Deborah Voigt to Join Donato Cabrera and Las Vegas Philharmoic for Season Opener, 9/27

The orchestra's 16th season opens with Donato Cabrera's debut as Music Director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, September 27th at 7:30PM with a concert featuring arias, overtures, and Broadway classics. The orchestra will be accompanied by guest soprano Deborah Voigt, internationally renowned opera superstar.

Cabrera's inaugural concert will be a homecoming for the conductor who lived in Las Vegas until the age of 10, before moving to Reno. He graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno and pursued additional studies at the University of Illinois, Indiana University and the Manhattan School of Music. Maestro Cabrera conducted the Las Vegas Philharmonic's Battle Born-Nevada Proud Masterworks concert in January 2014 and was appointed Music Director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic in April. When asked about his first season with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, Cabrera said, "I'm looking forward to beginning a new journey with this great orchestra and enthusiastic community, achieving a level of trust and adventure between the orchestra, myself, and the audience that will propel us into new and exciting directions for the future." Other positions currently held by Cabrera include Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Wattis Foundation Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, Music Director of the California Symphony and Music Director of the New Hampshire Music Festival.

The Las Vegas Philharmonic's opening night concert will feature leading dramatic soprano Voigt. Voigt is known for her performances in operas composed by Wagner and Strauss yet demonstrates her virtuosity in popular Broadway standards as well. For her first time performing on the Reynolds Hall stage, Voigt will sing Du bist der Lenz ("You Are the Spring") from Die Walküre, Wagner's second opera from Ring of the Nibelungen and Abscheulicher ("Abominable One!") from Beethoven's opera, Fidelio. In addition, Voigt will perform Broadway classics including Kern and Hammerstein's Why Was I Born from Sweet Adeline, Can't Help Lovin' That Man of Mine from Show Boat, and My Man's Gone Now from Porgy and Bess. The New York Times applauded Voigt's performance in Annie Get Your Gun with this review, "Her timorous sweetness and...spitfire sassiness come across as affectingly authentic. ... Why shouldn't a Wagnerian soprano who has been smitten with musical theater since childhood fulfill a fantasy? ... Ms. Voigt was delightful." Voigt is a regular performer and host of the Met's "Live in HD" series and returns to the title role of Strauss's Salome this October at the Dallas Opera.

In the first half of the concert, the program opens with Wagner's spirited Overture to Der fliegender Holländer ("The Flying Dutchman") and ends with Beethoven's Leonore No. 3, a magnificent overture typically performed during Act II of the opera Fidelio. The second half opens with contemporary composer, Mason Bates's Attack Sustain Decay and Release and concludes with Ravel's tumultuous La Valse.

The Las Vegas Philharmonic's opening night celebration includes a pre-concert Cocktail Party in The Smith Center's Founders Room at 6:00PM. Cocktail party tickets are $50 per person and are available when purchasing concert tickets through the box office at 702.749.2000. All Masterworks Series concerts feature a pre-concert conversation with the conductor at 6:45PM in Reynolds Hall open to all ticketholders.

The Las Vegas Philharmonic will perform 10 concert programs during its 2014-15 season at The Smith Center through May 2015. The season is a blend of Masterworks programs and Pops Series presentations. The first Pops Series concert of the new season will be "Aloha from Las Vegas" on Saturday, November 15th, a celebration of Las Vegas's Hawaiian community featuring traditional and popular Hawaiian music led by guest conductor, Matt Catingub, Founder & Artistic Director of Hawaii Pops, and guest vocalist Amy H?naiali'i.

The Las Vegas Philharmonic offers four different ticket price levels, $26, $46, $66, and $96 at all of its concerts. Tickets are available from The Smith Center Box Office, phone 702.749.2000 or online from lvphil.org. A 50% student discount is available on all single ticket purchases (ID required) and groups of 10 or more receive a 20% discount. Group sales are available by calling the Las Vegas Philharmonic office at 702.462.2009.

Subscribers can purchase tickets to the Las Vegas Philharmonic's complete 10-concert season or to the five-concert Masterworks Series or the five-concert Pops Series. In addition, patrons can create their own three or four-concert mini series subscription package. Subscription packages begin at $68.10 for a three-concert balcony section subscription through $960 for a 10-concert, A section subscription. Full details are available online at lvphil.org.