DARLENE BENNETT

This season's recording session produced a "Mostly Mozart" album with arias from Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and last but not least, The Magic Flute's Queen of the Night entrance aria. Included on this album is the highly cherished aria from Bellini's Norma,"Casta diva," and a somewhat comedic twist with the Mother's aria from Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck! Click in below to connect to Darlene's YouTube channel. 

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Darlene continues to concertize on Long Island during Fall 2022 and is looking forward to taking a turn as a professional chorister in the great opera Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni with Lakeland Opera in Florida coming up in January 2023!

Recordings available on SoundCloud: 

• Io son l’umile ancella from Adriana Lecouvreur

• Children will listen from Into the Woods

• Songs of Florence Price: Hold Fast to Dreams, Sympathy, Out of the South Blew a Wind, An April Day

Darlene's 2019-2020 season began with a return to Opera Night Long Island in September singing the arias of Mimi from La Bohème, Agathe from Der Freischütz and Marguerite from Faust, followed by a faculty concert in October for the iSchool for Music & Art (Weill Recital Hall, NY) where she sang Vilja's Lied from The Merry Widow. Darlene appeared as a guest soloist in the Huntington Choral Society's Opera Extravaganza concert in December, bringing down the house with Lucia di Lammermoor's first act aria "Regnava nel silenzio...Quanto rapito in estasi". 

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In the 2018 - 2019 season, Darlene Bennett made her role debut as the Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro with Geneva Light Opera under the baton of conductor James Blachly and stage direction of Marie Allyn King. "As the Countess Almaviva, soprano Darlene Bennett strongly etches the melancholy of her life with an unfaithful husband, culminating in the act of forgiveness that brings poignancy to the “happy” ending." (Finger Lake Times 7/24/19)

A second summer debut was at the Savannah Voice Festival as Mother Jeanne in The Dialogues of the Carmelites (August 2019) with director Fabrizio Melano and conductor Andrew Bisantz. Earlier in the season, Darlene appeared in concert with the New York Lyric Opera as La Fèe  in Massenet's Cendrillon and in staged scenes as Donna Anna in the Quartet from Don Giovanni.  Other concerts included arias and ensembles with Opera Night Long Island(ONLI) (Aug 2018/Nov 2018) and several concerts with the Sherrill Milnes' Voice Studio program Opera as Drama in March 2019. Darlene also performed Debussy's Quatre Chanson de Jeunesse and Beach's Browning Songs in the public Semi-final round of the Joy in Singing art song competition in March 2019 and returned to ONLI in April 2019, in an exciting performance of Violetta's Act I aria.