Celebrating Wagner’s birthday with a concert featuring soprano Livia Brash, bass baritone Eugene Raggio & pianist Thomas Johnson in a program of highlights from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin followed by Wagner’s birthday celebrations.

ABOUT LIVIA BRASH

Livia Brash is an Emerging Artist with Melbourne Opera, where this year she covered the role of Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg). WSNSW members may remember Livia from her talk, Why Meistersingers? The Politics of Richard Wagner, at the Melbourne Wagner Symposium in February.

This year she made her debut in the title role of Rusalka for Boroondara Art’s Opera in the Park and gave the world premiere of Kevin March’s Songs for Dark Days for Lyric Opera of Melbourne. She also recorded the roles of Rheinmaiden, Erda, Sieglinde, Woodbird, Gutrune and Brünnhilde in the condensed Ring Cycle, Brunnhilde - A Wagnerian Concert, which will soon be released on Spotify and receive a live performance at the Melbourne Recital Centre in June.

Her next appearances on the opera stage will be in the role of Musetta (La Boheme), for both Melbourne Opera and BK Opera in July. In 2024, she covered Helena Dix’s Musetta for Melbourne Opera, and was praised for her “full, rich rounded soprano” (Classic Melbourne) singing the role of La Zelatrice in Suor Angelica.

Livia attended the Georg Solti Accademia in Italy, under the tutelage of mentors such as Richard Bonynge, with whom she prepared the title role of Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda for her debut with the London City Philharmonic Orchestra. Other roles include Sieglinde (proudly sponsored by WSNSW), Tosca, Alcina (USA), Mimi, Rosina (Australia tour), Donna Elvira and Fiordiligi among others. She has also appeared as a soloist with the Canberra Symphony, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Lake Macquarie Philharmonic, Willoughby Symphony and Central Coast Philharmonic.

The Wagner Society sponsored Livia in 2021.

ABOUT EUGENE RAGGIO

Australian-Maltese Bass Baritone, Eugene Raggio is a graduate of the Elder Conservatorium (Adelaide) and a graduate actor of the Adelaide Centre for the Arts and the International Film School Sydney. In 2014 Eugene was a young artist with Australian Contemporary Opera Co. He has appeared in the inaugural Nagambie Lakes Opera Festival, Vic and toured with Opera Australia and with Co-Opera. In the EU he has appeared with Berliner Wagner Gruppe, Berlin Opera Summer Festival, Berlin Dramatic Voices; Yorke Trust and Dei Gratia (UK). He has toured the German-speaking world with Das Phantom Der Oper (Arndt/Gerber - ASA Events) in successive years. Eugene's repertoire includes: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Lohengrin, Eugene Onegin, Hänsel und Gretel, Parsifal, Gianni Schicchi, Armide, A Midsummer Night's Dream, La Bohème, Tosca, La Traviata, The Consul and Mozart y Salieri.

Eugene is the founding conductor and Associate director of the Australian Remembrance Foundation. Eugene is shortly to tour for his second year with Opera Australia's new production of La Boheme in the roles of Benoit and Alcindoro. He has recently covered Warwick Fyfe in the role of Hans Sachs for Melbourne Opera's Meistersinger.

Eugene is a Wagner Society-sponsored artist, who last performed for the Wagner Society in May 2024 at Wagner's Birthday Concert with Valda Wilson.

ABOUT THOMAS VICTOR JOHNSON

Thomas Victor Johnson is a vocal coach and pianist based in Sydney, where he is currently a repetiteur with Opera Australia and a vocal coach at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

The recipient of a study scholarship from the Wagner Society in NSW in 2019, and the winner of the Richard Bonynge Accompanists Award at the 2018 Sydney International Song Prize, Thomas is in high demand as an insightful, refined and sympathetic collaborative artist. He is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he studied piano performance and accompaniment with Natalia Sheludiakova. Between 2019 and 2023 Thomas was on the music staff at Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where he also served as stellvertretender Chordirektor during the 2021/2022 season. In November 2023, he was engaged as a guest repetiteur by Simone Young AM for Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s concert performances of Das Rheingold and again in 2024 in Die Walküre. He is also engaged to complete the cycle with Maestro Young and the SSO in Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.

Thomas has worked with and played for conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Christian Thielemann, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Antonio Pappano, Simone Young AM, Philippe Auguin, Pietari Inkinen, Thomas Guggeis, Speranza Scappucci, Massimo Zanetti, Renato Palumbo, Carlo Montanaro, Guillaume Tourniaire, Patrick Lange, Andrea Battistoni, Anthony Legge, Tom Woods, Maxime Pascal, Giuseppe Montesano, Jonathan Darlington, Antony Walker, Kristiina Poska, Pietro Rizzo, Benjamin Northey, Tahu Matheson, and Christian Badea.

Thomas performed for the Wagner Society May 2024 in Wagner’s Birthday Concert with Valda Wilson and Eugene Raggio.