Portuguese, Russian, and Greek. He lives in Miami with his wife and son.

Armenian soprano Mané Galoyan is the Second Prize winner of the 2021 Operalia Competition, where she also won the Zarzuela Prize and the Rolex Audience Prize. Her current season includes Suor Angelica and Lauretta in a new production of Il Trittico with Donald Runnicles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte with the Wiener Staatsoper, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with the Canadian Opera Company, Violetta in La traviata with Santa Fe Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Suor Angelica with the Bayerische Staatsoper. In concert, she will sing Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with Swedish Radio Orchestra, and a holiday concert with the Basel Symphony Orchestra. In the 2022–23 season, Mané performed the title role in Luisa Miller with Oper Köln, Berthe in Le prophète with Aix-en-Provence Festival, Avis in The Wreckers with Houston Grand Opera, Donna Anna with Atlanta Opera, and Violetta with Deutsche Oper Berlin and Seattle Opera. She also performed The Bells with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Bard Festival, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Seattle Symphony, a concert of arias with the Prague Symphony Orchestra and Plácido Domingo in Bad Hofgastein, Austria, and Taneyev’s cantata At the Reading of a Psalm (1915) with the American Symphony Orchestra. Mané holds two degrees from the Yerevan State Komitas Conservatory in Armenia, where she was named the 2013 winner of the President of the Republic of Armenia Youth Prize. She is married to conductor Roberto Kalb. Photo credit: Simon Pauly

Key'mon W. Murrah, a countertenor heralded for his wide range and “hot coals-core of tone”, is a native to Louisville, Kentucky. In 2020, he was heard on the stage of The Metropolitan Opera as a semi-finalist in the company’s National Council Auditions after winning the Nashville District Auditions. In the summer of 2021, he received high-praise for his performances as a Fleming Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival where he was heard as Bertarido in Handel’s Rodelinda and in several concerts featuring a wide range of works from Baroque to contemporary. In the current season, he will appear at the Bolshoi in Moscow as a competitor in Operalia, makes his company and role debut in the title role of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice with Seattle Opera, and will be heard in concert with Rochester Oratorio Society and the American Baroque Opera Company. Recent competition successes include winning the 2021 Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers with Houston Grand Opera a nd the 2020 Premiere Opera + NYIOP Vocal Competition. Murrah has been heard with University of Kentucky Opera Theatre and Bluegrass Opera in performances of Die Fledermaus, Die Zauberflöte, Tales of Hoffman, and La bohéme. His most notable roles are Mingo in Porgy and Bess and creating the role of the Spiritual Man in Ernst Bacon’s A Tree on the Plains and has sung the role of Tolomeo from Handel's Giulio Cesare with Red River Lyric Opera and Asprano in Vivaldi's Montezuma with America Baroque Opera Company. Murrah was recently featured in a Masterclass with Joyce DiDonato in for Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute and continued his studies at the International Vocal Arts Institute. In 2009 Murrah received the Second Place Undergraduate Award at The Alltech Vocal Competition, and in 2010 he won the second-place award at the National Association of Negro Musicians and Bellarmine's University’s “Traditional Negro Spiritual’ Voice Competition. In 2014, Murrah was a finalist in the Juanita Peterson Vocal Competition, won 2nd place at the Emerging Soloists Competition, and was a finalist in the Opera MODO Opera Competition. Recently, Murrah toured with the American Spiritual Ensemble and in the summer of 2020, he was a young artist with the Glimmerglass Opera Festival.