Catherine Forbes, a native of South Carolina, made her operatic debut in her home state as Adele in Die Fledermaus. Concert and opera performances followed, including appearances as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Fiordiligi in Cosí fan tutte, Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, and the title role in the Southeastern United States premiere of Jules Massenets Cendrillon. She was seen as Pamina in Chamber Opera Chicago's production of The Magic Flute and performed Musetta in La Bohème and the comic Lady Mary in The Vagabond King for Central City Opera. During the 1994-95 season, she was the soprano artist in residence for Indianapolis Opera. As a concert soloist, Ms. Forbes has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Israel. She holds a Master of Music in Voice from the University of South Carolina, where she studied with Gene Ferguson and a Certificate in Performance (Voice and Opera) from Northwestern University where she was a student of Sunny Joy Langton.
Frankly, I enjoyed PLAYING the role more than SINGING it -- the dresses were fabulous but extremely difficult to sing in. With every breath, I had to lift pounds and pounds of fabric and beadwork. That, combined with the extreme range required to sing the role, made it just exhausting work. On the other hand, Carlotta is such a real person-- you can revel in the character! Performing the role in two languages was a challenge -- our cast often passed along little reminders of "German" or "English" right before we went out! A few times I sang the entire cadenza in German before remembering it was an English night! I am thrilled to have done the role, but am looking forward to moving into something new!
