Opera In Upstate New York

The richness of our Opera and Music Festival resonate from our community, the talent of our world renowned artist, the enthusiasm of the Phoenicia Festival of the Voice team, hundreds of volunteers and the never ending passion of General Director Maria Todaro. Our artists, though well paid in companies where they regularly sing including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Covent Garden and Paris Opera, love to come to Phoenicia because of incredible hospitality and care given by our community. We are so grateful to our volunteers and supporters for providing their homes, meals, transportation, and TLC of all kinds- YOU are our main currency! Thank you. It keeps us going and these incredible artists coming to the festival year after year!

Hudson Valley One (HV1) Print & Online News & Culture Magazine,

Hudson Valley One (HV1) Print & Online News & Culture Magazine,

Picture, if you will, the immense challenge facing the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice in 2020, when COVID-19 was raging, all theaters were closed and, given the virus’ propensity for aerosol transmission, any gathering of singers seemed doomed to become a “superspreader event.” According to Festival founder Maria Todaro, plans to put on a live summertime performance of Puccini’s Tosca had been in the works for months before the severity of the pandemic became apparent, and she was determined not to give up on them. So, she made arrangements to produce the opera “with full everything” in an extraordinary format: live onstage, in front of a sea of parked cars on the former IBM site at Kingston’s Tech City.