Opera on the Lake: Mozart!

Name: Opera on the Lake: Mozart!
Start: 2026-08-16T15:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-08-16T15:00:00-04:00
Location: Sherman’s Park

August 16 @ 3:00 pm

Sunday, August 16th, 2026
3:00 pm
Sherman’s Park

Tickets:
$25 General Admission

An afternoon of operatic brilliance featuring the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and more!. Set against a stunning lakeside backdrop, this concert highlights beloved arias and ensembles. Curated by Jeannie Im and featuring the Caroga Arts Ensemble led by Glen Cortese.

Free general admission for students 17 and under!
Caroga Arts offers FREE admission to concert goers 17 and under for all Caroga Arts presented concerts at Sherman’s.

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Elise Miller, lyric mezzo soprano, is becoming increasingly well known for her impressive versatility and shimmering vocalism, spanning a wide variety of roles and genres ranging from opera to musical theatre, including femme fatales to her specialty in trouser roles and many more. Last summer, she returned to Charlottesville Opera to perform the role of Mercédès in Bizet’s Carmen, as well as attended the Ravinia Steans Music Institute as a Vocal Fellow. This Spring, Ms. Miller joins Indianapolis Opera as a Resident Artist, where she performs the role of Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro. She also looks forward to making her role debut as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia this July with Charlottesville Opera!

Last Fall, Ms. Miller created the role of Rosa Saks in the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, as part of a co-production between the Metropolitan Opera and Indiana University (I.U.). In the 2023-2024 season, she was Mrs. Lovett in I.U. Opera Theater’s production of Sweeney Todd, and joined the Choral Art Society of New Jersey as the mezzo-soprano soloist for their performance of Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass. She also served as an Emerging Artist at Charlottesville Opera, performing the role of Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man and covering the role of Giannetta in L’elisir d’Amore.

Ms. Miller debuted with Central City Opera the summer of 2023 as an Apprentice Artist where she covered the role of Lilli Vanessi/Kate in Kiss Me, Kate. She has performed several other roles at Indiana University including Lazuli in L’étoile, Lolette in La Rondine, Emperor Nerone in L’incoronzione di Poppea, and Beth March in Little Women. A lover of jazz and cabaret music, Ms. Miller performed a varied array of German cabaret selections with an up-and-coming company called “The Wild Stage” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2022. No stranger to new music, she performed the role of Lowri in the world premiere of Rhiannon’s Condemnation by composer Leigha Amick with New Voices Opera during their 2021-2022 season. Additionally, Ms. Miller premiered the role of Jean in a contemporary opera called The War Bride by composer Nathan Felix at Luminaria: San Antonio Arts Festival in 2018.

Other noteworthy role credits include La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi (Music On Site, Inc.), Silly Girl and Enchanted Object in Beauty and the Beast (Woodlawn Theater), Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro and Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly (Mediterranean Opera Festival). She was a Resident Artist with OPERA San Antonio from 2018-2020 and appeared in their mainstage productions of Tosca, Faust, La Traviata, and Carmen.

Max Alexander Cook, from Ashland Virginia, has been complimented for his “vocal power” and “coloratura prowess”. In the Fall, Cook will join the Jan Miller Studio Artists Program with Pensacola Opera. In addition to regular concert and outreach performances, he will sing the roles of Jumper and Doctor 2 in The Falling and the Rising, Spoletta in Tosca, and he will cover the role of Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore.

Most recently, Cook was a principal artist with Teatro Nuovo, where he sang Don Narciso in Il turco in Italia. In the spring, he graduated from the University of Maryland Opera Studio with a Master of Music. In the Maryland Opera Studio, he performed as Belfiore in La finta giardiniera and both Fabian and David in Heggie’s If I Were You.

In 2025, Cook won the North Carolina District of the 2025 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, qualified for the Jensen Foundation Vocal Competition, and won the Maryland District of the 2026 Laffont Competition. In January, 2026, Cook and his colleagues from the Maryland Opera Studio won first place in the Robert Hansen Collegiate Opera Scenes Competition for their performance from Florencia en el Amazonas.

