Mary Casell

Lucine Amara, Artistic Director of the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera, announces the company's 29th Annual International Vocal Competition's early bird registration deadline, July 31, 2017, is nearing.  Vocalists of all ages worldwide are invited to apply now and take advantage of this opportunity.  The final application deadline is October 31, 2017. 

The New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera (Verismo Opera) pays tribute in its 24th season to the Year of Italian Culture in the United States with the double bill of Giacomo Puccini's sentimental tragedy Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica) and Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic Chivalry). Under Artistic Director Lucine Amara, one of the Metropolitan Opera's most luminary performers, the company presents each opera with a full cast onSunday, October 20, 3:00 p.m., at the Bergen Performing Arts Center (bergenPAC), 30 North Van Brunt Street, in Englewood, New Jersey. The bergenPAC is handicapped accessible.

From the award-winning playwright Mary Casella, It Happened in the Pine Barrens is a compelling saga of love, death and destiny set in the heavily forested area of coastal plain stretching across southern New Jersey. Casella's newly published book transforms this Pinelands into a center of thrilling events that arouse the curiosity and excitement of fiction fans through three riveting stories: "Snakes with Ruby Eyes," "Love and Death in the Pines" and "Closure in the Pines."