Cook has sung with opera companies like Cedar Rapids Opera where he performed as Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus, Virginia Opera, where he sang in the workshop chorus of Loving v. Virginia (Geter), Annapolis Opera where he performed as Giuseppe in La traviata, and Capitol Opera Richmond, where he performed as Nero in L’incoronazione di Poppea. In 2024 and 2025, he was an Ader Emerging Artist with Charlottesville Opera where he covered the role of Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance and performed the role of Jacey Squires in The Music Man. He was also featured as Ferrando in Così fan tutte with Winter Harbor Music Festival, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with Aquilon Music Festival.

Cook has appeared as both a soloist and ensemble member with the Greater Philadelphia Choral Society, Mercersburg Area Community Chorus, University of Maryland Chorale and Chamber Singers, Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Oratorio Society of Virginia, Virginia Consort, University of Virginia’s University Singers, and Central Virginia Masterworks Chorale, singing classic canon and contemporary works.

Cook graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory in 2021, where he earned both a Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts, and was awarded the Margot Bos Stambler Professional Development Award. During his time at Oberlin, Cook performed with the Oberlin Opera Theater, singing roles like Flute in Midsummer Night’s Dream, and L’amante in Amelia al ballo, and was a frequent soloist with the Oberlin College Choir.

Peter Clark is a true ‘crossover’ baritone whose repertoire spans contemporary and traditional opera, musical theater and concert works. He works frequently with living composers and created the title roles in Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis and Ted Rosenthal’s Dear Erich with New York City Opera. Recent roles include Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance (Charlottesville Opera), Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale (Union Avenue Opera), Harry Easter in Street Scene (Virginia Opera) and MacHeath in The Threepenny Opera (Syracuse Opera). His theater roles include Sweeney Todd (Hawaii Opera Theater), Harold Hill (St. Petersburg Opera), Fredrik Eggerman (Union Avenue Opera, Syracuse Opera), the Baron in Candide (NYCO and Anchorage Opera), and El Gallo in The Fantasticks (Tri-Cities Opera).

This past season he played Older Thompson in Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied at Greenbsboro Opera, having performed it with Chelsea Opera, Union Avenue Opera, Opera Company of Middlebury and Opera Roanoke over the past decade. Beginning in May of 2020, his nightly stoop concerts in Brooklyn garnered global media attention (“the hottest ticket in town”- New York Post); as the ‘Brownstone Baritone’ he continues to give his cabaret style concerts regularly in Brooklyn Heights and around the country. Insta @Brownstone Baritone.

A resident of Canada Lake, Jeannie Im is equally at home in Mozart operas, German cabaret, Viennese operetta, contemporary American opera and early music. She has been lauded by Opera News for her “gorgeous line and touching intensity” and by the Süddeutsche Zeitung for her “warm, powerful soprano.”

Ms. Im’s concert work includes appearances as soloist at Carnegie Hall In Poulenc’s Gloria and John Rutter’s Requiem and Magnificat, soloist in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Grace & Spiritus Chorale of Brooklyn, and the Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 with the Yale Symphony Orchestra. She has made a specialty of championing music by composers who either died or were exiled from Germany and Austria during World War II, recently performing Five Songs for Soprano and String Quartet by Karl Weigl at the Caroga Lake Music Festival, in addition to numerous concerts of exiled composers under the auspices of Elysium-Between Two Continents in New York and throughout Europe.

Operatic highlights include Gloria in the Italian premiere of Krenek’s What Price confidence at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Beatrice/Antiope in the world premiere of Lustgarten’s Dante im Exil at the Elysium Bernried Festival, Fiordiligi with Underworld Productions at Symphony Space NY, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier at the Altenburger Musikfestival, and Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare with Brooklyn Opera.

In addition to performing, Jeannie has worked as a musicologist, educator, and a director in both theatre and opera. For Elysium-Between Two Continents, she was the assistant director for their International Summer Academy in Bernried, Germany, and has over the last several years directed programs for that organization in Germany and New York City, most recently directing The Good Soldier Schweik at the Bohemian National Hall in partnership with the Czech Consulate General.

GLEN CORTESE begins his seventh season as Artistic Director of the Schenectady-Saratoga Symphony Orchestra, his twentieth season as Artistic Director of the Western New York Chamber his third as Artistic Director of the Catskill Symphony Orchestra and first as Music Director of the Orquestra Reial Cercle Artistic de Barcelona. He completed twelve successful seasons as music director of the Greeley Philharmonic and was also named music director emeritus of the Oregon Mozart Players after serving as artistic director for nine seasons. His recent guest engagements have included the Orquestra Reial Cercle Artístic (Barcelona), Symphoria (Syracuse), the Eugene Opera, Madison Lyric Stage, The Three Tenors Concert in Tirana Albania to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the independence of Kososvo, RTSH Radio Orchestra (Albania) Emerald City Opera, Opera Fort Collins, Wolftrap Opera, The Charleston Symphony, the Sapporo Festival Orchestra, the Slovak Radio Orchestra the Sofia Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Mexico City Philharmonic, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, the Paducah Symphony Orchestra, the Lafayette Symphony, the Billings Symphony, the Lyric Opera of Cleveland, and the Annapolis Symphony. He was resident conductor and artistic administrator of the Florida Philharmonic for the 2001–2002 season and completed twelve seasons at the Manhattan School of Music where he was principal conductor from 1988 to 2000.

He has appeared as guest conductor both in the United States and abroad with the Symphonies of New Jersey, Florida Philharmonic, Austin, Mexico City Philharmonic, North Carolina, Colorado Springs, Bangor, Meridian, Queens, New Amsterdam, The New Orleans Philharmonic, the International Chamber Orchestra, the Belarus Sate Philharmonic, Sofia Philharmonic National Romanian Radio Orchestra, Noorhollands Philharmonisch, Orquesta Sinfonica Carlos Chavez, San Francisco Conservatory, Cleveland Institute, and the Altenburg Landeskappele Orchestra. Mr. Cortese covered as assistant conductor to the New York Philharmonic in 1990–92 for Zubin Mehta, Leonard Slatkin, Charles Dutoit, Yuri Temirikanov, Erich Leinsdorf, Zdenek Macal and Cristof Perick. In July of 1993, he was invited by Kurt Masur to guest conduct a reading with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.

In the opera and music theater world he has conducted Turn of the Screw, Beatirce and Benedict, Candide, Little Women, Othello, West Side Story, Phantom, Les Miserbales and My Fair Lady in the last several seasons. In 2011 he conducted the world premiere of John Musto’s new opera, “The Inspector” at the Wolftrap Opera, and his other opera credits include guest conductor with the Eugene Opera, Florida Grand Opera, New York City Opera, the Cleveland Lyric Opera, the Maryland Opera Studio, the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival Opera Theater, the Manhattan School Opera Theater, and the East West International Opera Theater. Mr. Cortese’s credits in the world of dance include performances with the Connecticut Ballet, Joffrey II Ballet, the Elisa Monte Dance Company and the SUNY Purchase Dance Corps. He appeared regularly for five years as conductor for the Erick Hawkins Dance Company at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Joyce Theatre and on national tours. He has conducted at numerous summer festivals including Chautauqua, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, American Dance Festival, The New York Music Institute, Sewanee Music Festival and the Brevard Music Center. He has conducted performances of large collaborative projects including chorus, orchestra and dance at Carnegie Hall, as well as having performed in virtually every major performance venue in New York. His work in education is extensive, conducting community outreach programs, educational concerts and children’s videos on classical music. Mr. Cortese is also an accomplished composer and winner of numerous awards including the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a two-time winner of the Joseph E. Bearns Prize, and a CAPS Grant from the New York Council on the Arts. He is also the recipient of the Arthur Judson Foundation Award for a Young American Conductor and his discography includes recordings on the Bridge, Titanic, Newport Classics, Phoenix, Owl, CMS and Le Crepuscule du Disc labels.